4 - The Discourse of Discontent: Politics and Dictatorship in Herta Müller's Herztier (1994)

Summary

AMONG THE GERMAN-ROMANIAN writers who tried to start a new life and career in the Federal Republic of Germany, Herta Müller is currently the most successful but also the most controversial. In 1987 she left Romania after she and her husband at the time, the poet Richard Wagner, had endured persecution under Ceauşescu's totalitarian regime. In Germany, as she stated in many interviews, she and Wagner wanted to be accepted as political refugees, not as ethnic Germans. Müller and Wagner's application for political asylum complicated and delayed the process of establishing their status in Germany, since German immigration officials were looking for proof of German ethnicity — even if it meant a family member's collaboration with Nazi Germany or looking up the old Volkslisten records. As disturbing as it might seem, checking Nazi lists was still a common procedure for proving German ethnicity. Both Müller and Wagner could prove easily that they were ethnic Germans; indeed, Müller's father and uncle had been in the SS during the Second World War.

Not only did Müller irritate German immigration officials; she confused German critics, as well. In Germany she continued to write novels and essays on Romanian topics, seemingly shying away from German realities after a first, much criticized attempt in 1989, when Rotbuch published Reisende auf einem Bein, a novel based on the experiences of an Eastern European immigrant in Germany. German critics approached her work hesitantly, revealing a limited insight into the Romanian or German-Romanian context.