Benn's Poetry: "A Hit in the Charts": Song under Conditions of Media Technologies

Author(s): Friedrich Kittler

Source: SubStance, Vol. 19, No. 1, Issue 61: Special Issue: Voice-Over: On Technology (1990), pp. 5-
20
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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Benn'sPoetry-"A Hit in theCharts":
Song UnderConditionsofMedia Technologies

Friedrich
Kittler

ONCE ART HAS DISSOLVED into media technologies, a certainkind of poetry

neverthelessreturns.It comes and staysnot withreadingor mnemotech-
niques,butsimplythroughradioand audio equipment.Thisunendingand
unforgettable oblivionaffects
our verytheories,whichare verymuchwrit-
ten artifacts.When it comes to poetry,almostall theoriesforgetwhatJim
Morrison'ssong called "Texas radio and thebig beat."
Gottfried Benn,at theapogee ofhis lyricalpostwarfame,was invited
to his alma materwhere he had, fiftyyearsbefore,studied philosophy,
modernlanguages,and literature. At firstsight,then,his case would con-
firmFoucault'ssuspicionthatmodernpoetryis justa closed loop or feed-
back systeminside academia.1And indeed, Benn's Marburglectureon
ProblemsofPoetry,having receivedalmostall its poetologicalkey words
froma correspondencewith ErnstRobertCurtius,the great scholar of
European literature,climaxed in the conceptof an "absolute poem" (I
524).2Poetry,accordingto Benn,functioned as "a creativetransformation,"
as "an attemptof thearts,withinthegeneraldegeneracyof theircontents,
to experiencethemselvesas theircontentsand to createa new styleout of
thisexperience"(I 500). Whateverwas knownof Benn's poetrytherefore
sufferedan academic and philosophicalinterpretation whose impacton
the humanities departments,especially under the verdict of Martin
Heidegger,lastedat leastas longas theso-calledneighborhoodof thought
and poetry (known to be a very German arrangement)and was not
renovatedand replaced by the more recenttheoriesof socializationand
psychoanalysis.3
Still,neithera historyof Beingnor thatof thesoul could analyze the
factthatBenn's Marburglecturestartedout witha reference to occasional
poems published in Sunday papers where they"attractattention,being
printedin italics and withina special typographicframe"(I 494). The
lectureproceededto provean alreadymentioned"degeneracyofcontents"
by addressing its own conditions of media-historyand technology:
Today's lyrical"I," thatis, the pseudonymof the lecturerhimself,was

SubStance No 61, 1990 5

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6 Friedrich
Kittler

someone "who learnsmore fromthedaily papers thanfromphilosophy,

someonewho is closertojournalismthanto his Bible,someoneto whoma
hitin thechartscontainsmoreof thetwentieth centurythana motette"(I
518). Ifthennewspapersand hits,completewithforeignor "slangwords,"
supplied thesubjectsor data to be processedby that"creativetransforma-
tion" called poetry,its output-Benn's actual oeuvre-was way off"the
absolute,"comparedto itsclosenessto modernmedia technologies. Justas
the two world wars gave birthto the prototypesof these media tech-
nologies,itwas also theywhich"hammeredthoseforeignand slangwords
into the consciousnessof Germanlanguage" (I 518). Heideggerwas only
too correctwhen,referring he laconi-
to Benn's "creativetransformation,"
cally remarkedthatit was more likelyto produce space satellitesthan
poems.4Unlike his interpretativefollowers,Heidegger situated Benn
withinthe"Gestell,"theessentialrealmof technology.
This technologywas sufficiently to
powerful(even self-referential)
transform "ProblemsofPoetry"instantly intoanotherpoeticwork.A lyri-
cal typescriptfromthetimeoftheMarburglecturetransposedthetheoreti-
cal prose into freerhythmsand a lyrical"I" into a consumerof media
technologies.Benn's"SmallCulturalMirror"declared:

An outstanding
hittellsmoreabout1950
thanfivehundred
pagesofcultural
crisis.
Inthemovieswhereyou'reallowedtotakeyourhatandcoat,
you'llfindmnore thanintheaters
fire-water
and youwon'thave thoseannoyingbreaks.(III 474)

Those "fivehundredpages ofculturalcrisis"refer,as we know,to the

"life's work" (III 306) of a Germanphilosopher:Karl Jaspers,Von der
Wahrheit (On Truth),Munich1947.Obviously,modernpoetrybreaksthe
contractwith philosophybecause prospectivepartnerswho are at once
moreseasonal and up to date have turnedup: filmand themusic-charts in
second place, radio broadcastsand theirrecordingsin first.Whereasthe
pactbetweenpoetryand thoughtresultedfromthegeneralliteralization in
which the monopolyof writingsituateditselfduringthe age of Goethe,
poetryin 1950alreadypresupposedcompetition withthetechnicalmedia.
It was in 1877 and 1893 that two of Edison's developments-the
phonographand thecinetoscope-brokethemonopolyofwriting,started
a non-literary(butequally serial)data processing,establishedan industry
of humanengineering, in theecologicalnichewhich
and placed literature
(and not by chance) Remington'scontemporaneoustypewriter had con-
quered.5Only under these conditions of rather
semrnio-technical thancrea-

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Benn'sPoetry 7

tivetransformation did themechanization

ofwritingbecomea problemfor
poetry In
itself. a closingremarkwhich "was notup to himto make,"but
whichhe stillcould not omitforreasonsof technicalthoroughness,Benn
stated:
I personally
do notconsider
modern fitforperformance....A
poetry modern
poemdemandstobeprinted onpaperandread;itdemands blacktypeface
andbecomes moregraphicorplastic
witheachglanceatitsouterstructure.
(I 529)
Benn's poetics thereforework (to use Niklas Luhmann's term)6as
"differentiation" within a given system of media: ever since the
gramophonetook over the storageof sounds or noises,and filmthatof
picturesor colors,literaturehas been forcedtogive up theromanticfiction
of its own sensual data flow and develop instead a new typewritten
materiality.Whereas Romanticism(to quote Eichendorff) stilldreamtof
recordinga song thatallegedlyslept in everything, "Problemsof Poetry"
(in accord with Freud's InterpretationofDreams)knew better:"Thereare
colors and sounds in nature,but no words" (I 510).7 The absolutenessof
poems thusmeasures,in a literalsense,theirdistancefromphonography
and cinematography. Consequently,Benncalled his writtenwords "some-
thing rather dry"emitted from"emptyand hollow tubes"-and himselfa
"dumb" man "already tremblingin frontof his typewriter" (II 270). The
typewriter keyboardevidentlyreplacesor realizesthemerelymetaphorical
tubes.This is how closelytheactualwritingand theprintingofpoems are
interlockedafterRemington.Whereas the narrative"I" in Benn's short
story"WeinhausWolf"does notbecomea writer-as was his dream-be-
cause forthisprofession"one should at least be able to read one's own
handwriting"(II 134), Benn the MD, even thoughstuck with the same
professionaldeformation, was alreadypast the verdictof classical litera-
ture accordingto which handwritingand its readabilitywere necessary
conditionsforbecominga poet. In Brussels,his World War I base, Benn
reliedeverynighton otherpeople's misuseof"armyequipment"' in order
to send ready-to-print typescriptsto his publisher.And since thosename-
less people, forthe firsttimein warfare,tended to be women,9Benn,in
1936,simultaneouslyditchedtwo girlfriendsfortheone (thedaughterof
an officer'swidow) who had learned-in spite or because of her deeply
deplored lack of highereducation-to type "two hundredsyllablesper
minute."10That is why she made her ddbutas his wife with the task of
transforming the manuscriptof "WeinhausWolf' according to modern
typewriter standards.How literallytrueis Enright'spoem in statingthat

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8 Friedrich
Kittler

"the typewriter is creatinga revolutionin poetry"and "openingup new

fieldsunheardofby Donne or Blake."HerthaBenn, von Wedemeyer,
n(e
re-maineda "typegirltypegirlburningbride""11 untilJuly1945,when the
Red Army's takeoverof a formerlyAmerican-occupiedGerman zone
droveherto suicide.
Her deploredlack ofeducation,by theway,onlyreflectedthetechni-
cal media ofherwork-and leisure-time. Bennwroteabout his futurewife
and secretary:"Whenit comes down to it,thereis nothingin herlifebut
herjob, thenher mother,thenher things,thengramophonerecordsand
dancing,and afterthatherjob again."12 NeitherKracauer's"Sociologyof
Employees" nor its novelistictranscription (IrmgardKeun's "A Girl of
Rayon"), could have defined the shorthand typistany better.Because her
dailytypingdisassembledall speech(as Benntoo would experienceit)into
black and discretecharacters, therewas nothingleftbut to takeher flight
intothecomforting continuityofmovingpicturesat nightor even-as was
thecase withKeun's heroine-to becomea dancerand poet herselfon the
exclusivebasis of radio hits.The girlof rayonlistenedto theloudspeaker,
sang the transmitted songs, added slightlyalcoholized new lyricsand
finallytyped thispoeticoutputas partofan autobiographical novel.3
And indeed,apartfromunpublished"statesecurityreasons,"'14 itwas
forthe technicalrevivalof thoseoldest lyrics,the oral, memorized,and
physiologicalones,thattheGermancivilbroadcasthad beenintroducedin
1923. The storage medium gramophone-record received (in accordance
with McLuhan's law that the contentof a medium is always another
medium) its adequate transmission mediumand, in termsof statistics,a
widespreadaddress in all thoseuneducatedfemaleemployees.Whenever
Benn mentionedradio and/orjazz, the receivingequipmentbelongedto
(real or fictitious)women."
Alas, thepoem made ofblacklettersbehavesquitedifferently. Firstof
all, ithas no addressanymore,apartfromtheMuse (I 502) and philosophi-
cal interpreters. Secondlyand accordingto an articlepublishedunderthe
economictitle"Summa summarum,"a poem is "theunpaid labor of the
intellect"which,in the years between 1913 and 1926, earned Benn an
averageofjust "fourmarksfifty" per month(IV 15-18).This sum of sums
of theGutenberggalaxies was reasonenough to look forotherand more
rewardingchannels.Benn succeeded in broadcastingsome poems and
essays via the BerlinerFunkstunde,just afterthe rathercontroversial
copyright ofliterarybroadcastswas settledin favorofthewriters.Thiswas
also reason enough to attempthis own politicalassumptionof power in
1931when theright-wing partiesstartedto monopolizeGermanradio.He

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Benn'sPoetry 9

only came back fromthis campaignof radio waves in September1933,

realizingthata broadcastof his poems had been cancelledby theDepart-
mentof Propaganda withoutany reasonsgiven.Thus,Bennamongmany
others(includingtheJews)experiencedthetruthofa ministerial statement,
accordingto whichobsoletewriterswere stillallowed to be printed--but
onlyiftheydid notbreakthefasciststate'smonopolyofradiopropaganda.
These conditionsofelectrified data transmission defineBenn'spoetry
betterthanhis own poeticsevercould. Even a reference to StefanGeorge's
typographicalcult could not hide the factthatpoetryhenceforth had to
competewithtransmission mediaand notwithstoragemedia.Benn,under
the restrictions of a mere consumerwho admittedly"knew nothingof
printingand book-making," gave a practicalanswerto thequestionofhis
"Prologueto a GermanPoetryContest:""Who is able instantly to produce
a hit?"(III 407). Poems such as thesix stanzas of "Melodies" proved this
abilityto be Benn'sown:

Yes, withmelodies- thequestionerturnspale,

heisnomanofnumbers
andcitiesanymore,
thecloudsturntodustabove hisrestingplace,
theocean'ssurfbelow.

Sometimesyou'llfindzebrasorantelopes
taking inthebushofriver
flight Njassa,
everything is gentle,lightfooted,
fromthetropics
thereis haze,thedrums,and entranced addiction.

Anderuptionsandelements
thosethink
forevenlonger
times:
all thefivefamouscontinents
arejustimpedingmatterforthesea.

You arenotearly,youarenotlate,
mostlikelyyouarenothingat all,
and now Sibelius'"Finn'sSong"on theair:
Valsetriste.

Everythingin minor,consordino,
withcalmglancesand calmpaces
fromPalavas toPortofino
alongthebeautiful
coastline.

Yes,melodies-veryancientbeings,
theybringeternitytoyou:
Valsetriste,
valsegaie,valseneverbeen,
apartin darkoceans.(III 272)
floating

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10 Kittler
Friedrich

Even thispoem,surelynotamongthose"sixtoeight"whichare,according
to "ProblemsofPoetry,"to lastbeyondtheirauthor'sdeath(I 505),follows
theorderofthatsame lecture:itturnstheproductionprocessofpoetryinto
its own content.This happens,however,not in the sense of Mallarm6or
George,Curtiusor otherfriendswhose "aestheticism"wished to make
Bennlast "beforenotabilitiesand OlympicGods." The becomingof a poet
followsratherthemodeloftypistgirlswho,as Kracauerremarked,did not
16
really"knowall hits,"but are known,caught,and gentlyslain by them.6
Thatis whythe"you" of Benn'sself-address shrinksto a nothingness or to
a mediumthatis knockedout by "melodiesand songs"-followingone of
Benn's poems writtenfora boxerand thebartenderat his favoritebar (III
276). Thatis also whythemelodyrunsas a recording"on theair" and why
Benn considers"musicwhich toucheshim deeply,not firstclass musicin
thesense ofproduction."17
So much fortheelectronicsof entertainment as a primingchargefor
poetry. But as the technical
sound trackalias popular music calls (since
1927) forparallelimage sequences alias sound films,thesecond stanza of
the poem shiftsto an Africawhose provocatedor drug-inducedlife is
mediatedin exactlythesame technicalway. Benn'sessay on "Provocated
Life"startedlike this:"Years ago theyshowed a filmabout blacks called
'Hosiannah' in Berlin. There you could observe black people getting
entrancedbysingingtogether"(1332). Literally deciphered,thefirststanza
thereforedeals with radio, the second with film,fromwhich factsand
McLuhan's law it is easy to derive that the third will transmit(via
Wegener's then totallyinnovativecontinentaldrift)the thirdand last
mediumat stake in poeticproduction.And indeed,one of Benn's poems
celebratedtheStateLibraryin Berlin,his book sourceof thetwenties,as a
"whore-houseof sentences,a paradise of fever"(III 89), because "just a
generalsurvey,a scanningthroughthe pages, was enough to create"in
him "a small intoxication"(II 171). Thus,even the mosttraditionalof all
threemedia came down to thosenineteenth-century picturebooks thathad
to be thumbedthroughin order to anticipatethe higherdegrees of in-
toxicationintroducedby themovies.
Summa summarum,therefore, Benn's poems such as "Melodies" are
theconsummationand consumptionof all themedia sourcestheyuse and
sketchin a freelyassociativemanneruntileven thecold mediumoftyping
and printcan finallycompetewithhitsin thecharts.The parlandoofverses
such as "And now Sibelius' 'Finn's Song' on the air" actuallyquotes the
styleor promiseof radio announcements, at least whenmade by a female
voice-exactly thatvoice which Benn's poem "Radio" misses everytime

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Benn'sPoetry 11

anotherGerman"station(on long wave, mediumwave, shortwave, and

FM) just transmitsprofessors'voices talkingabout 'science as such'" (III
453). However, since a poetic petitbourgeois such as Benn needs "sub-
stitutes:radio,newspapers,magazines"(III 453),he actuallywrotea poem
called "Valse triste,"as if a lyricaltitlecould announce music,not just
words (III 72). Not to mentionothertitleswhose competitionwith an-
nouncementsof hitsis so evident:"Chanson,""Bar," "DistantSongs," or
even "Banana,yes,Banana."
This pseudomorphosisof poems into "songs" guaranteedtheirsuc-
cess. Verses,havingbecome themediumof a medium,transmitted trans-
missions of radio recordings.Concerninghis backyardin Berlin'sBelle
Alliance-Strasse,which inspireshis biographerto offeronly the usual
socio-politicalassociationsand regrets,Benn himselfwas inspiredin a
media-socialmannerby the "well frequentedmusic caf4 which opened
onto thisyard"and pouredout songs.The conditionsoflyricalproduction
in BozenerStrassehe even reducedtoa technicalformulaofthreedifferent
tables:
The firsttable in Benn's favoritebar was reservedfor"experiencing
bottlesand at nightsome broadcasts."Afterthisrathermaterialistic form
of inspiration,a second table,in Benn's medical parlorwas set aside for
"scribblingdown" in his indecipherabledoctor'shandwritingthe radio
messages receivedthenightbefore.The thirdtablewas in thesame place
but equipped witha microscopeand a typewriter fortranscription
of the
lyricalscribblingintosomething"objective"and fitto print(IV 172). Ob-
viouslythewhole operation,exactlyas in anycomputer,ranthroughthree
necessaryand sufficient stepsof data processing.
First:findor contacta data source.
Second: receivethesedata via establishedchannels.
Third:storethedata in yourmemorybanks.
To describethesame operationin themuchshorterand moreprosaic
termsBenn introducedunder the title"radar thinker:""Peilen,loten,hor-
ten"(II 436)-to scan,to sound, to hoard.
Today's literarycriticscould onlyprofitfromthisradarthought, since
their constitutive models of writing, book, and library, as they
predominateeven in poststructuralism, obviouslyrequiresome modern-
ization.Literatureitself,whateveritssubjectsand topicsmaybe, is firstof
all a formofdata processing;itreceivesand stores,processesand transmits
information in a mannerin no wise structurally fromcomputers.
different
On the other hand, modern computersaccomplishnot only what fas-
cinatedBennabout them,namelythesolutionor algorithmization ofevery

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12 Friedrich
Kittler

"thinkable"or philosophicalproblemand thefulfillrment of theotherwise

unfulfillablewish of his radio-aesthetics, namely that of "transforming
lettersinto sounds" (II 265). Moreover,since computersimplementthe
general logic of data, addresses, and commands with unsurpassable
precision,theirterminology would be helpfulto literary history.
for
Thus, instance, it was onlyafterGutenberg's innovation gave exact
addressesto books by makingnumerabletheirhenceforth identicalpages
thatbaroque drama-under thecommandofa princeand addresseeofthe
book's dedication-was able to permutateand combine two different
memorybanks,namelythehistoricalfactson theone hand (or shelf)and
therhetoricalfigureson theother. It was onlyaftergeneralalphabetiza-
tion was institutedsociety-wide that romanticlandscape poetry,as
demonstratedby Richard Alewyn,was able to presentan optical and
acousticalnaturetoitsreadersas iftheyreceived,insteadofprintedletters,
thedescribedsensorydata themselves.19 And it is onlywithBenn-in the
age of filmand gramophone-thatsuch romanticauthorshipfallsunder
his ironicsentence:"Today's poetrydoes notdevelopout ofa tearfulheart
watchingthe sun go down" (I 545). Certainly,thisexclusionof sensory
perceptionand coherence(walking with "calm paces" fromPalavaz to
Nietzsche's Portofinowould simply not be feasible)does not exclude
landscape poetryin general,but its new fieldor landscape will be thatof
technicalmedia.Once God himself-conceivedin Benn'slastradio drama
as the"voice behindthecurtain"-announcesthat"information exchange
is today's cosmos of the whiteearth"(II 428), thereremainshardlyany
otherchoice.
The "Novel of thePhenotype,"Benn'sWorldWar Two prose,stated
rightfromthestartthat"radiois highlysuperiorto naturesinceitis more
inclusiveand may be varied at will" (II 182). And in fact,it is variable
tuningcapacitorsthatmade itpossibletoswitch-notwithstanding all war
restrictionsof German VolksempfTinger and prohibitivemonitoringof
enemystations-from"scienceas such" topopularmusicand thevoicesof
female announcers.Quite literally,the many dispersed radio stations
replace the twofoldbaroque archiveof polyhistorical data and rhetorical
figures or thatunique and deep pit of the "I" from which Hegel saw arise
all possibletopicsofa literatepoeticsubject.20 ForBenn,radiobecomesthe
sourceofpoetry,justas Sundaypaperswerethatofhis essays (II 427). The
pricepaid forsuch a spreadingof bandwidthis whathe calls theliquida-
tionof "all seriousnessof things"and,stillmoreprecisely,thatofthebasic
philosophicalbeliefaccordingto which all thingshad "engravedtraits,

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Benn'sPoetry 13

destinations,ordersand lettersof mnarque" (II 235) or, in otherwords,all

data would containtheirown addresses.
To make a long storyshort,onlyour timeof technicalmedia allows at
once a purelystatisticalnotionof the real and an operativeone of the
symbolicwhich Lacan broughtdown to a Markov chain, that is, to a
recursive functionof statisticaldispersions.Likewise, the typewritten
staticsof Benn's so called "StaticPoems" presuppose themto be at the
same time "statisticalpoems."21On the one hand, poetryconstitutes"a
huge catalogue,containingeverything" (11430)butlackingall call numbers
or addresses; on the otherhand (obviouslyan indirectquotationfrom
Shannons' "MathematicalTheoryof Information"), poetryhas "to turn
entropyaround towardscontinuousproductionand reproductionof the
improbableand thecomplexlyarrangedin orderto achieveextraordinary
results"(I 350). On theone hand, then,suicidestatisticsof the Wehrmacht,
which it was Benn's officialfunctionat the SupremeCommand during
WorldWar Two to record;on theother,information as an inversefunction
ofprobabilityor randomnoise.
The earlyexpressionistBenntriedto access thisnoise,thisimpossible
real,by means of intoxication. In Germanwords,Rauschproduced Raus-
chen.Benn's novelisticdoubles such as Roenne or Pameelen had to as-
sociate withoutend with monitoredcasino talk,untilthe words of that
everydaylanguage lostall reference (call it thereal) and all addresses(call
itmankind),just tobecomesenselessneurophysiological data in thehero's
brain. As a discursiveevent,however,all this randomizationof words
originatednotfromintoxicatedfreedom, butfromscientific experiments. It
was ProfessorTheodor Ziehen, Benn's superior at Berlin's psychiatric
hospital,who withwhip in hand commandedtheassociationsof his test
personsto "Go on!" (II 325). That is whyexpressionisttextswere directly
confronted "withtheproblemoftheuniformity of thepsychicprocess,yes,
confrontedwith some psychologydean's associationexperimentson his
studentsand the merelystupid uniformity of reactionand quality" (III
396). But such a scientificintoxicationcould not bear a life'swork.In the
same textwhichturnedaway fromtheecstasiesofyouthin orderto find"a
day withoutexceptionalities"(II 106), Benn's fascinationwith radio and
gramophonefoundits firstmention.The wirelessproduces,withoutthe
need forexperimentsor associationtests,words in statisticaldispersion,
freedfromreference and addresses(exceptforthenumericalidentification
of stations).The factthatmodernpoetryis made of words,but thatwords
do not exist in nature,forcedthe switchoverof its data source to mass
media.

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14 Friedrich
Kittler

To quote Bennspeakingaboutthephenotypicalpoet of 1954:"He sits

at home,in hismodestroom,is no communist, butstillwantsto have some
money-perhaps a little-but not to live in prosperity.He sits at home,
turnson the radio,graspsintothenight.Thereis a voice in space, trem-
bling,glooming,but darkening,thenbreaksoff,a blueness faded away.
But what reconciliation,what immediate reconciliation,what dream
embracement ofthelivingand thedead, ofmemoriesand unmemorizable,
it hitshim completelyout of control,it comes fromempirescomparedto
which the sun and thestarswould be disabled,it comes fromafar,it is:
achieved"(I 590).
At first,this poetics of formalachievementsounds like consumer
musicor as Bennhimselfconceded(I 591). However,its
"t'artpour I'art,"
subjectis notart,buta media landscape,as strictly analyzableas in roman-
ticism.Proofcomes fromthe only parallel passage in Benn's complete
works:"Butme,I graspintothenight,thereis a voice in space, I tunethe
radio further, it trembles,it breaksoff,a blueness faded away" (II 408).
Obviously,thebroadcastvoice does notstop,because a musicalcomposi-
tion or a lyricalperformancewould have reached its achievement,but
because thereare tuningcapacitorson every radio. The listeningpoet
himselfproduces a statisticaldispersion of discourses and therebya
Ziegarnik-effect which,by puttingwords on a backgroundof technical
absence, reveals their verymateriality.
Lyricalpractice,therefore, equals an interruption in computersys-
tems.The poem explicitlycalled "Radio" startsup likethis:"Title.Quota-
tionmark.Scienceas such. Endquote.New line.WheneverI hearthiskind
of professors'trashon theradio,I'm reallyknockedout..." Poeticspeech
acts cut up high-browtransmissions even beforetheirspeakerscan finish
an initialstatement. In thosecases ofinterception,theswitchingofa tuning
capacitoror, stillmore simply, of one's attentionwill do. Benn,althougha
mereconsumerof technicalmedia, alreadyexperimentedalong precisely
the lines William Burroughswould explore with engineeringprecision.
The projectofan "Electronic Revolution"was notbased anymoreon radio,
buton theWorldWarTwo developmentoftape recordersthatforthefirst
timeenabled everyoneto record,cut up, and finallyfeedback whatever
officialvoices Burroughs'cut-upswere literallymeantto destroy.In con-
trastto him, Benn's metaphysicsof art as an "always and never," a
presence and absence, a "valse triste"and a "valse never been" only
demonstratethe unmemorizabilityof broadcast transmissionsbefore
WorldWar Two. "It's hereand thenit's gone,"as MickJaggersang about
radio love.

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Benn'sPoetry 15

Absence,however,poses the questionof death. All media, as Klaus

Theweleit'sBookoftheKingshas shown forBenn and manyotherartists,
assure voyages to thedead, to thenecropolesof a given culture.22
That is
why Benn's so-called "dream embracements of the livingand the dead"
are strictly
coextensivewiththestate-of-the-artin transmission
technology.
Formorethanthreethousandyears,as Diodor ofSicilyhas remarked,only
writingcould guaranteetheEuropeandead a memoryamongsttheliving.
In our days, however,all thoseghostsand spiritshave leftthebooks to
become radio waves, ectophotographs,or, as Roger Waters put it, "a
gunner's dying voice on the intercom."23 Modern transmissiontech-
nologies are all derivedfromwar technologies.And thedisproportionate
relationbetween Benn's littlepracticalradio experimentsand his all too
theoreticalradar thoughtsimplyreflectsthe gap growingbetweencom-
mercialconsumptionand militaryoptimizationof one and thesame tech-
nology.Accordingto Benn,itmakesno difference whetherhuman"space"
is destroyedby "radio waves" or by "Air Forcefighters"(II 153) which,
since World War Two, intercommunicate by those very radio waves.
Whereuponhe could give,as earlyas 1940,an all too precisepredictionof
WorldWar Three:

Theongoingwaris certainly
onlya prelude, Thenextonewill
a prewar.
gatherwhole continentsin a fist,and only the Gods know whetherthis
hand be white,yellow,or negroidbrown.Buttherewillbe onlyone center
left,and stratospheric
bomnberswithone thousandmilesperhourand flight
rangessurpassingsixor sevenequatorswilltraversetheice-cold,blue and
stonyspaces filledwithsoundlessexplosionsofnuclearfission.(26)
Statementslike thisdid not pose as a criticaltheoryof war. On the
contrary, Bennwas well aware ofthefactthat"battlesgivebirthtomindor
spirititself"and consequentlythatnotphilosophersbut "expertson mis-
siles or on fighter
jets" are thetrueneighborsofpoets (II 190).Thatis why
his poetry,once in fascist1933and again in World-War-Two 1941,ran the
inherentrisk of issuing commands,via radio channels,on absence and
presence,death and life in general.This can be proven by means of a
simple philologicalcomparisonbetweentwo versionsof a famouspoem
thatHeidegger'sequally famouscommentary did notquiteexhaust.
In peacetime1929,Bennwrotea poem withthehighlyautoreferential
title"Schapfung" whichcomprisesbothcreationand genesis.

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16 Friedrich
Kittler

Creation

The first
I, thefirst
word-
bothcomingfromjunglesfullofcrocodilesand mud,
comingafterall thosebeings
condemnedonlytogulpsand screams.

One word,one I-a fluff, a fire,

a torch'sblue,a starline,
fromwhere,whereto--intothevast
and emptyspacearoundtheworld,aroundtheI.
(III 415)

In wartime 1941, when Benn worked as a high-rankingmedical staff

officerin Berlin'sBendlerstrasse,
at theSupremeCommandoftheGerman
the
Wehrmacht, poem underwent a reformulation. Plausiblyenough, the
firststanza dealing with nature,evolutionand steady transitionsfrom
animal to man disappearedaltogether. For purposesof theOberkommando
derWehrmacht, Benn keptonly thesecond stanza,thislyricalcircumscrip-
tion of a radio voice that,by being switchedon and off,produces in
memoriesthateverlastingZeigarnik-effect as it had been experimentally
discoveredsome yearsbefore.

One word

One word,one sentence-judgedlife,suddensense

ariseoutofitsciphers,
thesuncomestoa standstill,
thespherestosilence
and everythinggathersaroundit.

One word-a brightness, a fire,

a flight,
a flame'sthrowing,a starline-
and thenagain thatvastdarkness
inemptyspacesaroundtheworldand theI. (III 208)

At firstsight,thedifferencesbetweenthepoem's two versionsseem

Both
negligible. definetheone and onlypoeticalwordwhichBenncertain-
ly derived fromSt. Johnas theinterplaybetweenpresenceand absence,
switchingon and switchingoff.(Four yearsbefore,Claude Elwood Shan-
non had conceived a first,not yet computerized implementationof
Boolean algebraby means of simpleswitchingrelays.)24 But from1929 to
1941, Benn changed most of the words which figured as absolute
metaphorsof thatone absoluteword. Flightsor planes replacedthefluff;
flame-throwers theblue of torches:trulya kindof lyricalrearmament.
To

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Benn'sPoetry 17

quote froma letterwhich Benn wrote thatsame year to a friend:"You

know,I sign: in lieu of theSupremeCommanderof theWehrmacht, M.D.
Benn."25That is why he musthave been among thoseveryfewGermans
who knew about thesecretdevelopmentof thefirstfighter jet in history.
But since the mass productionof thismachine,theMesserschmitt 262-A,
commencedonlyin 1944,and sincetheveryword "jet"was obviouslynot
used on the German side, stratospheric bombersin theiremptyspaces
went in Benn's prose under thetitleof "Flammenstrahlbomber"26 (II 190)
and in his poetryundertheciphersof "flight"or "flame-throwing."
Thus, the proximityof jet-expertsto poets is proven and throwsits
flaminglighton poetics.Heidegger'ssuspicionthata "creativetransforma-
tion"is morelikelyto producespace satellitesthanpoems,holds literally
true, at least when satellites are tracked back to their origins, the
Wehrmacht's "expertson rocketdevelopmentand fighter jets" (II 190).
In 1939,the Departmentof Propaganda and People's Educationhad
statedthatradio as a new means of totalmobilizationbroughtdown the
numberofpeople notaddressableby theFiihrer'scommandto fouror five
per hundredof thepopulation.27 At thesame time,theU.S. Navy started
research to test whetherOrson Welles' radio-simulatedinvasion from
Mars could be turnedinto a techniqueof generalmilitarymobilization.
Poetrycopingwithsuch strategictransmission rangeswould have to issue
orderscapable of bringingthesun to a standstilland everybody,even in
outer space, to gatheraround its command.But this,precisely,is what
Benn's rewrittenfirststanza did claim. It identified,absolutelynot by
chance, the absolute and, thatis, finalword with a "cipher" that,not-
withstandingall its romanticliteraryconnotations, had a precisemilitary
meaning in World War Two. Justas Germany'smilitaryFM system-
without which the Blitzkrieg would have been an impossibility-cul-
minatedin a secretencipheringtypewriter named Enigma,so did Benn's
poetics. As to theabsolutenessof encoded radio commands,thetransmis-
sion of poems competedwithlightningwars. Finally,all data, all addres-
ses, and all commandsimplodedin one and onlyone word.
Only thistechnologicalecstasyof 1941 can motivateBenn's new and
all-too-understandable postwar modestyin competinghenceforthwith
hitsin thecharts.It was notonlya departurefromdecisionismor fascism,
but a renewed technicalseparationbetween data, addresses, and com-
mands.
In Benn's earlyexpressionism,thedata had been foundin everyday
talk,theaddresses in an associativebrain,and thecommandson theside
ofhis doctor(II 324),whose whip called fortheunendingoutputofwords

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18 FriedrichKittler

or texts.The poetics of radio transferred a miniatureof this command

power to a consumerwho could switchtransmissions on and off.At the
end, however,Benn'ssecond and lastradio dramasurrenderedall power
to a distantGod who commandstwobells. "The highone is called:'faster,
not too manydetails!',thesecondone: 'not too fast,moredepth!'"(II 412).
Because God has disappearedbehinda curtain,only "able to do what he
maydo, in thedark"(II 440),he has been leftonlytheacousticalchannelto
commandhis testpersonsin frontof thecurtain,theaccelerandi and ritar-
dandiof theirnever-endingassociations.This is again the exact method
Ziehenapplied in 1898toreachhispsychophysiological "findingsconcern-
ing thetrackof associationand itsspeed undercertainconditions(such as
fatigue)."28But whereas Benn's firstsuperiorused labs and elementary
schoolrooms,Benn'sfinalCod shiftsto technicalmedia. "The Voicebehind
the Curtain"is a radio drama squared, a radio drama thattransmitsits
own separationofcommandsand data,oftransmission controland record-
ing studio. In a mereacousticworld,as describedby Nietzsche,the first
philosopherofmedia,29and implemented by BBC's RichardHughes in the
very firstradio drama (which was about the darknessof a Welsh pit
disaster),in an acoustic world like thiseven theopticalchannelbetween
controlroomand recordingstudio(usuallya windowand some red lights)
mustbe replacedby bells ifit is to be transmittable at all. But insteadof
requesting once again thlepower to controland command by his words,
thewriteroftheradiodramaremainsas modestas all his fictitious doubles
in frontof the curtain:a subjectsubjectedto technicalmedia. Not the
authorbut thediscoursethattheother-or "God"-transmitsis theradio
voice behindthecurtain.
At least,as a radio consumer,Bennhad reachedthereachable.It was
othersat thecontrolswho transmitted hisessays,radiodramasand poems.
A recursiveloop betweeninput and output had been closed, especially
when the voices in front of the curtain publicly performed and
demonstratedthe productionof lyricalpoetryout of hits and Sunday
paper cut-ups(II 432f.and II 439). Even the dreamof the poem "Radio"
became true,thatrequestforfemaleradio voices insteadof professorial
"scienceas such." Summa summarum:since he knew of theexistenceof
"experts,forinstanceauthorsof radio dramas" who "lived fora yearon
thepaymentforone radio play of an hour's lengthand even boughtcars
and houses" (IV 354), Benn was able to solve his financialproblems.
Whereas"theNazis had occupiedeveryplace wheretherewas moneyand
even kickedhim out of theradio,""3theAdenaueradministration bought
one of Benn'sradio typescripts "forthehighestpriceeverpaid forone and

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Benn'sPoetry 19

a half-hour'sworthof radio literature.At least in this regard it was a

success."'
One day afterhis seventiethbirthdaytheradio poet Benn-who had
mentionedTV only once, in a radio-dramapoem about the death of an
American newspaper czar (II 433)-gave his firstTV interview.Two
months later he was dead. "The skies change theirstars-you have to go!"
(III 344). The media changedtheirstars;he had to go.

Bochum,WestGermany
Universitdt

NOTES

1. Cf. Michel Foucault,"Passe-frontibres de la philosophie." Le Monde 6 Sept.

1986:12.
2. Hereand throughout, theRomanand Arabicciphersreferto thevolumesand
pages ofGottfried Benn,Gesammelte Werke,ed. DieterWellershoff, Wiesbaden1959-61.
3. Cf. JiirgenSchr6der,Gottfried Bennr:PoesieundSozialisation, Stuttgart-Berlin-
K61n-Mainz1978,and Oskar Sahlberg,Gottfried BennsPhantasiewelt: "Wo lust und
LeicheWinkt...", Munich1977.
4. MartinHeidegger,Unterwegs zurSprache, Pfullingen 1959,207.
5. Cf. FriedrichKittler,
Gramophone FilmTypewriter, forthcoming (University of
MinnesotaPress).
6. Cf. Niklas Luhmann, "Das Problem der Epochenbildung und die
Evolutionstheorie." In:EpochenschwellenundEpochenstrukrturen imDiskursderLitratur-
undSprachhistorie, ed. Hans-UlrichGumbrecht and UrsulaLink-Heer,Frankfurt/M.
1985,p. 19-21.
7. Cf. SigmundFreud,Die Traumdeutung. Gesammelte Werke, vol. II/III,p. 284,
London1942.
8. GottfriedBenn,letterto KurtWolff, April22,1916,in: G.B.,Den Traumalleine
tragen. NeueTexte,Briefe,Dokumente, ed. Paul Raabe and Max Niedermayer, Munich
1969,27.
9. Cf. Ursula Nienhaus,Berufsstand weiblich. Die erstenweiblichen Angestellten,
Berlin1982,45-48.
10. Benn,letterto EllinorBiiller-Klinkowstrim, Jan.1, 1937,in Den Traumalleine
tragen,184-186.
11. This is how Enright'smarvelous poem "The TypewriterRevolution"
typoscribed Blake'sfamousline.Cf.DennisJosephEnright, TheTypewriter Revolution
andOtherPoems,New York1971,101.
12. Cf. Benn,letterto EllinorBiller-Klinkowstr6m, Feb. 6, 1937,in: Den Traum
alleinetragen,193.
13. Cf.IrmgardKeun,Das kunstscidene Mlldchen. Roman(1932).Diisseldorf1979,
94f.
14. Cf. WinfriedB. Lerg,Die Entstehung desRundfunks in Deutschland. Herkunft
undEntwicklung Mittels,
einespublizistischen 2. ed. Berlin1970,188.

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20 FriedrichKittler

15. Cf.forinstanceBenn,letterto EllinorBuller-Klinkowstrim, Jan.31,1937,1.c.

190:Benn,lettertoKaethevonPorada,Sept.19,1933,in: DenTraumalleinetragen, 140.
16. Cf.SiegfriedKracauer,Die Angestellten.Aus demneuesten Deutschland (1930).
In: Schriften,ed. KarstenWitte,Frankfurt/M. 1971-79.
17. Benn,letterto F.W. Oelze, Feb. 5, 1944,in G.B.,Briefe an F.W. Oelze,ed.
HaraldSteinhagenand Jiirgen Schrider,Wiesbaden-Munich 1977-1979, vol. I, 192.
18.Cf.ElizabethEisenstein, ThePrintingPressas an Agentof Change, Cambridge
1979.
19. Cf. RichardAlewyn,"Eine Landschaft Eichendorffs." In: R.A.,Probleme und
Gestalten, Frankfurt/M. 1974.
20. Cf.GeorgWilhelmFriedrich Hegel,Jcnaer ed. JohannesHoff-
Realphilosophie,
meister, Hamburg1931,180.
21. Benn,lettertoFriedrichWilhelmOelze,
22. Cf. Klaus Theweleit, Buch der K6nige,vol. I: Orpheusund Euridike,
Frankfurt/M. 1988.Death cultpsychoanalysis is placed at thecontrolsof thismedia
connectionin LaurenceRickels'Aberrations ofMourning:Writing on GermanCrypts,
Detroit1988.*
23. Cf.PinkFloyd,"The FinalCut.A requiemforthepostwar dream,"London
1983(EMI LP).
24.Cf.Claude ElwoodShannon,
25. Benn,lettertoOelze,04/10/1941, vol.I, p. 267.
26. All threetypescripts
ofBenn's"Romandes Phtinotyp" whichwereprobably
typedbyhis wifeand are keptat theMarbachliterary archive(towhichI owe thanks)
show thespelling"Flammenstrahlbomben" insteadof "Flammenstrahlbomber." But
thesebombssimplydid notexist.
27. Cf. Heinz Pohle, Der Rundfunkals Instrumentder Politik: Zur geschichtedes
deutschenRundfunksvon 1923/7938,Hamburg 1955,339.
28. Theodor Ziehen, Die Ideenassoziationdes Kindes,Berlin 1898-1900,vol. I, 6.
29. Cf. Friedrich Kittler, "The Mechanized Philosopher" in Looking After
Nietzsche,ed. Laurence Rickels, Albany (forthcoming).
30. Benn, lettersto F.W. Oelze, June21. 1941, in Briefe,vol. I, 276.
31. Benn, letterto F.W. Oelze, August 6, 1950, in Briefe,vol. II, 55.

Tod,Vienna 1989.
*Cf.FriedrichKittler,"Vorwort,"Rickels, Der unbetraucrbare

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