On the Epic of the Collective: Erik Reger's Union der festen Hand (1931)

The present contribution intends to investigate Erik Reger’s positions on the relationship between culture, literature and the industry – including its technological advancements and its influence on the workers as individuals – by scrutinizing several different sources. Reger, who was a journalist and later editor and director of the Berlin based newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, has written numerous articles on the subject and his archive is kept at the Akademie der Künste (AdK) in Berlin. By drawing on reviews, archival materials and writings, this article will highlight Reger’s specific position and relate it to Sergey Tretyakov’s pamphlet “The Biography of the Object” (1929).