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The most varied camps claimed Heine as one of their own, though
most were ultimately compelled to concede that their ends were not
served by his work and thought, and wrote this off to a supposed spineless
unreliability-even at times, in vile fashion, classifying this as a typical fea–
ture of his Jewish ancestry, set off against "Germanic devotion and
constancy." Borne, himself a product of the Frankfurt Ghetto, spoke for
many in expressing the shaky impression Heine aroused: "Heine has no
idea where he is headed, or who his friends and enemies are. He has two
backs, and fears the blows of both aristocrats and democrats." On his
deathbed, the man himself gave added impetus to this mistrust as he
attempted to shock his somber and serious visitors with remarks like "Did
you truly assume that I always hold my opinions?" or "I tend not to put
my errors into action. Who knows when they might still prove useful to
me?" Thus it happened that he found an admirer the likes of Nietzsche
and an enemy in Karl Kraus, both of whom got worked up over his appar–
ently playful juggling with words and images. But he continued to see the
joke as an outgrowth of thought and not as the expression of inane silli–
ness, retiring behind his bons-mots when the pathos ran high.
Such spontaneous ideas made it difficult for a superficial observer to
perceive the unusual continuity of his thought. The man reproached for
irresoluteness by the irresolute remained ever firm in his own beliefs. In
his learned book on Heine, Walter Grab arrives at the conclusion that the
poet remained true throughout his life to Bonapartism, to Hegelian phi–
losophy, and to Saint-Simon's thought. One might perhaps condense all of
this to say that Heine was a socialist monarchist. From today's perspective,
that amounts to two sins over the legallimi t, but the same could be said in
Heine's time. In contrast to his romantic colleagues, Heine was not nos–
talgic for the days of chivalry, his views on the
ancien regime
similar to
Goethe's; his poem "Marie Antoinette" portrays a society of headless
ghosts. He remained an admirer not only of the French Revolution gen–
erally, but especially of Robespierre and Saint-Just, the "mountain
preachers," as he called the montagnards. He, who had nothing of the
ascetic in him, was very circumspect regarding the consequences of the life
he led, as well as that of the German Jacobins. He paid a respectful visi t to
the Georg Forster's garret, and showed the greatest reverence for the last
living German Jacobins whom he met in exile. Ultimately, the July
Revolution took him to Paris, an event that put an end to the Bourbon
restoration. ("I am all joy and song, all sword and flame!") His pen was
sharpest in the struggle against the reactionary German regime, in partic–
ular the Prussian one with its "King of Empires;" this Heine, often a
victim of censorship, is well known. Heine's only
Tendenzgedicht,
"The
Weavers," commissioned by Marx, is also the best-known example of the
