Anonymous
THE ORIGINAL SIN OF THE INTELLECT
Who am I? I doubt whether I still know myself. I opposed
the Hitler regime, and, because I could not prove my Aryan descent
and belonged to an outlawed anthroposophical society, I had the
status of an opponent. When the Soviets captured me during the
war, however, they immediately took me to a Moscow prison to
make me confess that I was really a ranking SS officer. Three years
later, in 1947, another prisoner was sent to the mines for two years
because he refused to confess that I was an American agent. Yet
in 1950 the Soviets, through the East Berlin Politburo, entrusted me
with the position of professor at the University of Leipzig. Now,
finally, after fleeing to West Berlin from a warrant for my arrest, I
am
suspected of being a Russian agent and have been denounced to
the police as a criminal against humanity. Through State Security
Police channels, the Soviets explained to my brother in East Berlin
that I had been an "American agent" for a long time.
Who am I, then? Until now I have believed that the earth had
only two hemispheres. I believed that there was progressive evolu–
tion through the struggle of opposites, because I was surrounded and
pervaded by opposites. I had no idea, however, that the dialectical
unity of opposites was what I have pictured above.
Three years I was on the road, going from the Ukraine to the
Caucasus and back. I was taken prisoner in one minute, and my
flight from the Rumanian border to Moscow lasted only a few
hours. It took me seven years to advance from the status of a prisoner
of war in a Moscow cell in 1944 to that of a Soviet trusty in Berlin
