Rolf Trauzettel ( 陶策德 ) 訪談

Rolf Trauzettel ( 陶策德 ) 訪談

時間：2011, Jul. 14. 10:30-12:30; 13:30-15:00

地點：Monumenta Serica, St. Augustine.

訪談者：石之瑜、林凱蒂

謄校者：林凱蒂、Marius Gottschlich

Ⅰ. 10:30-12:30

…According to my own will, I concentrate on the文言文(Classical Chinese), on historical, especially later, em, on the later history of the Chinese philosophy.

Q:When did you learn Classical Chinese?

I’ve grown up in the so-called DDR after the WW2. Germany was divided into four parts. But you know the three-western alliance, British, American, French, they formed let’s say some sort of unity. And there was the Soviet Zone,occupiedby the Soviet Union in 1949. It was a change to DDR, German Democratic Republic,but you know it was a sort of dictatorship. And then I grew up. After finishing the secondary school –what we call the “Gymnasium” in German,you can compare it with the Britishgrammar school,it’s the highest type of secondary school – in the end you have to undergo the examination to reach the Abitur[1] or Macula…(2.09),and, this was in 1949. But half a year before, my father had died, and we were four children. There were two elder sons,my elder brother and me, and then six years later, we got a sister, and one year and a half later, we got a lastbrother, too. In the old system in Germany, it was, I think, similar to Chinese situations, that is the wife had not learned any profession, and so we had,with the beginning of 1949, a very difficult situation. My mother had to do some simple homework (i.e. housework). And so, when I finished school, when I was examined for the Abitur, I couldn’t think of studying. And so I became a primary school teacher.

Q: Where was that?

In Leipzig.

Q: Ah, when was that?

That was 1949.

Q: And how old were you in 1949?

19. I was born in 1930. Now I am 81. (laughing)

Q: Very young.

Ya. (laughing)

.

No no, I’ve got certain diseases [read: afflictions], especially my blood circulation is affected by several thromboses, so thatthe circulation, especially in the two legs,is partly broken. And soI have many problems with it.

Q: You're still driving though.

(laughing) Ya.

Q: So in 1949, you became...

In 1949, I became a teacher in a primary school. You cannot understand [read: it’s hard to imagine], that without any professional education in teaching work I could – within three weeks after the summer holidays – that I could start teaching. That is thanks to communist politics, they had removed from their offices hundreds of teachers,because they were members of the National Socialist Party. Even if they were so only nominal and had not done anything bad. So there was a great lack of teachers. And they sought for young people. And I needed to earn money to support my mother, because my two younger siblings went to school at that time. Later on, the situation changed. After finishing the primary school my sister didn't continue to go to school. She started professional training in design,and the younger brother still went to school. My mother at thattime had a job at a great combined architecture bureau as a cleaning lady. And so things had become a little bit easier, so that I could think of studying. And though I tried to get free from my teaching job,what was not without problems, because the so-called Commissioner ofEducationat Leipzig said to me, the lack of teachers is still very great, and if you have undergone (once you have) your teacher’sexamination –at that time I had not fortunately –then you can try to get in so-called “Fernstudium”(distance study) in the university, you would study and at the same time do your job. I don't know how to call this in English. Fernstudium that means you have a contact with a special university,we have one here in our country, in Hagen,that is about 80 kilometers from here, such a specialized university. And, so he told me, then you would have the possibility later on to teach in secondary school, but this, I did not want, and so I thought of a way out. And in a discussion with a friend of mine, who had been a comradefor me through all the school time,and had after his Abitur began to study Indian philology, in the discussion with him, he said to me 'why don't you try to get an interest in oriental languages or oriental culture?' And then I got the idea that it would be right in especially one aspect: I had to study a discipline, the subject of which is not taught in school (meaning it would not lead to continuing teaching in school, which Trauzettel obviously did not want). And so I began to gain an overlook of oriental culture, Arabic, Indian, East Asian [culture],and I came to the conclusion that Chinese culture would most inspire my interests. (laughing) And my second step was to go to the Institute of East Asian Studies at Leipzig University,and I became acquainted with the professors of this institute. I asked whether it would be possible to borrow some literature from the institute, I was interestedin Chinese history and culture. And after this contact had been kept by me for a certain time, I went to the professor and told him about my situation and the problem of getting free from the teachers job, so that I could start studying Sinology. ‘Oh’, he said –at that time they had not many students,later that changed, this I will tell you –‘Oh’, he said, ‘I will write you a sponsor letter (~letter of recommendation?).’ And he did, so I got it.He declared…you know, he swindled a little bit, that I would be highly apt for such a study and he knew me and could affirm theCommissioner of Education that I would stand [read: keep] the obligations and so on. Then I wrote again to thecommissionerof the local school in town (German: Stadtschulrat), and when he read this letter, written by professor Erkes[2], he said "Ah so [read: if it is like that], then I will set you free. But you must get the permission by the Ministry of Education in our provincial capital in Sachsen",which was in Dresden. And so one day I went to Dresden, there was an official of the Ministry of Education,who was informed of what would be my aim. And then he only looked very shortly on the letter of professor Erkes and said ‘okay’ and gave his signature. And so I started withSinology studies at Leipzig University. We had at that time, [still] the old university system (the so called Magister Artium): you had to study a main discipline (major)and two secondary subjects (minors). Later on, when I had become a professor myself and had to give advice to students, I said, don’t do it like me!, I chose Indian Studies,Sanskrit(梵語)and Japanese too, three oriental languages. It's a hard job. So I started, [it was] a very curious situation at the time,which you cannot to understand without comments, that is, at that time the DDR government began to concentrate on certain disciplines at the university's in Berlin. And so they planned and began step by step to finish [read: abolish] studies in Indian [read: Hindi]or Arabic and so on. At that time it was only in the beginning,butit had the effect that young people didn’t join such fields of study,and so my Indian course for 3 years was made up of three people:the German teacher, myself and one fellow student (German: Kommilitone)and this third fellow student was an ordinary in mathematics at our university.

Q: Two of you?

Ya. Two disciples of which one was a professor of mathematics. But this was of great influence some time later, because I never have been inclined to communist ideology, communist politics and so on. Many times I was too free with my words,and so in one semester, I was excluded from university because of such problems. At that time, I had to deliberate with myself going to the west. But at that time my younger brother still went to school. My elder brother was a special case. He wanted to become a painter, an artist. He was a wonderful singer, too. He had visited the so-called Thomas School, which had one of the most famous church ensembles (choir). But he never made (reached) the Abitur. At that time he went to the west,he went to the KarlsruheAcademy of Art. It was very difficult for him, but that was no problem. So I thought it would be no good to leave my mother and my younger brother and sister. My fellow student, the mathematics professor, was successful in studying at Leipzig. I don't know how he did it, but it was he who saved my studies.

Q:So, he was close to the official?

Ya. At that time he was a famous professor. I think he maybe still alive, but I don't know. He went off to western Berlin, but fortunately after saving me.

Q: So, do you recall what you did specifically to release from the university?

We had also to do studies –all students in different disciplines – had to do some courses in Marxism and history of the labor movement in Germany and in politics.

Q: I see.

If you are open minded, you are probably not in every situation aware of the words you use,and at that time they, the Communist Party, had sent a group of communist students to study Chinese. And with them there were many problems. (because Trauzettel is a free thinker and did not support the communist movement, so he got in trouble with the communist students because of some things he said)

Q:I see.

They then were sent to China to be trained in the modern [Chinese] language, but I was not allowed to go to China. I then made an examination, which you can compare with our Master of Arts (M.A.) after five years. But at that time there were other circumstances. The professor, which formally had made it possible that I could study Chinese, had made a proposalto me. You know this was the Eastern system was a planned system, you could not apply for. At that time Stalin still lived, so you could not apply for this or that according to your own inclination, your own wishes and so on. And this professor said "This man, me,should go the university library." That was a…at that time, there was no man who could lead the department of Eastern Asian and Southern Asian culture. And so I became a librarian, I had to continue studying for one more year. This was done in Berlin at the Great DDR National Library, the so-called formal Russian State Library, which still exists nowadays. And there I had to study the methods of cataloging, of bibliography research and administration. Having this finished, I went back to the Leipzig University Library, and I did my job there until the end of 1961. At that time the family situation was much better. And so I thought I should try what I most wanted: to get into the scientific research of Chinese. But in that case I had to go to the west. But in the half year before though, some months before, the Wall (German: die Mauer) had been erected.

Q: So you couldn't go.93:12

So I had to try to leave the DDR,try to findany way to get out. I cannot explain how I succeeded. It was very difficult,through many fortunate chances,getting good advice and getting the hint to a ship for leaving the DDR to Morocco.

Q: A long route.

How the circumstances were on this ship I cannot explain to you. I don't remember well, but I think it is not necessary. At that time I was, 31 years old. And the adventure happened in the beginningof January 1962. It was at Casablanca where I landed, and then went to the German General Consulate there. About 8 passengers of the ship also came to German Consulate,so that we formed a little group. The same day we got a passport of the Federal Republic (of Germany),and the same night we started by plane to Paris and from Paris to Frankfurt.

Q:Did you have to pay or did they?

No, this was paid by our government. I had no penny.

Q:Ya, I can imagine.

Ya. Then I had to decide what to do next. I just had to go to Gießen where they had a center for research on Asia,and there they checked my story, whether it was true what I had told them about my past. And then I had to decide where to go, and I decided to go to Munich,because theretaught the most famous and best sinologist in Germany after World War II, that was Herbert Franke.[3] He died at the age of 96 about three weeks ago.

Q: That was in 1962?

Ya. It was in 1962.

Q: Do you know professor Gottfrield Karl Kindermann?

Ya, very well.

Q:We had a long, long interview with Kindermann, like 50,000 words.

Ya, he had the chair of politics and had specialized on international law, Sun Yatsen, International Relations, (new Munich school of realism ) He was specifically interested in China.

Q: Right. We had one of our classmateswrote a Master thesis on professor Kinderman at my advice.

So according to what you say, he is still alive?

Q:Oh, he lives well, I think. My fellow student had been in his house for two weeks.

Is he still in Munich or…?

Q:Yes.

You know he is Austrian by birth, not German. But he didn't go back to Austria?He stayed in Munich? Have you ever been there?

Q: No.

What a pity, he is one of the finest.

Q: I was close, I was in Tubingen.

Ya, a wonderful place,there were very spared(86:30) with modern glass buildings of twenty floors.

Q: So you actually began your career in Munich.

But where did you interview him?

Q: It was just last year.

Last year. It wasn't you?

Q: It wasn't me. It was my fellow student.

Yes.

Q: She was with him, I think, some time in August or September last year.

Ah ya. Wonderful.

Q: And his wife was from Taiwan. They got together very well.

My professor had good contact to him, and so it was natural that I also got acquainted with him.

Now I had to start anew, I had to do a PhD and I did it with the same combination [of major and minors]I had studied in Leipzig. Herbert Franke, a sinologist, Helmut Hoffmann, a German majorin Indian studies,and Horst Hamitsch, a Germanmajor inJapanese. It was not so easy, because I had done administrative work for a few years only, and you know, one of the teachers in Berlin in librarian techniques and so on,at the beginning of our course, he said,“You should make yourself free from an error frequently made by students like you.Keep in mind that a librarian has nothing to do with the content of the books he loves,he has only to master the techniques that the book will be bought, will be catalogedand will be placed on the shelf. This is your task and nothing else.” Nowadays, you know, things have changed to a great extent. You get the books in special scientific editions, with index cards prepared by the editor with all details you [the librarian] need and according to the standards,which are used inthe libraries. Otherwise, the problemof digitalization of library catalogues would be enlarged.

Q: Get back to Munich. How did you finance your studies?

When I was still working in the Library of Leipzig University, a colleague of mine who was aspecialist,an expert for the Arabic orient -we had a contact to the “GermanOriental Society”. And at that time, or beginning also in the late 1950s,they started a very great endeavorto catalog the whole library. The German Oriental Society knew that in many libraries there wereoriental manuscripts which had not yet been catalogued,and they asked all specialized librarians to look for these things and give basic information. And so that is what we did in the library, my friend the orientalist, and me, we helped them. And so when I was in Munich, the secretary of this society tried to get aScholarship[4]for me. At that time then I knew that this would be the chance of a lifetime, and so I fully concentrated on my studies at that time. And very early I found a topic for my dissertation underProfessor Franke. Now, Professor Franke was a historian of China with overwhelming knowledge aboutnearly all fields (of Chinese history). He had a special interest in the Yuan period and the Mongol Empire. And I think he was and still is, the best expert regarding this historical period. He was an expert in Mongolian studies, too, but he had also studied Japanese. But you know, he, as myself, we trained especially for getting the faculty of using the Japanese to read secondary sources and so on. But he had been seenthat a specialist on Mongol history neededArabic sources,and so he had studied Arabic, too.

For one semester I have studied Mongol, too, but only very superficial. I had had the feeling that I could be favored by my teacher, if I became familiar with Mongol as well.By this teacher I was directed into the field of historical studies of the Chinese, and so I wrote a dissertation on 蔡京, chancellor of the 宋徽宗,at the end of 11thcentury. He was a very problematic figure because he was denounced of bad behavior or bad governments. So I later devoted myself to the Song period, I think it was in respect to intellectual history of traditional China. It is one of the most interesting periods, when the Chinese intellectualsopenedtheir eyes for things different from this strong tradition. Because at that time they had to discern that there is a great difference between what they called the Empire, and what they called the stateguo國. Because you know, at the beginning of the 宋代, they still had in the northern part of China a foreign rule.