Address Unknown

Address Unknown begins as a series of warm, friendly letters between two men who have known each other for a long time. Max and Martin moved to America in the period following World War I. With Germany in economic turmoil, they built a successful art business in San Francisco. The letters contain hints of the warmth of their friendship, especially when discussing their business. Max also hints at his less than scrupulous attitude, describing how he is content to sell bad art to wealthy old women because there will always be someone willing to do so. This, he says, is one of life’s “necessities.” To the two men, this unscrupulous business mindset is a harmless joke, something that illustrates the breadth and depth of their friendship.

Max attributes Martin’s return to Germany to his failure to integrate culturally in America. Max suggests that Martin has “never become American” despite spending years in the country (5). Despite his success, Martin craves a sense of belonging. He feels like an outsider in America, whereas Max is able to settle with relative ease. The contrasting experiences of these Germen men in the United States hint at the problems experienced by Jewish people in Germany before this time. Martin, like many of his countrymen, does not regard Jewish Germans as wholly German. As such, people ostracize and deny German Jewish individuals complete entry into the German cultural world. Germans consider them to be somehow separate or different due to The Impact of Paranoia and Fascism.

Max understands the feeling of living in a country and not being entirely accepted by the cultural mainstream. The United States is not his homeland, but the attitudes of the people are not dissimilar to the attitudes of the people in Germany. He is too German to be considered American in America and too Jewish to be considered German in Germany.

The Germany to which Martin returns is very different from the one he left behind. Max asks Martin to clarify reports that he has heard about the Nazi Party. As well as reading about the Nazis in magazines, Max has heard about this new German political movement from other Jewish people. They are rightly fearful that Adolf Hitler is spewing violently antisemitic rhetoric in his speeches. Max hopes that this is exaggeration or misreporting. He is desperate for Martin to settle his nerves and assure him that the country he once loved has not sunk into an antisemitic mire.

Martin cannot deny this. He is initially cautious, stating that he believes that Hitler is “good for Germany” (10). Even in these early stages, Martin reveals the antisemitism that will soon become overt. He praises Hitler for restoring Germany’s economic health and for burnishing the German national identity. Through his propaganda, Hitler has created a (false) patriotic ideal that appeals to wounded Germans like Martin. This reflects how the idea of a strong, powerful, and culturally relevant Germany appeals to men ashamed of Germany’s past failures. Germans are not to blame, Hitler suggests. Instead, he blames Jewish people for betraying Germany. Martin is so desperate to be patriotic that he is willing to accept this patently false and antisemitic argument and to sacrifice Jewish people in the name of national identity.

Max’s pleas with Martin take on an exhausted tone. In Martin’s letters, Max clearly recognizes a vestigial antisemitism that he has experienced his entire life. For Martin, however, such a direct acknowledgement of antisemitism is new. Martin, like many Germans swept up in a frenzy of racist propaganda, has always considered Jewish people to be different. He has been aware of Max’s Jewish identity for a long time, but he has ignored or dismissed it as irrelevant. As he states later in the letters, however, he has always acknowledged its existence and considered it to be preventing Max from truly being German.

Max understands this. While antisemitism might be new to Martin (at least in such explicit terms), Max has been made to deal with this persecution for his entire life. He asks for Martin to “set [his] heart at peace” and deny his fascist ideals (15). More than most people, Max is willing to offer his old friend an exit from antisemitism. However, he cannot make Martin see the pain that Nazism and antisemitism cause. Through his letters, Max appeals to any traces of empathy that Martin may have left, and Martin reaffirms his belief in Nazism. Through them, the story explores The Loss of Friendship and Family.

After, the letters take on a more desperate tone. Earlier, Max and Martin discussed Max’s sister, Griselle. There are hints that she and Martin engaged in a romantic relationship, possibly an extramarital affair; this is suggested when Martin thanks Max for his silence during “our stormy affair” (8).

Griselle is an actress working in Austria. She takes a role in a play in Berlin and insists on accepting the role, even though her Jewish identity makes her a target for antisemitic abuse. Max pleads with Martin to look out for her “for old friendship's sake” (17). Martin fails him. He reveals that his burgeoning antisemitism is more important to him than any friendship he might once have shared with Max.

Martin’s complete lack of empathy is illustrated in the tone of the letter that describes Griselle’s death. After three unanswered and increasingly desperate letters from Max, Martin responds with a letter that begins “heil Hitler.” Martin opens a letter that describes Griselle’s death at the hands of antisemitic Nazi soldiers with a declaration of support for the Nazi leader. He then describes Griselle as a “fool” for coming to him for sanctuary. He is unable to empathize with her desperation or feel any emotion about her death. She comes to him in desperation, and he dismisses her, criticizing her for placing his family in danger. When the soldiers chase her down and shoot her, Martin feels nothing. The tone of his letter suggests that he cannot even conceive of Max feeling anything for his sister’s death. He shows no affection or consideration for his old friend, just a blunt directness that places no value on Griselle’s life or the despair that Max must feel. By this point, Martin simply does not care; he has dehumanized Max and Griselle, the way that many others dehumanized Jewish individuals under the Nazi regime.

After Griselle’s death, Max’s letters change. Max is no longer desperate, nor is he still hopeful that his old friend might have a change of heart. Griselle is dead, but so is any lingering affection Max once felt for Martin. Martin’s last gloating letter about Germany’s “Glorious Leader” is written in December 1933. In January 1934, Max enacts his revenge. His style of communication changes. Beginning with a direct telegram about their business, he makes significant changes to his style. Firstly, he begins to sign any communication with his surname rather than his given name. He hopes that the name Eisenstein will emphasize his Jewish identity, far more so than the Germanic name Max. He seeks to remind Martin—or anyone reading—that he is a Jewish man and that he refuses to be anything else.

Next, his letters emphasize a non-existent familial connection between himself and Martin. He reminds Martin of their grandma's birthday and refers to Martin as his “dear brother,” which would mean that Martin is also Jewish. He includes oddly specific lists of paintings and business operations. Through this series of letters, Max wants to imply that he and Martin are engaged in a secretive Jewish resistance against the Nazi government. The letters emphasize a connection to Jewish people that Martin does not have, but that marks him as suspicious in the bigoted, antisemitic Nazi state.

The letters imply the existence of a code. While there is no secret code in the sense of hidden instructions, there is subtextual meaning to Max’s letters. He knows that Martin understands the falseness of the letters. Both men know that they do not share family members and that the business operations and painting dimensions are essentially meaningless. This meaninglessness is the code; Max is showing Martin that he is acting deliberately and that he is punishing Martin for Griselle’s death. The secret meaning of the letters can be understood only through the history of friendship the two men share.

Through these final series of letters, Max enacts a punishment for his old friend. He weaponizes the antisemitism that triggered Martin’s Radicalization, or adoption of radical social and political beliefs. At the same time, he turns the paranoia and the hatred of the Nazi state against one of its biggest supporters. Martin knows that he is not Jewish and that he is not plotting against the government. The merest hint of suspicion, however, is enough to condemn him to death. He does not care when the Nazis kill Jewish people, as he believes that their lives are a tolerable sacrifice in the name of German success. When this hatred is turned on him, however, he is forced to experience its horror. Max shows Martin his hypocrisy, but Martin never understands. At no point is he regretful, nor does he seek atonement for his actions. Max loses a friend, a sister, and his home country. Martin, eventually, loses everything he has.