The Nexus of Biography and Politics in Uwe Johnson's Das dritte Buch uber Achim (1961)

In Das dritte Buch uber Achim, Uwe Johnson describes the attempt by his protagonist, the West German journalist Karsch, to fuse the writing of a biography of Achim T., a sports celebrity on the road to political prominence, with an analysis, and ultimately a criticism of his hero's political context, the former German Democratic Republic. Karsch adopts the view that his hero stands to his political environment in a synecdochic relationship. To underpin this interpretation, Karsch's initial method is to approach Achim's career teleologically, implying an ultimate harmony between the private and public sphere. Karsch's method, and the enterprise as as whole, fail. This article analyzes the specific difficulties of Karsch's initiative, and the deeper reasons for its failure. Johnson's working methods and his politically ambivalent stance vis-A -vis both the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany are investigated. Insights of a general nature are gained concerning the process of writing biographies, beyond the immediate circumstances of the text under consideration.