Kurt Tucholsky

Kurt Tucholsky ( Berlin , January 9 1890 - Gothenburg , December 21 1935 ) was a German writer , columnist and journalist during the interwar period . He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser , Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel.

Tucholsky's fellow writer Erich Kästner ever characterized him as a "little fat Berliner who wanted to prevent a catastrophe with his typewriter.

Content

 * 1 Characterization of the work
 * 2 Sketch of his life
 * 3 Biography
 * 4 External link

Characterization of the work
Tucholsky is considered one of the wittiest and most important writers of the Weimar Republic . Besides a lot of column-like pieces, reviews and journalistic reports, he published several novels, many lyrics and poems. Dutch authors such as Annie MG Schmidt , Karel van het Reve and Simon Carmiggelt have drawn inspiration from the work of Tucholsky.

In his work Tucholsky showed himself a democrat, a pacifist and a fierce opponent of National Socialism . Starting in 1924, he lived more or less permanently abroad - first inParis and later in Sweden . There he came in 1935 to life after taking a large quantity of sleeping pills. It is generally accepted that this is suicide. His biographer Michael Hepp unsure about. According to him, it would be a mistake. Anyway Tucholsky seemed written the last years of his life. The only known works from this period are some (heartbreaking) letters.

[Sketch of his life edit ]
Kurt Tucholsky on a German stamp 80 Pfennig

Tucholsky was in 1890 in Berlin born the eldest son of the Jewish banker Alex Tucholsky and his niece Doris Tucholsky. He studied rights in Berlin and Geneva, but all began to interest more while studying the literature . Tucholsky is considered as one of the first to the work of Franz Kafka discovered. He himself had success with his first literary attempts, such Rheinsberg - ein Bilderbuch für Verliebte (Rheinberg A picture book for lovers. ', 1912 ).

During the first years of the First World War was Tucholsky - which now promoted was - used as a soldier on the Eastern Front . This experience has left an indelible impression on the young writer made ​​for good and convinced him of pacifism and anti-militarism .

After the war began a highly creative period in Tucholsky's life. He wrote dozens of articles in a week's time, among other magazines Ulk andDie Weltbühne . He used all kinds of pseudonyms, which were gradually splits of Tucholsky's own personality: they had a voice and sometimes even entered into discussion with each other.

The twenties were roaring in Tucholsky's private life. In 1920 he married the doctor Else Weil, whom he in 1924 divorced. In the same year he married Mary Gerold, of whom he 1933 would divorce; with Gerold he would remain in contact until his death and she would take care of his legacy. During both marriages remained the writer allegedly his wife is not very faithful. From 1927 he had an affair with the journalist Lisa Matthias.

In this period brought Tucholsky, as ever his example Heinrich Heine, most of the time in France from where he plied his homeland with becoming increasingly bitter pamphlets. For years before Hitler came to power, Tucholsky wrote: They are getting ready to move into the Third Reich.

In the early thirties, a process is initiated against Tucholsky's publisher Carl von Ossietzky, partly because the phrase written by Tucholsky Soldaten sind Mörder (Soldiers are murderers). That Tucholsky, who is now in the Swedish Hindås lived when not gone to Germany to assist his friend, he has himself taken very ill in the following years. Even though he recognized that it would have made little sense. Kurt died in 1935 and was buried in Mariefred, Sweden. Gripsholm, one of his novels is situated in Mariefred. The tomb has become a "pilgrimage" for Poles and Germans.

Tucholsky's cemetery in Mariefred .

In these last years, in which the relationship with Matthias was broken and he suffered from vague symptoms of the nose, Tucholsky published nothing more. However, he wrote many letters issued in Germany since the sixties. Known include the letters to the Zurich doctor Hedwig Müller, called Q-diaries. In one of his last letters, however, he turned back to his ex-wife Mary Gerold, writing about himself in the third person singular:
 * "Hat einen Goldklumpen in der Hand gehabt und sich nach Rechenpfennigen gebückt; hat niece minds und Dummheiten gemacht hat, hat bl verraten nicht, aber betrogen, hat und nicht minds."


 * "Had a nugget in his hand and bent down to pick pennies, did not understand and made stupid mistakes, not betrayed, but cheated, and did not understand."