ABSTRACT
The standard dictionary meaning of “Sektion” is “Dissection,” but colloquially, as here, it means “Post Mortem.” Heym’s piece was probably written 1910 or early 1911. The publisher Ernst Rowohlt, on the recommendation of Heym’s “discoverer,” Kurt Wolff, signed a contract November 29/30, 1911 to publish Heym’s prose book, The Thief (Der Dieb), including “Post Mortem.” Heym drowned a few weeks later, January 12, 1912, age twenty-four; in a sense the post-mortem turned out to be on himself. The Thief appeared posthumously with Rohwolt Verlag, Leipzig, 1913.
