About Sinn und Form

Sinn und Form

Sinn und Form – Beiträge zur Literatur ("Sense and Form – Contributions to Literature") is a bimonthly literary and cultural magazine published in Berlin by the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts). Launched in 1949 and still in circulation, it describes itself as one of the definitive cultural journals in Germany — a title whose seventy-five-year history spans the founding of the GDR, the Cold War, reunification, and the Berlin Republic. Its digital home is sinn-und-form.de.

Overview

Sinn und Form is a literary magazine in the high-cultural tradition: alongside literature, the philosophical and political essay and conversations with significant authors, artists, and philosophers occupy an important space. It covers articles on poetry and philosophy, anthropology and theology, and the relations between art and science — providing essays, poems, stories, diaries, letters, and conversations on these topics. The sold circulation is 3,000 copies; the editor-in-chief is Matthias Weichelt; the ISSN is 0037-5756.

During the GDR era the magazine held special significance because it was considered relatively liberal. Unlike many other media, as an organ of the East Berlin German Academy of Arts (from the end of 1950), it was not subject to prior censorship — a privilege that made it a unique space in the GDR press landscape.

History

The magazine appeared from the beginning of 1949 in West Berlin, edited by Johannes R. Becher and Paul Wiegler. That the licence had been granted by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and that its seat belonged to the Soviet-controlled Berliner Rundfunk was initially concealed. The first editor-in-chief was Peter Huchel (1949–1962); he was followed by Bodo Uhse (1963), Wilhelm Girnus (1964–1981), Paul Wiens (1982), and Max Walter Schulz (1983–1990). Since 1991 Sebastian Kleinschmidt was editor-in-chief; in September 2013 Matthias Weichelt, who had worked in the magazine's editorial office since 2006, took over the post.

The magazine was originally to be called Maß und Wert ("Measure and Value"), after the exile magazine founded by Thomas Mann — but Mann did not release the title. (Whether it was then named after Form and Sense, the publication conceived in Mexican exile by the Austrian painter and author Wolfgang Paalen, is unclear.) Johannes R. Becher conceived the magazine as an organ of understanding for intellectuals and as a cultural showcase of the later GDR to the outside world. Nevertheless, the magazine was not a party organ and also printed texts by young authors who otherwise had no opportunity for publication in the GDR.

The magazine stood under constant observation but was not censored. Following the appearance of unwelcome contributions, party proceedings were sometimes threatened against editors. In mid-1988, after the publication of a Stalinism-critical text that Becher had written as early as 1957, a ban on the magazine was under discussion. Already in the 1950s Sinn und Form was strongly criticised politically, directed above all against editor-in-chief Peter Huchel. Huchel had in Bertolt Brecht an influential advocate; after Brecht's death he was forced to resign in 1962.

Some critics hold that the relative liberality of the paper in GDR times was primarily aimed at external effect. Dieter Noll, who declined the offer to become editor-in-chief in 1981, assessed this strategy in a Stasi-file statement as a deliberate display: the magazine as a representative paper of the Academy, where an eye was now and then deliberately closed — which appeared pleasantly liberal abroad and expressed a non-repressive cultural policy. The former editor-in-chief Sebastian Kleinschmidt states that Sinn und Form always found a stronger echo in West Germany than in the East; part of the print run was sent free of charge to the West in GDR times.

In 1975 a novel by Volker Braun entitled Unvollendete Geschichte ("Unfinished Story") was published in the magazine — but the novel was not published as a book in East Germany and appeared in print book form only in 1998. The episode illustrates the magazine's role as the place where what could not yet appear as a book could appear as a journal contribution.

After reunification the magazine continued under the Akademie der Künste of reunified Berlin. On 23 February 2023 the Berlin Regional Court ruled that the Akademie der Künste could not initially continue publishing the magazine: the background was a lawsuit by the magazine Lettre International and its editor-in-chief Frank Berberich, arguing that the Academy used public funds to produce the magazine, creating a competitive advantage. The court objected that the Academy's statutes did not sufficiently clarify the question. After overcoming the formal obstacles the court had identified, the magazine was able to resume its usual publication rhythm in May 2023.

The magazine has been the subject of scholarly analysis: Stephen Parker and Matthew Philpotts's "Sinn und Form": The Anatomy of a Literary Journal (De Gruyter, 2009) and Matthias Braun's Die Literaturzeitschrift "Sinn und Form": Ein ungeliebtes Aushängeschild der SED-Kulturpolitik (Edition Temmen, 2004), among others, have anatomised its institutional history.

Content

Sinn und Form publishes essays, poems, stories, diaries, letters, and conversations on poetry and philosophy, anthropology and theology, and the relations between art and science. The philosophical and political essay and the conversation with significant authors, artists, and philosophers are its signature forms — the magazine as a salon in print, where literature meets reflection.

The digital archive makes this heritage accessible: issues since 2019 are available online as PDF downloads, and — on the occasion of the magazine's 75th anniversary in June 2024 — all issues from 1949 to 1991 were digitised and made accessible. Peter Richter wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "It is truly a treasure being raised here: 4,000 contributions."

Coverage & Audience

Sinn und Form appears every two months in Berlin with a sold circulation of 3,000 copies. The audience is the literary and intellectual public — readers of essays, poetry, and cultural criticism, and the academic community that has made the magazine an object of scholarly study. In GDR times its echo was stronger in West Germany than in the East, and part of the print run was sent west free of charge; today its readership spans the reunified country's literary public.

Ownership

Sinn und Form is published by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. The editor-in-chief is Matthias Weichelt, who succeeded Sebastian Kleinschmidt in September 2013. The Academy's publication of the magazine was the subject of the 2023 legal dispute with Lettre International, resolved in May 2023 when the magazine resumed its usual rhythm after the formal statutory obstacles were cleared.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is sinn-und-form.de, where issues since 2019 are available as PDF downloads and — since the 75th anniversary in June 2024 — all issues from 1949 to 1991 have been digitised and made accessible: 4,000 contributions from three quarters of a century of German literary and cultural history, freely available.

From the concealed SMAD licence of 1949 through the Huchel years, the GDR's "relatively liberal" journal, the 2023 court-ordered interruption, and the digitised archive of 2024, Sinn und Form has remained one of Germany's definitive cultural journals — the Academy of Arts' bimonthly contribution to literature, philosophy, and the conversation between them. Seventy-five years after Becher and Wiegler's founding, it still appears every two months in Berlin. The Akademie der Künste's continued publication — resumed in May 2023 after the court-ordered interruption — secures the magazine's place in Germany's cultural landscape for the years ahead.