“Schneepart” and Schlachtbeschreibung

Abstract In 1968 Alexander Kluge published an abridged and edited version of his 1964 experimental historiographical ‘novel’ on the Battle of Stalingrad, Schlachtbeschreibung . Right after its publication, Paul Celan purchased the book and offered a response sui generis to it in the poem “Schneepart.” The encounter between these two very different approaches to confronting the destructive political violence of the past gives occasion for a new assessment on the legacy of the debate on montage that took place in the 1930s. The article shows how montage is at work both in Kluge and Celan, and how it can be made viable for hermeneutic practices as well.