Hans Magnus Enzensberger

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what poet does” (Allen Ginsberg). Many poets use poetry to express emotions and real-world problems in their writing. Poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger makes his small private world public through lyric poetry. Hans Magnus Enzensberger poetry is lyric and is based on life in Germany in which he was born and raised in. In Germany, after and during the Second World War, he lived through the truth, the remorse, and the depression. Hans Magnus Enzensberger lyric poetry is used to criticize aspects of postwar Germany, which signifies to celebrating individuality. The aphorism, the term which

The Holocaust and World War II were a humongous hit for Germany and its citizens; many individuals were deeply affected not by being a victim but as a bystander. Everyone in Germany, whether they chose it or not, were affected after the Holocaust and the war with months and years to pass. “We eat the past. We have nothing to conceal, to miss and nothing to say.”(401) “We eat the past” is the hope to move forward and to openly express guilt, remorse and the tragedies. After the war, many people who participated in the Holocaust walked freely throughout Europe. Many SS officers and guards weren’t charged with being involved were able to walk freely. “Violence walked the streets, smiling, not naked. But there were screams in the sky.”(399) Enzensberger expressed his emotions by criticizing the fact that many murders and rapists were granted freedom and didn't face justice. In postwar Germany, many people throughout Europe were dislocated and moved locations; also many were killed during the war or the Holocaust “Vanishing” them. The relocation and death of millions disturbed Europe, but mostly to Germany. The poem “Vanished Works” summaries the people who have “vanished” and their jobs and how it was extinct skills. (402) Enzensberger expresses the loss of identity due to people who made everyday life important evinced and how it

“Middle-Class Blues” expresses the grieving that followed the Holocaust. In “Middle-Class Blues,” the phrase “we can’t complain” is repeated twice. (401) The repetition signifies the importance of the grieving and the truth of remorse. “For the Grave of a Peace Loving Man,” it is the remorse and anger that is expressed toward the victims of the Holocaust who only wished to live in peace. The mood of the entire poem was anger and remorse for the victims because society can’t go back and stop the Holocaust and the second world war. “The thing which he called his peace, now that he’s got it, there is no longer a mouth over his bones, to taste it.”(399) The only peace was death, there wasn’t another way; this was the only result that was left for the people in the concentration camps. Many have witnessed the tragic treatments and deaths in which they did not speak against it. The fear in which was inflicted upon them made many to be silenced, only to help the oppressor. “I have lived to see with my own eyes.”(403) Enzensberger lived and witnessed the tragic treatments and disappearance and expresses it in “Vanished.” The mood of the three poems has a remorse and depressive mood, which reflected the criticising of Enzensberger toward his emotions and