The Blue Stain

Carlo, the son of a white professor and a biracial daughter of former slaves, loses both parents at an early age and grows up in Vienna, Austria. Able to pass for Spaniard or South American among his white peers, he refuses to acknowledge his Black heritage. After losing his fortune as a young adult, he travels to the United States, where he faces great discrimination and must reckon with his long-ignored identity amidst the fight for civil rights.

Carlo’s Blue Stain: A Journey of Acceptance

The title Das Blaue Mal has multiple meanings that connect to the book. Rolf “Carlo” Zeller, the protagonist, is one-fourth Black, with a biracial “mulatto” mother and a white father. The most conspicuous meaning of the title, which translates as “The Blue Stain,” refers to a myth created by late-nineteenth-century eugenicists. These eugenicists posited that mixed-race individuals who were some part Black had a blue, crescent-shaped mark on their cuticles and nails. The “stain” is also metaphorical, relating to the “one-drop rule,” which asserts that any amount of Black ancestry (even “one drop”) in a person makes them Black (Davis). While the one-drop rule is sometimes used in the present day as a way for people with varying amounts of Black ancestry to celebrate their heritage, it was used historically to enforce segregation (including for those who were less than half Black or even were “white-passing”). Much of the conflict in Das Blaue Mal is the result of Carlo struggling with his racial identity, being considered Black by society but not viewing himself as such.

The title Das Blaue Mal can also be translated as “The Blue Time.” This refers to the sadness and depression that Carlo faces when confronted with the racist reality of the segregationist policies of Jim Crow America. This double meaning not only encapsulates the complicated emotions of the book but also exemplifies the nuanced and complicated relationship between the experiences and hardships Carlo faces in America, as well as the perceptions white Americans have of him. The title draws a direct relationship between Carlo’s “mark” and how people distill his entire personality, skills, and ideas down to the meaning they impose upon him by choosing to look for this “blue stain.” The central arc of Das Blaue Mal follows Carl’s relationship with his “blue stain” and how he perceives his race.

Carlo’s perception of his interracial status is influenced even before his birth. Carlo’s mother, Karola, is heavily impacted by the environment in which she grows up. As described in Das Blaue Mal’s opening chapters, Karola experiences racism, violence, and terror, as well as the immediate threat of assault and death before fleeing to New York with Carlo’s father. A lifetime of racial trauma has so affected Karola that she asks Carlo’s father, “Liebster, ist es möglich, daß unser Kindchen kein Neger, kein Mulatte, kein Terzerone wird, sondern ein ganz weißer Mensch wie du?” (Kapitel 4). Zeller denies that their child could be white and consoles her by telling her he will bring Carlo back to Germany with him so that he will not have to experience the racism of America.

Carlo, throughout his childhood and education in Europe, does not consider his race an issue, personally or societally. However, when he travels to America as a young adult, he is denied positions in the workplace and put down in society based on his skin color. No one cares about his intelligence, education, or capabilities. He resents this and refuses to identify with the Black Americans he meets. In a conversation on the train, Jane tells Carlo that the Black community in America needs more people like him. He responds,

Sie brauchen mich? Wozu, wenn ich fragen darf? Gibt es nicht genug schwarze, braune und gelbe Neger, die den weißen Mann bedienen, ihn rasieren, ihm die Stiefel putzen und seine Sklaven sind? Oder soll ich hier im Süden Baumwolle zupfen oder am Ende gar Geistlicher werden und Schwermut, Demut und Ehrfurcht predigen? (Kapitel 25).

His perceptions of Black Americans are influenced by the racist treatment he experiences, and he resents his skin color. This, a reasonable reaction to the overwhelming and incomprehensible horrors of the segregationist South, causes Carlo to reject the offers Jane gives him to work with the Black community, despite accepting her request to join her for dinner. At her house, he meets prominent members of the Black community and agrees to work for and help them.

Carlo’s internal identity conflict comes to a head when a riot breaks out in Atlanta, close to where he is staying. He goes out to protect a home for Black orphaned girls and is wounded, but he survives thanks to Jane and a prominent Black surgeon whom he met earlier. After this act of heroism, Carlo asks Jane to marry him and says definitively,

Jetzt weiß ich, daß ich zu der Rasse meiner Mutter, zum schweren, schwarzen Blut gehöre! Ich werde hierbleiben und für dieses arme Volk leben! Und ich werde ein liebes, schwarzes Mädel nehmen und Kinder haben, die dunkler sein werden als ich, und diese Kinder werden als ganze Menschen aufwachsen und Kinder bekommen, die kaum noch wissen werden, daß auch weißes Blut durch ihre Adern strömt. (Kapitel 26)

In this statement, Carlo identifies with the oppressed Black Americans, whose plight he did not understand until he fought for them. Carlo’s courage and sacrifice allowed him to finally come to peace with the role he wanted to play in the fight for civil rights in America. A reversal from his mother’s wishes that Carlo could be born white, Carlo wishes for his child to be born Black. Here, Carlo displays an intergenerational evolution from fear of the future and social prejudice to stalwart defiance and unbounded courage in the face of racism. He has finally accepted his Blackness, not only for himself but for his family. In doing so, he no longer conceals his “Blaue Mal” as a stain of shame but wears it proudly as a badge of honor.

Critiquing Prejudice and Racism: Zeller’s Observations and Shortfalls

Hugo Bettauer, born a Jew in Austria in the twentieth century, saw persecution and exclusion of members of the Jewish community. His best-known book Die Stadt ohne Juden (1922) examines how a city such as Vienna would fare without its Jewish population. The book shows how many necessary stores would shutter and how many important services would collapse. Bettauer shows just how integral the Jewish community was to Vienna, and just how forgotten this fact was.

Das Blaue Mal was written in the same year, after Bettauer’s extended trip to America, where he received his American citizenship. Bettauer saw the exclusion of Black Americans as similar to the exclusion of Jewish Austrians, and so the book strongly parallels the experiences of these two groups. In Das Blaue Mal, Carlo’s father, Professor Rudolf Zeller, especially notes the similarities with how Jews were treated in Europe when he encounters racism on his trip to America:

Zeller sah um sich, und das Blut wollte ihm in den Adern gerinnen: da, dicht vor ihm, baumelte von dem Ast eines alten Apfelbaumes herab die Leiche des gelynchten Negers…hätten zivilisierte junge Menschen, Studenten, die dereinst Ämter und Würden bekleiden sollten, wirklich einen Menschen ermordet, der im schlimmsten Fall sich etwas zuschulden hatte kommen lassen, was mit einer Tracht Prügel genügend bestraft worden wäre? Lebte er zu Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts oder im Mittelalter? Unwillkürlich erinnerte sich Zeller der Judenverfolgungen in vergangenen Jahrhunderten, der Hexenprozesse, der Inquisitionsgerichte. (Kapitel 3)

Zeller sees the lynching of a Black man and its brutality—how these students had murdered another human being with such savagery. This violent event reminds him of the centuries of persecution faced by Jews in Europe. Throughout the book, Carlo’s intelligence, skill, and ideas are overlooked, and people perceive him only based on his skin color. Like the Jews in Die Stadt ohne Juden, Carlo is only judged by his immutable aspects, not the value he brings to the table.

Although Zeller recognizes the immorality of such violence, whether against Black or Jewish people, his criticism does not fully perceive the extent of the oppression faced by Black Americans at the time. Even as he condemns the violence he sees, he still supports the underlying oppression of Blacks, commenting on their excellence in ‘service’ positions. When an American claims that “der Neger ist ein schwarzes Biest,” Zeller responds,

Was wollt ihr nur von den armen Negern. Ich habe sie als Barbiere, Schuhputzer, Hausdiener, Kondukteure und Matrosen kennen gelernt und finde sie durchaus anstellig, wesentlich höflicher als untergeordnete Bedienstete unserer Hautfarbe und dabei immer gut aufgelegt und drollig. Ich kann sie direkt gut leiden. (Kapitel 1)

Zeller criticizes white Americans’ brutal treatment of Black people and, in the same breath, declares that Black people make excellent subordinates and servants as well as entertaining—always funny and in a good mood. He draws on the “happy Negro” stereotype common to Jim Crow-era entertainment, in which blackface and other offensive minstrel depictions stereotyped Black people as stupid, happy-go-lucky individuals perfectly content with their lot in life.

Zeller views himself as free of bias against Black people and is self-righteous about his alleged objectivity and open-mindedness. When informed about the practice of tarring and feathering (in which a mob would take a person and first cover them in tar, then in feathers) Black people in the town, Zeller is thoroughly vexed and quietly incensed.

Er, der in der Pflanzenwelt die Berechtigung jedes lebenden Fädchens, die Entwicklung von Stufe zu Stufe, das Wachstum aus der Urzelle heraus sehen gelernt hatte, konnte Rassenvorurteile nicht verstehen, durchdrungen davon, daß alles auf der Welt seine tiefe Bedeutung, seine Berechtigung und vor allem die fast schrankenlose Entwicklungsfähigkeit hatte. Für ihn waren die Neger nur Menschen mit anderer Hautfarbe, aber durchaus nicht minderwertig, höchstens auf einer tieferen Zivilisationsstufe stehend, von der aus sie der weiße Gärtner mit Milde und Liebe heben könnte. (Kapitel 2)

As a scientist, Zeller is convinced that he can view humans and race with perfect scientific objectivity. In his mind, he simply views Black people as humans with a slightly different outward appearance, like different strains of the same species of a plant. He claims that, to him, Black people are not inferior, but in the same sentence declares that they are simply on a “lower level of civilization” from which the white man can lift them up, like a gardener tending plants with love. His staunch belief in his lack of personal prejudices is humorously ironic, given his devastatingly obvious, patronizing attitude toward Black people.

During his stay in Georgia, Zeller witnesses scores of aggressions and insults directed at and about Black people. Rising race tensions permeate many of the dinner parties he attends, and he is often shunned for his unwillingness to condone or participate in violence against Black folks. It is not until Zeller witnesses a white mob lynching Sampson, the stepfather of Zeller’s eventual wife (and Carlo’s mother), Karola, that he cannot stomach the racism any longer. He flees Georgia for New York, taking Karola with him. Interestingly, however, it is not his American hosts’ attitudes toward Black people that Zeller cannot stand. He simply thinks that such racial condescension should be carried out with gentle patronization rather than brute force.

Zeller’s lack of self-awareness regarding his attitude toward race and Black people seems comical in its glaring obviousness, but it rings true for many racial conflicts today. In an era where being called “racist” is taken with more offense than actual race-motivated macro- and microaggressions, Zeller’s attitude can be taken as a cautionary tale regarding personal biases. Although Zeller had only good intentions, his refusal to acknowledge the possibility of personal shortsightedness made him a bystander to the death of an innocent Black man. His intention and his impact were separate entities, reminding us to recognize that we can cause harm without meaning to, and thus encouraging personal reflection and responsibility.

The Black Experience in Europe: Connecting Carlo to Angelo

Carlo’s experiences in Das Blaue Mal are further paralleled in Markus Schleinzer’s 2018 film Angelo, based on the life of Angelo Soliman, a Black man kidnapped as a child from sub-Saharan Africa and sold into slavery (Bowersox; Mutschlechner). The film depicts major events of his life: he is chosen from among several other enslaved Black children by a European marchioness as the subject of an experiment: she wants to discover whether Black people can be “cultured” and “educated” sufficiently to be royal courtiers. Angelo learns several languages and instruments and is forced to perform at the whim of the nobles. After his first public flute performance, the marchioness tells Angelo (who is still but a child), “Today you achieved your first grand victory on the path to becoming human.”

The marchioness seems to view herself as a savior of Angelo, rescuing him from a life of backbreaking labor and raising him among the luxuries of the court. Still, she does not recognize his humanity, believing that he is inherently inferior and uncultured, needing herself and white tutelage to truly become “human.” This is reminiscent of Professor Zeller’s attitude regarding the “white gardener”: although he claims to not see Black people as inferior, he, too, believes that there is a baseline difference in culture and intelligence between Blacks and whites, and that, like the marchioness with Angelo, he must do his part to “lift up” people of the Black race from their supposedly lower status.

Within the film, Angelo is characterized by a lack of agency: all his attempts at independence or autonomous action are thwarted by the individuals around him or society at large. Similarly, Karola receives little characterization in Das Blaue Mal; she is mostly seen through the lens of her relationship with Zeller. She is also quite young at the time of their meeting (only fifteen years old) and only sixteen by the time they marry, shortly before Carlo’s birth. Although Zeller and Karola’s relationship is depicted as warm and affectionate, the age gap and Karola’s lack of formal education make it difficult for her to live independently of her husband. Further, both Angelo and Karola face backlash when they choose to marry outside of their race: Angelo is released (fired) from court service, and Zeller is let go from his university position after his and Karola’s interracial marriage makes disapproving headlines. Karola herself dies giving birth to Carlo, and she never really gets the chance to define her own life. This is an echo of the marchioness’s most iconic line to Angelo: “Es ist immer andere Leute, die entscheiden, wer wir für sie sind” (Angelo 19:35-22:25).

Carissa Yu & Isaac Leichty

Works Cited

Bettauer, Hugo. Das Blaue Mal. Project Gutenberg, 1925, www.projekt-gutenberg.org/bettauer/blauemal/titlepage.html.

Bowersox, Jeff. “Angelo Soliman (Ca. 1721-1796).” Black Central Europe, 1 May 2020, blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1750-1850/angelo-soliman-ca-1750/.

Davis, F. James. “Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition.” Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, 1991, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html.

Mutschlechner, Martin. “Angelo Soliman.” Die Welt Der Habsburger, Schönbrunn Group, 2012, www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/angelo-soliman.

Schleinzer, Markus, director. Angelo. Novotny & Novotny Filmproduktion GmbH, 2018.