weimar and now: german cultural criticism Edward Dimendberg, Martin Jay, and Anton Kaes, General Editors 1. Heritage of Our Times, by Ernst Bloch 2. The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890– 1990, by Steven E. Aschheim 3. The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, edited by Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg 4. Batteries of Life: On the History of Things and Their Perception in Modernity, by Christoph Asendorf 5. Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution, by Margaret Cohen 6. Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany, by Thomas J. Saunders 7. Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption, by Richard Wolin 8. The New Typography, by Jan Tschichold, translated by Ruari McLean 9. The Rule of Law under Siege: Selected Essays of Franz L. Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer, edited by William E. Scheuerman 10. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923– 1950, by Martin Jay 11. Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture, edited by Katharina von Ankum 12. Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1900– 1949, edited by Hans Wysling, translated by Don Reneau 13. Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910– 1935, by Karl Toepfer 14. In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals between Apocalypse and Enlightenment, by Anson Rabinbach 15. Walter Benjamin’s Other History: Of Stones, Animals, Human Beings, and Angels, by Beatrice Hanssen 16. Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America from the 1930s to the Present, by Anthony Heilbut 17. Cool Conduct: The Culture of Distance in Weimar Germany, by Helmut Lethen, translated by Don Reneau 18. In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945– 1948, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, translated by Kelly Barry 19. A Dubious Past: Ernst Jünger and the Politics of Literature after Nazism, by Elliot Y. Neaman 20. Beyond the Conceivable: Studies on Germany, Nazism, and the Holocaust, by Dan Diner 21. Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Siècle, by Scott Spector 22. Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments, and the Legacy of the Third Reich, by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld 23. The Ufa Story: A History of Germany’s Greatest Film Company, 1918– 1945, by Klaus Kreimeier, translated by Robert and Rita Kimber 24. From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870– 1990, by Rudy Koshar 25. We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism, by Marsha Meskimmon 26. Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany, by Bernd Widdig 27. Weimar Surfaces: Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany, by Janet Ward 28. Graphic Design in Germany: 1890– 1945, by Jeremy Aynsley 29. Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, by Timothy O. Benson, with contributions by David Frisby, Reinhold Heller, Anton Kaes, and Iain Boyd Whyte 30. The Red Count: The Life and Times of Harry Kessler, by Laird M. Easton 31. The Lost One: A Biography of Peter Lorre, by Stephen D. Youngkin n This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank THE R E D COUNT The Life and Times of Harry Kessler Laird McLeod Easton UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley / Los Angeles / London University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2002 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Easton, Laird McLeod, 1956 – The red count : the life and times of Harry Kessler / Laird McLeod Easton. p. cm.—(Weimar and now ; 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-520-23035-3 (alk. paper) 1. Kessler, Harry, Graf, 1868 –1937. 2. Diplomats— Germany— Biography. 3. Intellectuals— Germany—Biography. 4. Authors, German—20th century—Biography. 5. Germany—Politics and government—1918 –1933. 6. Germany—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. dd 231. k 4 e 27 2002 943.085 092 — dc21 2001007155 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine- free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of ans/nis0 z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper). To my mother, Annabelle McLeod Easton, and to the memory of my father, Alexander Laird Easton (1922– 1997) This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank Écrire une biographie, c’est définir une force. Harry Graf Kessler This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Illustrations xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Art and Politics in Modern Germany 1 part one: family and education 1. Pirates and Philosophers 13 2. From Ascot to Hamburg 22 3. At the University 33 4. From New York to Potsdam 47 part two: apprenticeship 5. Berlin in the 1890s 59 6. Decadence and Renewal 73 7. A Change of Plans 88 part three: the third weim ar 8. The New Weimar 99 9. The Culture of the Eye 116 10. A Theater of Dreams 129 11. The Rodin Scandal 145 part four: the fever curve 12. Greek Idylls 159 13. Hofmannsthal and Der Rosenkavalier 176 14. A Monument for Nietzsche 185 15. The Legend of Joseph 196 part five: war’s purifying fire 16. Furor Teutonicus 219 17. Pax Germania 237 18. Propaganda and Peace Feelers 249 19. Apocalyptic Times 266 part six: the red count 20. The Lost Revolution 279 21. Pacifism and Its Discontents 298 22. Diplomatic Missions 315 23. American Interlude 327 24. Retreat from Politics 346 part seven: the path downward 25. The Golden Twenties 365 26. Revenge of the Philistines 384 27. “And thus he left me” 397 Conclusion: A World Forever Lost? 409 Notes 413 Bibliography 461 Index 483 x C O N T E N T S ILLUSTRATI O NS Plates follow page 236. 1. Alice, Countess Kessler, around 1868 2. Adolph Wilhelm, Count Kessler, 1894 3. Harry Kessler, around 1880 4. Kessler greeting Bismarck, August 10, 1891 5. Kessler, 1898 6. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche at the door of the Nietzsche Archive, after 1903 7. Kessler with Ludwig von Hofmann, Gordon Craig, Henry van de Velde, 1904 8. Aristide Maillol, La Méditerranée, 1905 9. Auguste Rodin, Weibe. Rückenakt 10. Kessler’s dining room, Weimar 1909, showing a frieze by Maurice Denis and a version of Auguste Renoir’s Marchande des pommes 11. Final version, Nietzsche monument 12. Model, Nietzsche monument and stadium 13. Leon Bakst, costume design for Potiphar’s Wife, 1914 14. Ernst Oppler, sketch of a rehearsal of The Legend of Joseph. 15. Georg Kolbe, bronze bust of Kessler, 1916 16. Institute of Politics, Williams College, 1923 17. Aristide Maillol, illustration for Virgil’s Ecologae, Cranach Presse, 1926 18. Act V, Scene 1 of Cranach Presse Hamlet, translated by Gerhart Hauptmann, illustrated by Gordon Craig, 1928 xi 19. Kessler, just before exile, 1933 20. Kessler, signing French version of his memoirs, October 26, 1936 xii I L L U S T R AT I O N S ACKN OWLEDGMENTS Researching and writing this book have taken me more than a decade. Along the way I have accumulated many debts to both individuals and institutions. It affords me great pleasure to be able to repay at least some of these, however inadequately, by thanking those who have helped me. I wish to begin by thanking Kessler’s heirs as well as Dr. Ulrich Ott, Director of the German National Literary Archives in Marbach am Neckar, for the right to cite from the diaries, letters, and other docu- ments in the Kessler Nachlaß. Those who have had the pleasure of working at the Archives know how conducive that magical place, high on a bluff overlooking the Neckar river, is for research, study, and con- templation. I would like to thank all the staff there for making me feel welcome, especially Gerhard Schuster, Margot Pehle, and Hildegard Dieke, as well as the members of the Harry Graf Kessler Projekt, for their expert help and advice. I am also grateful to the administration and staff of the lovely Collegienhaus in Marbach, where I and my fam- ily had the good fortune to reside for six weeks in the summer of 1995. Further afield, I would like to thank the Archives of the Foreign Office in Bonn and the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar for their hos- pitality and for the right to use documents in their collections. Dr. Peter Grupp in Bonn and Dr. Rosawitha Wollkopf in Weimar, both Kessler scholars, were generous with their time and assistance. For the right to consult and cite from the Henry van de Velde papers, I thank the Bib- liothèque Royale, Albert Première, in Brussels. Additional archives that were helpful to me include the Thüringian State Archive, Weimar; the Federal Archive in Koblenz; and the National Archives in Washington, xiii D.C. For responses to inquiries, I thank librarians at the special collec- tions of the Newberry Library in Chicago, the University of California at Los Angeles, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the State University of New York at Binghamton. The Houghton Library at Harvard University has gener- ously granted me permission to use the William Rothenstein papers in their collection. Closer to home, I am thankful for the cheerful assis- tance of the Interlibrary Loan staff at the Merriam Library of California State University, Chico. Without the generous financial support of the following institutions, I could not have completed this book: the German Academic Exchange Service for the initial yearlong research stipendium that got me started in 1988 –89 as well as for a generous Study Research Grant in 1995; the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Travel to Collections Grant in 1992 and a Summer Stipend in 1993; the Office of Sponsored Projects at California State University, Chico, for a CSU Research Award in 1992 and for a full semester’s release time in the spring of 1994. To the administration and staff of all these agencies, I am profoundly grateful. As a professional historian, I owe the most to my mentors Paul Robinson and James Sheehan of Stanford University both for their en- couragement and support from the very beginning of this project and for serving as models, in their teaching and in their scholarship, of aca- demic integrity. Vernon Lidtke, Gerald Feldman, Brian Ladd, and Diana Barkan have all commented helpfully at various conferences on earlier versions of this work. Here in Chico, my colleague Larry Bryant has both provided venues for me to present my research on Kessler and prod- ded me, gently but persistently, into finally finishing. Finally, I should thank the anonymous reader who had the courage to read two mon- strously large earlier drafts and helped me whittle them down to a more manageable size. The following debt can never be repaid. Without the long-suffering patience and the stalwart support of James H. Clark, Director of the University of California Press, I fear it is unlikely that the book would ever have seen the light of day. Many thanks as well to Mari Coates. Elsa and Jonathan Sands provided much appreciated support at an early stage. Over the last years, I have been grateful for the friendship, support, and intellectual stimulation of Robert and Katherine O’Brien, Ken Rose, and Jeanne Lawrence. I first conceived of writing a biography of Harry Kessler a number of xiv AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S years ago while sitting in a children’s playground in the Richmond dis- trict of San Francisco. By my side then and in all the years since has been Maria, whose intelligence, good cheer, encouragement, and love have nourished me throughout the long journey. My daughter Natasha has lived with this project all of her life, enduring its ups and downs, toler- ating endless chatter about it, and helping her father remember that one cannot simply write the life of another— one must live one’s own life as well. To both of them, I go down on my knees in love and gratitude. AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S xv This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank i n t r o d u c t i o n Art and Politics in Modern Germany You will write the memoirs of our time. It therefore behooves you to meet everybody who is important in all walks of life. I envy our grandchildren who will be able to read this. Richard Dehmel to Kessler, Tagebuch, September 5, 1901 In the spring 1938 issue of Maß und Wert, the émigré journal founded by Thomas Mann and published in Switzerland, the following obituary appeared: Harry Kessler Sometimes he appeared German, sometimes English, sometimes French, so European was his character. In truth the arts were his home. For he re- acted to everything artistic with a storm like swiftness; even in music, of which he was an ardent enthusiast, he was always first to make a discovery, in this so like his friend Hofmannsthal. From this mastery came the glow of his many-sided being. Through his death a darkness has become palpable, we have been deprived of a great romance: it is a splendid luminosity for which we mourn. Seen purely from a matter of fact viewpoint, he was not, among the in- tellectuals of his day, isolated: A few kept pace with him. But the sharpness and delicacy of his artistic sensitivity, like a moat around an old castle, placed him apart, even within this elite. Be it that he was writing a travel book, a piece for the stage, a biography, or his memoirs or whether acting as a Maecenas or simply living as he wished, it was always art that transpired. Thus he attracted magnetically the 1