literaryconventions might turn off some readers,Göhre in turn useshis introduc-
tion to the bookto prevent misreadings of the workers’ voice:“There are hardly
anyemotional outbursts, feelings, sentiments, opinions–these are onlyex-
pressed in the form of actions. One experiencesthese thingsbywitnessing
them. [...]Amusingremarks are entirely missing;big political, religious, econom-
ic, scientific, artistic ideas, too;the same holds true for references to his inner
life. Of course, no one ever told the man that it would be of anysignificance.”²¹
Göhre’sconclusion that Fischer“to this dayisstill notaSocial Democrat,still
claims for himselfastrongreligious conviction, and stillisfilled with reverence
for the emperor”²²maybereadasexplanation for theauthor’sliterary shortcom-
ingsorasaffirmation of the compatibility of conservative and social reformist
positions in the studyofthe workingclass.
Encouraged by the critical success ofRecollections,Göhre used MoritzWil-
liam Theodor Bromme’s Lebensgeschichteeines modernen Fabrikarbeiters
(1905,Life Story ofaModernFactoryWorker)tolaunchabook series on workers’
Lebensgeschichtenfor the EugenDiederichsVerlag.Known for beautifullyde-
signed books andapenchant for neoromantic literature, the publisher initially
called the series“Life andKnowledge,”in line with its lifereform commitments,
but then startedanew series under the more openlypolitical heading“On the
Social Question.”Once again, thegoal for Göhre was“to spread basic informa-
tion about the real life of today’sproletariat,and do so through the quill of the
proletarians themselves.”²³Aware of the mediations necessary for turning the
worker-writer intoadiscursive subject, he earlyondecided to alter the original
title, replacing“Social Democratic factory worker”with“modern factory work-
er,”presumablytomake the book more acceptable toabroader readership.
By comparingvarious manuscriptversions ofanumber of workers’life writings,
the GermanistBernd Neumann has reconstructed in great detail what would
soon become the norm for most of these projects:changed titles, rearranged sec-
tions, extensive cuts, modified dialects, and corrections of orthography, gram-
Paul Göhre, Introductionto Karl (or Carl) Fischer,Denkwürdigkeiten und Erinnerungen eines
Arbeiters(Leipzig:Diederichs,1903), vi.Foraclose readingofthe text,see Jost Hermand,“Carl
Fischer,Denkwürdigkeiten und Erinnerungen eines Arbeiters (1903–1905),”inUnbequeme Liter-
atur.Eine Beispielreihe(Heidelberg: Lothar Stiehm, 1971), 87–106.OnFischer,also seeFrank
Woesthoff,Prolet Pietist Prophet. Die“Denkwürdigkeiten und Erinnerungen eines Arbeiters”von
Carl Fischer (1841–1906)(Göttingen: Wallstein, 1995).
Göhre, IntroductiontoFischer,Denkwürdigkeiten,xi.
Paul Göhre, Introduction to MoritzWilliam Theodor Bromme,Lebensgeschichte eines mod-
ernenFabrikarbeiters(Leipzig: Diederichs, 1905), v–vi.
Re/WritingWorkers’Emotions 149