While much of this collection is attributed to Stefan George and the many poets, writers, philosophers, and academics that followed his work, I am very intentional about centering another voice in the overall narrative that this collection proffers for viewers. Specifically, I want to highlight the role of Elisabeth "Lily" Sommer in curating this collection of Germany's (once) most famous poet. In fact, this is Elisabeth's collection. She accessioned the materials in it by various means--inheritance, gifts, and friendships--and her efforts cultivate an interesting lens through which to view the impact that George had on his followers, especially those that were Jewish.
The simple, linear narrative is that Elisabeth, being very good friends with Ernst Morwitz, acquired some of George's manuscripts whenever George's death put them into the possession of Morwitz, his good friend. From George, to Morwitz, to Elisabeth, these manuscripts have shifted along the lines of history.
However, Elisabeth role in collecting these materials is not one of stereotypical female passivity (which often appears in the historical record). On the contrary, many of the volumes in this collection involve notes from Elisabeth to writers such as Robert Boehringer and Michael Stettler. Many of the books by Stettler are signed and addressed to Elisabeth, in fact. She integrated herself into the society of men that wholly venerated the poet; she was not a part of George's circle, of course, (and she escaped to North Carolina before WWII), but she proved her allegiance to George to the very men who knew him, the very men who knew him in the most intimate ways.
​
In the story of Stefan George, his followers such as Robert Boehringer, Ernst Morwitz, The Landmans, and many other young men get credited for their endeavors to strengthen the legacy of their favored poet. However, I believe that in her creation of this collection, Elisabeth Sommer plays an impeccable and imperative role in the continuation of George's poetic legacy.
​
To clarify the path on how all the materials in this collection ended up in the hands of me--a young twenty-something with little political significance and power--I will mention Elisabeth's grandson: Phillip Cohen. Phillip is a practicing Jew living in Winston-Salem, NC. His religious affiliation, nonetheless, does not keep him from attending Green Street United Methodist Church where I am a member. Phillip received his grandmother Elisabeth's collection of materials relating to George whenever she died. Because Phillip and I were quick to form a friendship, and because he wanted the collection in the hands of a young person interested in literary history, Stefan George became a figure of personal and academic intrigue for me. I rarely feel deserving of this completely unique and fascinating collection, but I aim to preserve it in the ways Phillip and his grandmother Elisabeth would have seen as most fit.
I may have never known Elisabeth, but I hope this project would make her proud in its goal to further the legacy of Stefan George. My work is merely a continuation of her own.
CONTACT
Chase Hanes
For any general inquiries, please fill in the following contact form:
C
Contents: 61 books and 21 pamphlets/booklets that pertain to the life and literary production of Stefan George
1 bound manuscript, a full manuscript on loose sheets, 7 poems, and other writings on pages written by George
I have often wondered how Nineteenth Century – Early-Twentieth Century German poet Stefan George would feel about the fact that three boxes of archival materials pertaining to him (his own hand-written works as well as later literary criticism on his authorship) ended up being in the possession of a young American living in a rural town with little social and political influence...
Carefully preserved in my room are books and hand-written manuscripts that once belonged to a German iconoclast, a literary hero renowned for his poetry. By the later parts of WWII, the systemic powers of Nazi Germany relegated the art of Stefan George as more or less degenerative works, so consequentially, much of George’s influence and renown faded into obscurity in the years following. I will never know how George would have reacted to the decline of his fame and I can only conjecture how he might feel about a random male in his twenties on a different continent safe-keeping some of his possessions, but I do know for sure that I would never want to exacerbate George’s obscurity by mishandling the materials in this collection that planted themselves into my life. By taking care of this collection and exhibiting it in an appropriate way, I can add to his legacy or literary progeny in some small manner.
There are many different perspectives with which to view this special collection, all of which could offer nuanced depictions about Stefan George and his circle of poets/writers/admirers/and friends. Thus, as I have worked with the materials in this collection—whether they be George’s original manuscripts or later biographies—I have focused on the relationships that George had with certain members of his circle and how their own writings about the poet ended up being published books within the collection. Because homosexuality was an important facet of George’s life, I have explored how queer history is represented in special collections and how to emphasize the queer friendships that George had with some of the authors of the later materials in the collection. While George’s homosexuality may not have been able to be freely discussed in his own time, I aim for my manifestation of the collection to posit his sexuality as cornerstone of the technological display.
An important motivation for me in pursuing this project is my hope to reach to an audience demographic interested in LGBTQ history. The history that is so commonly taught and disseminated in our culture derives from the perspectives of white, heterosexual men. Particularly, individuals interested in expanding history to move beyond tales of dominant culture could be interested in this collection, especially if they have an interest in hearing stories of people marginalized by dominant powers and cultural forces. LGBTQ individuals often look for historical figures that relate to them in order to legitimate their own identity, so I imagine emphasizing the art of a gay man in pre-Nazi Germany could possibly help someone looking for queer historical representation in extremely repressing times for non-heteronormative sexuality. Individuals interested in social activism, in general, could also be interested in this collection, regardless of what specific areas of activism intrigue them most. In an article that I read in which Gay Activist Jim Monahan writes about archives, he states that it requires great “effort to integrate the gay past into historical thinking, promoting the use of information in the analysis of broader historical questions. A study of social movements, for example, can profit from the study of the gay movement just as the question of a gay ‘movement’ can profit when approached from an analysis of ‘movement’ as a historical construct.” In this assertion, all social movements can learn from each other for marginalized demographics often intersect.
I imagine scholars of pre-WWII era Germany would be interested in this collection. The Nazi government destroyed legacies of many artists whose ideals contradicted its own, so Stefan George’s works can give insight into what Germany may have been like pre and post WWI and before the rise of Hitler’s regime. Moreover, Stefan George had significant relationships with Jewish individuals. Ernst Morwitz—a writer of some of the books in the collection—was extremely close to George. Researchers intrigued by relations between Germans and Jews before the rise of Hitler may be interested in this collection as well.
​
Finally, I would like to dedicate this project to my friend Phillip Cohen :)
Sincerely,
Chase Hanes
​
W
Works Cited
Monahan, Jim, and Joan Nestle. "An Early Conversation about Gay and Lesbian Archives: From the Pages of The Gay Insurgent, 1978 · Outhistory.org." Editorial. The Gay Insurgent: A Gay Left Journal[Philadelphia] 1978: n. pag. OutHistory.org. Omeka. Web. 14 Sept. 2016. <http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/an-early-conversation-about-ga>.
Overview of the Collection
Stefan George
​
His Circle His Legacy
His Life
​
​
A Collection of Materials
​
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |
About Stefan George
Elisabeth "Lily" Sommer
Stefan George is a name that once carried with it reverberating connotations of Germanic pride, artistic excellence, and an overall fantasy of a utopian, intellectually elite Germany. As a poet, Stefan George contributed much to Germany’s literary sphere, but his life and the ideals he distributed throughout it reveal much about the cultural powers undergirding life in Germany in the years prior and after the First World War. In his full, comprehensive biography on this poet, Robert Norton explains that “Stefan George and the group of people he gathered around himself—what later became formally known as his ‘circle’—represent arguably the most important cultural phenomenon in Germany during the first three decades of the twentieth century” (Norton x). George gathered young men into his life, preaching to them the need to defy the doctrines of a bourgeois German society. The men in his circle subscribed to George’s teachings and the homoerotic ideals that he championed in his academic work (and undoubtedly) in his personal life. Whereas the German people garnered George as a figure of German intellectual excellence, those in his circle saw him as “Master,” a deified leader who was more than just a man.
Born in Bingen, Germany in 1868 to a wine merchant father, Stefan George began his claim to literary, political, and social power amidst humble beginnings. His homosexuality was an integral facet of his life and he expressed themes relating to the men/boys he loved very often in his poetry. He started publishing his poems in his twenties and he experimented with an aristocratic tone that explored concepts of sacrifice and heroism (Norton). As George’s fame grew, he built relationships with young men who admired his poetry. He formed a circle with them, but also an ever increasing belief in his own messianic power to lead these men in a better, more intellectual and creative Germany.
In some ways, George’s own circle, with the extreme power dynamics constituting it, lead some individuals to conjecture that many Nazi ideals are rooted in the model society that George and his followers developed. Specifically, George’s circle sustained itself on its eccentric leadership: the young men saw George as divine, a deified führer and Master, and they submitted to his perspectives without question. George was close to many Jewish people and he never supported the Nazi Party, but the veiled fascism in George’s model, nonetheless, incite a consideration of parallels. Norton states, “Whereas seventy years ago no one conversant with German culture would have been unaware of George, now his name rings only distant bells. And yet it is true: it is impossible to grasp fully what unfolded in Germany and the rest of Europe before and after 1933 without coming to terms with Stefan George and his circle” (Norton Preface x). In some ways, the faint suggestion of a Nazi Party linkage sullies George’s contemporary reputation, but the party itself was also responsible for forcing George’s legacy into obscurity. As the Nazi Party rose in power, they initial acceptance of George’s poetry completely shifted: they saw his work as degenerative: “What most unsettled the [Nazi] party faithful was the exclusively male focus of George’s erotic drive and, even more disturbing, the large number of Jews within his circle. No one [in the Nazi party] could overlook these inconvenient details and as time went by the grew into something more than just an embarrassment…by 1938 more articles and books appeared that condemned the unsavory aspects of George’s ‘secret’ Germany than lauded him as the ‘prophet’ of the Third Reich” (Norton 743). Other resources, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica exonerate George from any relation whatsoever to the Nazi Party: “George himself was strongly opposed to the political developments—above all, the rise of Nazism—which his ideas are sometimes thought to reflect. When the Nazi government offered him money and honours, he refused them and went into exile.” Regardless, George died in 1933 and he never had the chance to learn how many of his friends—some of them young men in his circle—escaped to America and delivered his literary legacy in those spaces.
Norton, Robert Edward. Secret Germany: Stefan George and His Circle. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2002. Print.
"Stefan George". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 15 Nov. 2016 iography/Stefan-George>.