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On 23 July 1975, Ernst Krawehl⁹, Arno Schmidt’s long-time editor at Stahlberg and S. Fischer, was invited by Czischke to visit him on Wolfsstrasse in Cologne, where Czischke presented his Caliban. On his journey home, Krawehl was deeply impressed and at a loss.¹⁰ “I would like to be able to take a closer look for a while at your [here several blank spaces in the typed text] for which I only have a blank space and am looking for an expression." Krawehl suggested "showing Schmidt a few sheets when the opportunity presents itself; but you can be certain that he will not look at them in detail. It would be pointless." Very familiar with the author, who was known for brusquely shunning contact with the public, he did not raise Czischke’s hopes of receiving a reaction – of any kind whatsoever – and even thought that a negative response would be good "because it could evoke the impetus: I'll speak now. And that’s what it would really depend on.”¹¹

Krawehl’s next letter followed soon thereafter on 28 July 1975. In addition to his comment that he was still busy with “a verdict(,) on your brilliantly far-reaching paraphrase of the Caliban story”, he suggested reproducing Czischke's Caliban sheets for his and other potential viewers on microfilm, which would allow them to work undisturbed without worry of damaging the originals. “If you could bring yourself to give me either the entire script, or just a few pages to try this out? […] I will go to the workshop myself, present each sheet and collect them at the end (you could also be involved if that would seem more secure to you.)"¹²

Unfortunately, the correspondence about the Caliban work is incomplete (as of January 2010); only the Krawehl documents are in the archive. Around 29 July 1975, Czischke apparently wrote to Schmidt’s editor, who was “really happy about everything” he read and expressed this in a new letter.¹³ Unfortunately, he was very busy at the time due to a fire, which required A.S. to relocate his library and “other documents". Krawehl was committed to taking care of A.S. in this time of “great excitement and understandably major depression [of A.S.] as a result of these circumstances.” Still, he described Czischke’s work as a “Caliban paraphrase (simply put, a massive understatement).¹⁴ “A good six months later, Czischke sent Krawehl a short, friendly reminder¹⁵ of him and his Caliban in the best A.S. style: "Mr. Krawehl. , : ? (!) . all the best : yours (signed Czischke)".

One can assume that nothing substantial happened until 5 May 1981, as there are no documents in the archive from this period. Ernst Krawehl described his activities in an elegant, moving letter¹⁶: “I discussed it with Arno Schmidt, but I ended up having a bad falling out with him as a result,
Jörg Czischke
Paraphrast versus editor – dual efforts surrounding a Czischke artwork