THE MISSION (Die Mission)

Novel by Hans Habe, 1965

Hans Habe's novel The Mission, published in German as Die Mission in 1965 and in English translation in 1966, was intended to be a reminder of the nearly forgotten Évian Conference of 1938. The purpose of the conference, which took place at the initiative of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was to discuss the Jewish refugee problem, which had become even more urgent with the German annexation of Austria. Fascist Germany refused to participate but suggested unofficially that it was willing to sell the freedom of Jews. It was the mission of the Vienna medical practitioner Heinrich Neumann to get support for the proposal. The vast part of the international public never had knowledge of the German proposal, and the politicians gathered in Évian-les-Baines, France, opposed it.

As a League of Nations correspondent, Habe reported on the conference throughout July 1938, and his articles were published in the Budapest newspaper Ujság. Prior to the conference he had learned about the mission of Neumann, who had been a friend of the family, and the novel was meant to be a tribute to him. From an artistic standpoint Habe's intent was to give to this singular event a universal significance. At the time he was working on a cycle of novels that dealt with the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins, and he devoted The Mission to the "lethargy of the heart," the sin he believed to be the most significant. In the epilogue to the novel he wonders, "Does a man whose heart is too sluggish to stop the wheel of disaster become an accomplice of the disaster?" His answer is yes, for guilt, he concludes, is always individual. While there may not be collective guilt, there is, however, collective complicity: "The bad happens because it is quietly tolerated by the good."

The Mission is a historical novel, and Habe wants to tell a story that adheres closely to the facts, which is why he adds a documentary appendix. In the novel the private life of the physician is rendered as fiction, enabling Habe to express Neumann's "mission" in symbolic terms. His personal mission becomes the mission of an entire people and its history, especially significant since he, as an assimilated Jew, has forsaken his people. At first Neumann hesitates to accept the idea of being a "new Moses," and thus he initially fails to perform his task. In this sense his mission confronts the question of the dignity of mankind and, in so doing, seeks to create an identity for Neumann that goes beyond his fame and success as a doctor: "He himself—what was that?" The physician is unable to heal the disaster of his times, just as he cannot overcome his own frailty. Returning from his mission, he dies of a heart attack; the physical failure of his own heart corresponds to the world's moral failure to respond to the crisis confronting the German Jews. His personal dignity is saved, however. He has not gained advantages for himself or his family, and he has avoided becoming an accomplice of the fascists. Instead, he has fulfilled his true mission by demanding some form of accountability: "Those who are Jews force the world to take sides—maybe this is the core of anti-Semitism."

In 1967 the novel served as the basis of a successful television production, "Die Mission," directed by Ludwig Cremer and with a screenplay by Jochen Huth.

—Walter Schmitz