Kurt Tucholsky (Berlin, January 9, 1890 – December 21, 1935 in Gothenburg) was a German journalist, satirist and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger und Ignaz Wrobel.

Tucholsky was one of the most important jounalists 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 und justice - and the threat of National Socialism. His fears were confirmed when the Nazis came to power in 1933: his books were burned and he lost his citizenship.

Mariefred: Tucholsky's grave

Born in Berlin-Moabit, he moved in 1924 to Paris and in 1930 to Sweden. He probably committed suicide in Hindås near Göteborg and died in a hospital in Göteborg while in Swedish exile.

Tucholsky, like other writers and artists of the Weimar era, had the same combination of mordant objectivity and political insight that made them mock the illusions of those who thought that everything would somehow work out for the best. His poem about the production of Danton's Death , a nineteenth century warhorse restaged in Berlin by Max Reinhardt in the early 1920s, only a few years after the German Revolution of 1918-19 was brought to grief, expresses this well:

DANTONS TOD

Bei Reinhardt wogte der dritte Akt.

Es rasten sechshundert Statisten.

Sieh an - wie das die Berliner packt!

Es jubeln die Journalisten.

Mir aber erschien das Ganze wie

eine kleine Allegorie.

Es tost ein Volk: "Die Revolution!

Wir wollen die Freiheit gewinnen!

Wir wollten es seit Jahrhunderten schon -

laßt Herzblut strömen und rinnen!"

Es dröhnt die Szene. Es dröhnt das Haus.

Um Neune ist alles aus.

Und ernüchtert seh ich den grauen Tag.

Wo ist der November geblieben?

Wo ist das Volk, das einst unten lag,

von Sehnsucht nach oben getrieben?

Stille. Vorbei. Es war nicht viel.

Ein Spiel. Ein Spiel.

DANTON'S DEATH

Act Three was great in Reinhardt's play —

Six hundred extras milling.

Listen to what the critics say!

All Berlin finds it thrilling.

But in the whole affair I see

A parable, if you ask me.

"Revolution!' the People howls and cries

'Freedom, that's what we're needing!

We've needed it for centuries —

Our arteries are bleeding.'

The stage is shaking. The audience rock.

The whole thing is over by nine o'clock.

The day looks grey as I come to.

Where are the People — remember? —

That stormed the peaks from down below?

What happened to November?

Silence. All gone. Just that, in fact.

An act. An act.

English editions and books

• Grenville, Bryan P.: Kurt Tucholsky: The Ironic Sentimentalist. London 1981.
• Poor, Harold Lloyd: Kurt Tucholsky and the ordeal of Germany, 1914-1935. New York 1968.
• Tucholsky, Kurt: Castle Gripsholm. A Summer Story. Overlook Press. New York 1988.
• Tucholsky, Kurt: "Germany? Germany": a Kurt Tucholsky Reader. With translations by Harry Zohn, Karl F. Ross and Louis Golden. Manchester 1990
• Tucholsky, Kurt: What if - ?; Satirical writings of Kurt Tucholsky. Translated by Harry Zohn and Karl F. Ross. New York 1967 (1968).

References

• This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia, retrieved April 9, 2005.

External links

• http://www.tucholsky-gesellschaft.de/ (in German)
• http://german.about.com/library/bltucholsky.htm (biography in English)