Ein Lesebuch

by Kurt Tucholsky, Walter Jens (Editor)

820 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Kurt Tucholsky was a German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger, and Ignaz Wrobel. Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1930.

Tucholsky was one of the most important journalists of the Weimar Republic. As a politically engaged journalist and temporary co-editor of the weekly magazine Die Weltbühne he proved himself to be a social critic in the tradition of Heinrich Heine. He was simultaneously a satirist, an author of satirical political revues, a songwriter, and a poet. He saw himself as a left-wing democrat and pacifist and warned against anti-democratic tendencies—above all in politics, the military, and justice—and the threat of National Socialism. His fears were confirmed when the Nazis came to power in 1933: his books were listed on the Nazi's censorship as "Entartete Kunst" ("Degenerate Art") and burned, and he lost his German citizenship.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine a German P.G. Wodehouse who could articulate consistent political insight in defending the democratic and republican ideals of the Weimar Republic while, at the same time, writing humorous anecdotes and jokes, theater criticisms, biographical sketches, and lyrics for cabaret chansons. That would be Kurt Tucholsky.

Having read much of Tucholsky over the years, there was little that was new to me, or perhaps more precisely, what was had a familiar ring. But that sound is addicting. I had been saving this anthology for years. Anthologies are tricky things. Some people pick them up to get a good overview. The few I’ve read tend to be by authors I have read extensively; to be they are more refreshers and celebrations.

This is an edition from a multivolume collection curated in the 1990s by German intellectual and literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki for Bertelsmann, the huge publishing house. It covers Tucholsky’s eclectic palette of insightful polemics of the German Right, humor, love of Berlin and Paris, biographical sketches of Weimar-era actors and writers, and anything on his mind, really. And it’s all glorious. I’ve made a poor attempt at some translations below, please forgive any problems, they’re not as good as the German originals, beginning with a description of Paris in the 1920s:

A small cat with glasses on its nose sits in front of a door; an optician put it on her; people stand and laugh. The cat sits undisturbed in the sun. An old man in an archway has a flute stuck in his nostril and play a wonderful little piece as he uses his mouth to get air. A negro asks, in polite French, where the next Metro station is. Below, on the stone’s edge, under the bridge, a man lets his legs hang in the Seine, probably because of his boots. He’s taken them off, is reading a book, and the good waters of the Seine flow mildly around his calloused feet. No one worries about him – no one worries about anyone.

[original] Vor einer Tür sitzt eine kleine Katze mit einer Brille auf der Nase; ein Optiker hat sie ihr aufgesetzt; die Leute bleiben stehen und lachen. Die Katze sieht regungslos in die Sonne. Ein alter Mann in einem Torbogen hat sich eine Flöte ins Nasenloch gesteckt und spielt so ein herrliches Stücklein, mit dem Mund holt er Atem. Ein Neger fragt in bravem Fanzösisch, wo hier die nächste Metrostation sei. Unten, am Steinbord, unterhalb der Brücke, sitzt ein Mann und läßt die Beine in die Seine hängen, wahrscheinlich des Reimes wegen. Der Stiefel hat er ausgezogen, er liest ein Buch, und das gute Seinewasser umspielt mild seine hornigen Füße. Niemand kümmert sich um ihn – niemand kümmert sich um niemand.

Here’s a crack at translating the selected quotes I kept in my reading progress updates:

p. 57
In the German Republic, it’s a hindrance to one’s career to be a republican.

p. 128
They want their state of emergency, they want their fresh, joyful war, even if against their fellow countrymen, they demand obedience from the troops, even when they’re commanded by criminals, and they invented the term “law and order,” which they always have to enforce, when a violent change to the constitution has been passed behind the backs of the People.

p. 194
What’s the difference between witch trials of old and new times? Those earlier were more authentic. They weren’t shy away or act like, “as if!” – they tortured, raped, hacked and beat up whatever was suspicious to them. We’ve become much more formal, we have laws.

p. 315 (apologies, this is in Berlin dialect, meaning it’s untranslatable, and I’m taking liberties, kind of New Orleanian/Brooklynese)
What else we saw? Proonee’s [Prunier, a restaurant], da Revyoos, da big Awpra, Moan-marty, Touchdown Jesus, da louvers – well, da most we saw. Dey ain’t much more anyway…Paris, here, Paris dayre – you kin say wot you want –: da nicest is always at home –!

p. 336
Miracles are advertisements. Miracles don’t prove anything about the validity of an ethical system.

p. 391
What’s missing is attention to detail and the courage for triviality.

p. 439
In Berlin, people live opposing each other, in Paris they live among each other, in Copenhagen they live with each other.

p. 540
Provence is not a French province like the others. The ground seems not come from the earth; one doesn’t wonder if he suddenly begins to breathe like an eternal body. The land blooms toward one, willingly and softly it takes its place with heaven.

p. 632
How was it then? He [Fontane] lived there well knowing everything printed and small was about him, and that he would never make money, and that America was also a country, but thank God – one distant.

p. 691
Today it’s laziness, lack of imagination, pomposity and passing responsibility to one that can’t defend himself anymore. ‘That which is good naturally comes from me – the rest I inherited.’

p. 763
The film The Kid doesn’t really have a plot. But Chaplin’s heart has one, and to this heart belongs the finest head of living filmmakers and the most intelligent of all actors. This heart is with the downtrodden and has a dangerous weapon: his brain.