In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

326 CODES
sible, eloquent Silence-and Martin Heidegger's "silence as an essential
possibility of speech" (Heidegger, 164; also Wohlfart and Kreuzer)-are
no longer paradoxes. Subjecthood is constituted here by identifying a
meaningful order of things and by suppressing any words that exceed it.
In contrast, only sounds and words brought forth in the name of a
collective cause are permitted to be loud-sometimes egregiously loudwithout
being considered illegitimate. [see Individuality vs. Collectivity]
Describing his first days as a soldier in the Great War, Adolf Hitler
contrasts the quietness of the Rhine-whose national symbolic importance
needs no words-with the sound of a collectively sung hymn which
is almost too moving for any individual soldier's breast: "Finally the day
came when we left Munich in order to start fulfilling our duty. Now for
the first time I saw the Rhine-the German river of rivers-as we were
riding west along its quiet waters, in order to protect it from the greed
of our old enemy. When through the delicate veil of the dawn's mist the
gentle rays of the early sun set the Niederwald Monument shimmering
before our eyes, 'The Watch on the Rhine' roared up into the morning
sky from the interminably long transport train, and I felt as though my
chest would burst" (Hitler, 180). Hans Grimm wants all the bells in
Germany to ring for the geopolitical cause he advocates in Yolk ohne
Raum. More effective than Hitler in maintaining an impression of
Authenticity, Grimm manages, through the metaphor of the bells, to
present the German people as keeping an eloquent Silence: "Bells would
have to ring at the beginning of this book. The ringing should begin at
the tower of the monastery chapel in Lippolsberg, where I am writing ...
But this would be only the beginning-all German bells are invited to
ring ... And once all those metal voices between the river Maas and the
river Memel, between Konigsau and Etsch and Southern Africa, are
sounding and tolling, . . . then all Germans shall raise their arms. They
shall advance demanding and silent, so that the silence of the millions
silences the music of heaven, so that God will be forced to look upon
their souls. And God shall acknowledge the outrageousness of their
fate-which they themselves are as yet unable to conceive, to articulate,
and to shout out loud" (Grimm, I, 9-10). In Junger's description of a
Great War assault, individual soldiers kill silently, but the rhythmic
sound of engines and weapons marks the importance of this moment for
the history and fate of mankind: "And now it is 5:05 A.M.! A flickering