life. By contrast,the workers long to escape the confinements of factory and
tenement for the thrill of demonstrations and street battles. Rightwing fantasies
about hardeningthe soldierlybodyinmilitary battle mayhaveanemotional
equivalent in the communist ethos of discipline and sacrifice, but the latter’s
dreams ofrevolution alsoextendto the processes of massification that cause
theFreikorpsmen’shorror of floods, streams,and bodies. In both cases, neither
the projections of femininity nor the introjections of masculinity can be reduced
to ataxonomyofgendered stereotypes in fictional,autobiographic, and histori-
cal writing.Instead, the role ofgender asamarkerofdifferencecan be utilized to
reveal how the revolutionary fantasy is continuouslyrevised in line with chang-
ing emotional and ideological needs.
This latterpoint is confirmed byacomparison of the 1930 and 1952versions
of Marchwitza’sStorm overthe Ruhrand the postwar fate of the story ofayoung
communist worker between two women,adomineering and overprotective work-
ing-class mother andaspoiled petty-bourgeois fiancée withaSocial Democratic
father.²⁵In the originalversion,Franz Kreusat breaks up with his fiancée early
on, persuades his mother to paymoreattentionto politics, and brieflymeets
up withaprettyArbeitersanitäterin(a red nurse, inFreikorps lingo) working
for the RedRuhr Armybefore he dies heroicallyonthe battlefield of class strug-
gle. Significantly, the narrator first introducesFranz Kreusat,his best friendFritz
Raup, and their fellow workers asmere supporting characters in the female-do-
minated worldofthe tenement.Herewomen either scream, quarrel, orgossip
andgenerallytreat men likechildren–justification for theirsubsequent place-
ment outside history and politics.QuestioningFranz’smasculinity,Theres,the
neglected fiancée, resents his friendshipwith Fritz Raup, while his mother con-
stantlyworries about his whereabouts.His oppositionto femaleinfluences and
reactionary forces–both of which seemto have the samedetrimental effect on
working-classmen–begins duringabrief imprisonment for political activities:
“Franz forgothis mother.Hestood stilland staredatthe stonysilent walls. His
face lost its soft,tenderexpression, became hard, and seemed to turn into stone.
He clenched his teeth tightly.”²⁶The camaraderie in the RedRuhr Armyempow-
An autobiographical reading might connect the fear of/longingfor the maternal inTheBurn-
ingRuhrto Grünberg’smarriagetoawidow (with four children) fifteenyears his senior;heleft
her forayoungerwoman with similar political interests wholater became his secondwife.
Hans Marchwitza,Sturm auf Essen. DieKämpfe der Ruhrarbeiter gegenKapp,Watter und Se-
vering,with preface byFrank Rainer(Cologne: Kiepenheuer&Witsch, 1972), 87.Henceforth all
quotes from the 1972 edition willappear in thetext in parentheses (SE). The reprints from
1976,1979, and 1980 confirm the book’srelevancetoWest German leftistmythmakingand re-
gionalRuhr history.
190 Chapter 9