Hugo Ball, photographed in 1926
Image: Picture Alliance
Anyone who labels Hugo Ball, the initiator of Dadaism, as an anti-Semite does not do him justice. His case shows that we can neither re-educate our cultural past nor shake it off with gestures of rejection. A guest post.
Nfter the composer Richard Wagner (2013), the reformer and church founder Martin Luther (2017) and the painter Emil Nolde (2019), this year Hugo Ball, the initiator of Dadaism, critic of Prussian-German militarism and later rediscoverer of early Christian mysticism, accused of anti-Semitism. The filmmaker and essayist Hito Steyerl, a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, who was honored with the Hugo Ball Prize by the city of Pirmasens, Ball’s birthplace, returned it after coming across statements in Ball’s writings that she perceived as anti-Semitic.
The city of Pirmasens then suspended the awarding of the prize, agreed with Hito Steyrl on a public discussion of the topic and thanked her for having “initiated this important debate on the subject of anti-Semitism”. On January 23rd, a panel discussion took place in the Festhalle in Pirmasens – but how to proceed: whether a Hugo-Ball prize will ever be awarded again, whether the Hugo-Ball-Gymnasium can keep its name and the Ball-Kabinett can show its exhibition , is written in the stars.
#Helmuth #Kiesel #allegations #antiSemitism #Hugo #Ball