Ensslin, Grudrun (editor).

[RARE DOCUMENT OF RAF PREHISTORY] Gegen den Tod: ein Lesebuch für Unerschrockene. 41 Autoren aus West und Ost über die Bombe [Against death: a reader for the intrepid. 41 authors from West and East about the bomb]. Original promotional poster.

Berlin [and Tübingen: Studio Neue Literatur, 1964]. Single leaf, 59.4 × 40 cm. Horizontal crease; else good or better. Item #55256

Gudrun Ensslin, who grew up as the daughter of a pastor and died as one of the main initiators of RAF terror, ran the publishing house “Studio Neue Literatur” for a short time with her fiancé Bernward Vesper. The name of the small publishing house echoes the name of the journal “Neue Literatur”, which Bernward's father, Will Vesper, published as a leading Nazi literary periodical as an avowed National Socialist poet. Will Vesper's novel “Das harte Geschlecht” (The Hard Line) – which tells of autochthonous, militant Germanic peoples who “fight back” against the Christianization of the north – was not the only one of the defining figures of Nazi cultural policy. As a fanatical anti-Semite, Vesper joined the NSDAP as early as 1931, gave a speech at the book burning in Dresden, and was the regional director of the Reich Chamber of Culture.

The two German studies students founded the small publishing house in 1962, shortly after Will Vesper's death. In addition to the anthology “Against Death”, they published a volume of poetry by Franco supporter Gerardo Diego and one volume of a planned Will Vesper Complete Edition, of which no further volumes were published. Ensslin praised the project of the complete works in the neo-Nazi journal “Das deutsche Wort” in September 1963 as a “task for national Germany” and characterized her fiancé's father as the “most lovable, entertaining, and witty poet that Germany has had in this century.”

By contrast, the list of authors in the anthology "Gegen den Tod" (Against Death) reads like a list of liberal and left-wing intellectuals from the young Federal Republic of Germany. Among them are Nelly Sachs, Erich Fried, Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, and Heinrich Böll. The relationship between Bernward Vesper and Gudrun Ensslin ended when Ensslin met Andreas Baader, with whom she set fire to a department store in 1968. This action marked the beginning of the RAF. In his unfinished text “Die Reise” (The Journey), Bernward Vesper deals with his relationship with Ensslin and his father, among other things. The fragments were written during LSD trips lasting several hours with the help of audio tapes and were published several years after Bernward Vesper's suicide in a psychiatric clinic and in the midst of the German Autumn.

The poster offered here is a very rare and interesting testimony to the RAF's prehistory.

Price: €500.00

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