The Last Walk of Ödön von Horváth

A brief personal comment:

When I think back to my studies in Münster and Tours, the works of Ödön von Horváth immediately spring to mind. I have a particularly vivid memory of my professor, whose eyes positively sparkled when he talked about Horváth. His enthusiasm was infectious – I immersed myself in the language of ‘Stories from the Vienna Woods’ and ‘Kasimir and Karoline’. But it was above all the novel Jugend ohne Gott (Youth Without God) that captivated me and never let go. To this day, Horváth's tragic end is all the more distressing for me: at just 37 years old, his life was suddenly cut short on 1 June 1938 in Paris when a falling branch hit him on the Champs-Élysées. Of all things, exile, which was supposed to offer him protection from the Nazi regime, became a death trap for him – a bitter fate. The memorial plaque for Ödön von Horváth at the Théâtre Marigny always triggers deep, sad thoughts in me. Just 200 metres away, the Duc de Morny Library at the Hotel La Réserve Paris offers a dignified retreat. The Japanese Sencha De Mai green tea unfolds its calming effect there.

Paris, 1 June 1938. The city is sweltering in the oppressive heat, with occasional rain showers. Ödön von Horváth had been sitting at the Hôtel de l'Univers at 63 Rue Monsieur-le-Prince with Carl Frucht and Hertha Pauli until dawn. They had been discussing his novel project ‘Adieu, Europa!’ and the need to come to terms with the Germans after a victory over Hitler.

The day before, Horváth had been euphoric. At a meeting with Ernst Josef Aufricht in Montmartre, Aufricht had prophesied worldwide success for his plays, which had not been published since 1933. ‘Paris brings me luck,’ Horváth had said to his friends, and had decided to extend his stay, which had originally been planned for only five days.

At around midday, he meets with director Robert Siodmak and his wife at Café Marignan on the Champs-Élysées, as arranged. They discuss the possible film adaptation of his novel ‘Jugend ohne Gott’. In view of the gathering storm, Mrs Siodmak offers to drive Horvath back to his hotel. But Horvath, who is uncomfortable at the thought of travelling by car, prefers to walk.

A strange prophecy had led him to Paris. In Amsterdam, a few days earlier, he had met a clairvoyant who, on seeing Horváth, had fallen into a trance and repeatedly conjured: ‘You must go to Paris. You absolutely must go to Paris, and immediately. The decisive event of your life awaits you there.’ Horváth, who had a penchant for the occult and the uncanny, followed this call.

At around 7 p.m., he crosses the street at the Rond-Point, opposite the Théâtre Marigny. Maurice Gozard, a street sweeper, will later state that he noticed the tall, somewhat stocky gentleman in a group of seven other pedestrians. When a storm suddenly breaks out, Gozard takes refuge in the foyer of the Marigny Theatre. From there he hears a scream. A rotten elm uprooted by a gust of wind falls on the gentleman, smashing the back of his head. The other passers-by manage to jump aside just in time.

The tree is lying across Horváth's back, blood seeping through his light raincoat. While bystanders claim that he was killed instantly, Gozard will later officially testify that Horváth did not die until around 7:30 p.m. at the Hôpital Marmottan at 19 Rue d'Armaillé. The report was also signed by Jules Henri Leclerc, the deputy mayor for the 17th arrondissement of Paris and a knight of the Legion of Honour.

Meanwhile, Hertha Pauli and Carl Frucht waited in vain in the bistro. ‘It was getting late. Was Ödön just late or had he forgotten?’ Pauli later noted. They only learned of his death the next morning from a report in the morning edition of the daily newspaper Le Figaro: ‘A storm that hit Paris last night caused several accidents. On the Champs-Élysées, it blew down a plane tree. Seven people who were under it were able to save themselves, except for a Hungarian, whom it killed’.

The funeral took place on 7 June 1938 at the Saint-Ouen Cemetery, at the far end of the grounds, near a marshalling yard. A mortician with a wooden leg, who later turned out to be a fraud, organised the ceremony. Manfred George spoke for the Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller, Jacques Maritain represented the French colleagues.

A long line of taxis escorts the coffin to the cemetery, passing the Paris flea market and the scene of the fatal accident. Among the mourners are Horváth's parents, who have travelled from Vienna, his brother Lajos from Zurich, and numerous writers in exile: Hermann Kesten, Erwin Piscator, Joseph Roth (who will die in Paris almost exactly a year later), Franz Werfel and Carl Zuckmayer. At the grave, which can only be reached through a rear entrance because construction work is taking place at the main entrance, Walter Mehring and the French translator Armand Pierhal, with whom Horváth had planned to work on 2 June, give speeches. A Hungarian priest who has travelled here from Budapest scatters ‘soil from Hungary’ into the grave. While it is raining incessantly, the signals of the shunting locomotives penetrate from the railway tracks.

Fifty years later, in 1988, Horváth's mortal remains – a few bone fragments, his skullcap and a large thigh bone – were repatriated to Vienna in a child's coffin. The playwright was laid to rest in a grave of honour in the Heiligenstadt Cemetery. The Mayor of Vienna spoke the conciliatory words: ‘Ödön von Horváth is finally at home.’

A marble plaque on the façade of the Théâtre Marigny commemorates that fateful June evening when one of the most important German-language playwrights of his time was taken from us in such an absurd way – an end that, in its fateful irony, could have come from one of his own plays.

Memorial plaque at the Théâtre Marigny (photo: Klaus Lintemeier)

After his death, a poem that he had written on a cigarette packet was found in his coat pocket. I find it difficult to understand why this personal legacy is not included on the memorial plaque:

Und die Leute werden sagen In fernen blauen Tagen Wird es einmal recht Was falsch ist und was echt Was falsch ist, wird verkommen / Obwohl es heut regiert Was echt ist, das soll kommen / Obwohl es heut krepiert.

These words from the play ‘Zur schönen Aussicht’ (‘Le Belvédère’) are written in French on the plaque:

Et les gens vont dire

Que dans un lointain avenir

On saura discerner

Le faux et le vrai

Que le faux disparaîtra

Alors qu'il est au pouvoir,

Que le vrai adviendra

Alors qu'il est au mouroir.

(1938)

Odon von Horvath, dramaturge et écrivain de langue allemande, né en 1901, mort le premier juin 1938 face au théâtre Marigny tué par une branche de marronnier arrachée par la tempête. Hommage de son éditeur Thomas Sessler Verlag, Vienne, le 3 juin 1998

Literature

Hildebrandt, Dieter (1975): Ödön von Horváth. – Rowohlt.

von Horvath, Ödön (1937, 2009): Jugend ohne Gott. – Reclams Universal-Bibliothek.