Wartime Journalism: 1939-1943nhy Paul de MannEdited by Werner Hamacher, NeilnHertz, and Thomas KeenannLincoln and London: University ofnNebraska Press; 399 pp., $35.00n(hardcover), $15.95 (paper)nResponses on Paul de Man’snWartime JournalismnEdited by Werner Hamacher, NeilnHertz, and Thomas KeenannLincoln and London: University ofnNebraska Press; 477 pp., $40.00n(hardcover), $19.95 (paper)nPaul de Man’s life was “the classicnimmigrant story” (according tonJames Atlas). He arrived in New York inn1948 from his native Belgium andnworked as a clerk at the Doubledaynbookstore in Grand Central Station. Henmet Mary McCarthy, who helped himnto a job teaching French at Bard College.nHe fell in love with one of hisnstudents and they got married. By 1955nhe was a member of the prestigiousnSociety of Fellows of Harvard University.nHe ended his career as SterlingnProfessor of Humanities at Yale. At thentime of his death in 1983 he wasnconsidered one of the most influentialnof the Yale “Hermeneutical Mafia,”nwhich had made “Deconstruction” andn”Literary Theory” terms to conjurenwith.nIn 1987 a young Belgian namednOrtwin de Graef uncovered in Belgiannnewspapers De Man’s wartime journalism,nwritten under the Nazi occupation.nJacques Derrida brought the news tonthe United States. The University ofnNebraska Press agreed to publish thenE. Christian Kopff teaches Greek andnLatin at the University of Colorado innBoulder.nThe Final Solution of thenPhilological Problemnby E. Christian Kopffn”With him the love of country meansnBlowing it all to smithereensnAnd having it all made over new.”n— Robert Frostnmany articles in French and Flemishn(the latter with English translations) thatnDe Man had published from 1939 ton1943, and the editors asked a number ofnliterary critics and scholars to commentnon the publications.nPaul Adolph Michel de Man wasnborn in 1919 in Antwerp, the son ofnRobert de Man, the prosperous head ofnI’Establissement de Man, which manufacturednmedical instruments and X-raynequipment. Young Paul de Man was anstudent of chemistry at the University ofnBrussels. His uncle, Hendrik de Man,nwas the head of the Belgian WorkersnParty and an important socialist. WhennGermany conquered Belgium in 1940,nhe dissolved the party and joined thencollaborationist government. “For thenworking classes and for socialism, thisncollapse of a decrepit world, far fromnnnbeing a disaster, is a deliverance,” henproclaimed. By 1941 he had changednhis mind, left the government, and flednto Switzerland. After the war he wasnconvicted of collaboration and died innexile.nHis nephew, Paul, wrote manynarticles for Le Soir, Belgium’s mostnpopular newspaper, which was controllednby the Nazis after their victory.nHe wrote in French and Flemish fornother papers and journals. Most of hisnarticles were on the arts, especiallyncontemporary literature. The youngnPaul was a Flemish nationalist whonargued that Germany’s victory wasnessential to freeing the German elementnin Belgian society from Frenchninfluence. He reviewed seriously modernistnand philo-Fascist writers. Henwrote an article on “Jews in ContemporarynLiterature” (see box) for annanti-Jewish issue of Le Soir. When thenAllies started to win, he reestablishedncontact with anti-Nazi Belgians. Althoughninvestigated by the victors inn1945, he was not convicted of warncrimes, unlike others who had workednfor Le Soir. He started a publishingnhouse with his father’s money andnwhen it began to fail, he emigrated tonthe United States.nHe left behind more than an agingnand broken father. In 1939 he had metnAnaide Baraghian, the Romanian wifenof fellow student Gilbert Jaeger.nAnaide and Paul fled together to thenPyrenees before the German invasionnand later returned to Belgium to liventogether. They had three childrennfrom 1941 to 1946. By 1948 De Mannhad moved to New York, while Anaidenwent to South America with their threensons. In 1949 De Man procured anposition as instructor of French at BardnCollege, where he soon “fell in lovenwith” a young student. It is not clearnfrom my research whether he wasnSEPTEMBER 1990/29n