Ein Suchender, Kein Denkmal: An Analysis of Research on Kurt Tucholsky

German Life and Letters 50:1 January 19970016–8777

EIN SUCHENDER, KEIN DENKMAL: AN ANALYSIS OF RESEARCHON KURT TUCHOLSKY

Ian King

At the heart of Tucholsky’s literary and political career lay a paradox ofwhich he was painfully aware. ‘Ich habe Erfolg’, he wrote to a friend in1923, ‘aber ich habe keinerlei Wirkung’.1 Whilst his satires and poemswere being devoured by readers in their tens of thousands and com-manded large fees from the leading book and newspaper publishers ofthe day, the left-wing, anti-militarist views which Tucholsky consistentlyespoused were proving less and less attractive to the majority of his com-patriots who ultimately preferred the gospel according to Hitler. Tuchol-sky’s books were burned, his German citizenship was revoked and he diedin exile in Sweden in December 1935.

The post-war renaissance of Tucholsky’s work, a classic example of liter-ary life after death, is the source of a second paradox. Though many ofhis articles were written as a contribution to the day-to-day journalisticcontroversies of Weimar, over sixty years later anthologies and paperbackeditions of his work have sold over five million copies in German alone,and the archetypal ‘kleiner dicker Berliner, der eine Katastrophe mitseiner Schreibmaschine aufhalten wollte’2 has been translated into thirty-two languages, including Portuguese, Bengali and Mongolian. But the mis-guided editorial policy of his publishers, coupled with secondary literaturewhich for years was distinctly uneven in quality, has led to a situation whereTucholsky is much read, but not well-known: ‘Was wir heute uber Tuchol-sky wissen, ist nicht falsch, sondern zu wenig’, Hans-Harald Muller con-cluded in 1982.3 This article examines the unsatisfactory state of Tucholskyeditions and research which prevailed until the 1990s and assesses theextent to which a new publishing policy and more recent secondary litera-ture have been able to remedy matters.

TEXTS AND EDITIONS

The task of compiling post-war editions of Tucholsky’s works was an unen-viable one. He had originally published over three thousand articles, scat-tered throughout a hundred newspapers, and the collections he compiledhimself in the 1920s such as Mit 5 PS tended to contain more easily access-

1 Letter to Hans Schonlank, 10/1/23, in Tucholsky, Ausgewahlte Briefe 1913–35, Reinbek 1962,p.154.2 Erich Kastner in the ‘Nachwort’ to his Tucholsky anthology Gruß nach vorn, Stuttgart/ Berlin 1947.3 Hans-Harald Muller, ‘Im Grunen fings an und endete blutigrot. Kurt Tucholsky, Portrat einesvielseitigen Schriftstellers’ in Walter Hinderer (ed.), Literarische Profile. Deutsche Dichter von Grimmels-hausen bis Brecht, Konigstein 1982, p.338.

Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

36 RESEARCH ON KURT TUCHOLSKY

ible texts from Die Weltbuhne. Nevertheless, anthologies were produced inboth German states, notably by the writer’s widow, Mary Tucholsky. In thelate 1950s she was joined as co-editor by Fritz J. Raddatz, who had experi-enced problems with the East German authorities over a planned GDRedition and came to the West to prepare one for Rowohlt instead: thethree-volume Gesammelte Werke 1907–32, published in 1960 and sup-plemented two years later by a volume of Ausgewahlte Briefe.

The Collected Works represented a step forward by making over halfof Tucholsky’s articles available to a new generation. A cheaper ten-volumepaperback edition came out in 1975, but in spite of all the research ofthe intervening years it included a mere sixteen additional articles. Schol-ars who had investigated the files in Mary Tucholsky’s private archiveremained convinced that, whether for commercial or political reasons, anumber of articles worthy of publication were being suppressed. Eventu-ally the editors opted to produce not a Complete Edition but a compro-mise. The complete Gedichte appeared in 1983 and three ‘Erganzungsban-de’ followed: Deutsches Tempo in 1985, edited by Raddatz and MaryTucholsky, and Republik wider Willen and a volume of letters, Ich kann nichtschreiben, ohne zu lugen, produced by Raddatz in 1989 after Mary’s death.4All were published by Rowohlt, as four years later was Tucholsky’s Sudel-buch. But a good number of his articles, originally published in the news-papers of Weimar Germany, still languish in the Deutsches Literaturarchivin Marbach. Fritz Raddatz evidently deemed these unworthy to set beforean audience today, but the criteria which governed his editorial judgementon the issue are far from clear. As a result of this misguided selectivity,the complete Tucholsky will not be available for some years yet.

The publication of the ‘Erganzungsbande’ therefore proved a mixedblessing, republishing important articles but also tending to deflectdemands for a complete and scholarly edition. Republik wider Willen andIch kann nicht schreiben% prove particularly instructive about Tucholsky’spolitical development, from initial uncertainty through determineddefence of the Republic to growing scepticism about the parliamentaryprocess and his unavailing search for revolutionary solutions. In January1919 he is seen to have greeted the Republic not only with the well-knownpolemics against the German officer class, but also with practical proposalsfor the reform of his country’s legal system, including an increase injudges’ pay – a more moderate line than might have been expected fromone who later criticised the judiciary so severely. In retrospect Tucholskywas to admit that at this period he had not understood what was goingon: ‘Aus dieser Zeit datieren meine dummsten Arbeiten’, he wrote in 1935to Gertrud Elisabeth Muller-Dunant (Ich kann nicht schreiben% , p.186).The initial reason for Tucholsky’s disillusionment with the Social Demo-crats, their misguided employment of right-wing extremist officers to crack

4 For an analysis of Gedichte and Deutsches Tempo, see my article ‘Kurt Tucholsky – Erfolg und Wir-kung?’, GLL, 39 (1986), 291–304.

Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997.

37RESEARCH ON KURT TUCHOLSKY

down on disorder from the left, is given eloquent expression in an attackon Reichswehrminister Noske (pp.108–10). By republishing ‘Wo bleibendeine Steuern – ?’ from the USPD newspaper Die Freiheit (pp.135–44), theeditor reveals not merely the weakness of Noske’s successor Otto Geßler,but also the sheer range of Tucholsky’s anti-military work: only a handfulof researchers had previously realised that he was capable of dissectingthe inflated military budget and exposing the enormous waste involved.Evidence follows of his persistent attempt to bolster the ‘Republik widerWillen’, the title of an essay from 1922. Proposals are made for a progress-ive reform of the taxation system, and workers are advised not to resortto pointless and dangerous revolutionary violence (pp.217–20). InsteadTucholsky helped to organise the ‘Verfassungsfeier’ of August 1922, a cel-ebration of the republican ideal which brought together half a milliondemonstrators in the Berlin Lustgarten. Tucholsky’s often underrateddevotion to the Republic, both in print and in constructive activity, lastedat least as long as the government itself appeared to believe in it.

Growing despair at the problems of Germany led Tucholsky in 1924 tosettle in France and to undertake analyses of French public life. As inGermany in 1919, a left-of-centre government – in this case led by EdouardHerriot – appeared unable to introduce even moderate reforms. A para-doxical situation was arising in which Parisians were uneasy about impend-ing economic difficulties, whilst provincial France was responding to thefailure of the ‘Cartel des Gauches’ by falling into apolitical apathy. Yet –unlike in Germany, according to Tucholsky – democracy itself was in nodanger, because of the common sense of the men and women in theFrench street (pp.277–84 and 297–300). But though, in this somewhatidealised picture, French democracy was not threatened from within,Tucholsky’s anxieties increased as to whether the country in which he feltso much at home might not soon face a German-initiated war of revenge.The outwardly conciliatory Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, thougha freemason like Tucholsky, was dismissed as consistent only in his incon-sistency and seen as unable or unwilling to prevent new hostilities(pp.254–8), for his compatriots were nationalists in the narrowest, mostaggressive sense (pp.249–50 and 332–3), and to prevent war, major effortsof re-education were needed, in a directly revolutionary spirit: ‘Lieberkommunistisch beeinflußt als national verhetzt’, he wrote of Germany’sschoolchildren in 1929 (p.390). Nazi sympathisers such as Wilhelm Stapelhave the style and substance of their work dissected (pp.399–404); half injest, perhaps, but the plea for a united front against the fascist danger wasserious enough (p.417). Growing desperation at the left’s inability to resistalso explained Tucholsky’s willingness to support the KPD presidentialcandidate, Ernst Thalmann:5 neither Tucholsky nor Ossietzky was a Com-munist, but they both regarded Hindenburg as an evil more or less equival-ent to Hitler, an assessment which proved correct when the Field Marshal

5 Cf. the letter to Ossietzky of 12/3/32 in Ich kann nicht schreiben, ohne zu lugen, Reinbek 1989, p.71.



appointed Hitler Chancellor a few months later. Republik wider Willen con-tains Tucholsky’s final political article, ‘Berliner in Osterreich? Nein: So-zialisten bei Sozialisten!’ – rediscovered in the first edition of the WienerWeltbuhne not by Raddatz but by Stefan Berkholz, who reprinted it in hisbook on Ossietzky’s imprisonment in Tegel.6 Ich kann nicht schreiben %

also makes clear how much effort Tucholsky put into the campaign topersuade the Nobel Committee in Oslo to award its Peace Prize to Ossi-etzky, by publishing Tucholsky’s correspondence with previous prize-winners such as Norman Angell and with opinion-formers like LadyAsquith and Henry Wickham-Steed, editor of The Times.7 It transpires thateven in the last week of his life Tucholsky was desperate to go into print,whether in a Norwegian Social Democratic paper or even in an obscurestudent journal, in order to defend Ossietzky after his friend had beenslandered by Knut Hamsun.8 Thus the ‘Erganzungsbande’ of the late1980s shake the previously accepted image of Tucholsky as a resigned,beaten man who had abandoned the struggle three years before his death,and instead present a more plausible, but also more contradictory picture.The final product of the Rowohlt Verlag’s piecemeal publication policywas the Sudelbuch, a collection of aphorisms and witticisms noted downbetween 1928 and 1935. Some of the passages appeared in print duringTucholsky’s lifetime, but most are new to the public and many incompre-hensible. The concept and title were borrowed from Lichtenberg, whomTucholsky admired, and the original notebook had been bequeathed toMary Tucholsky, who delayed publication until after her death. Whilerespect is due to those who helped to decipher Tucholsky’s handwriting,it is significant that neither Raddatz nor any other individual is named aseditor. The signature under the brief preface runs ‘Der Verlag’ and thereare no footnotes or other information to assist the reader. To claim ‘Alldas bleibt der Edition des Sudelbuchs in der Tucholsky-Gesamtausgabe vor-behalten’9 is an evasion of responsibility, though at least the publishershave belatedly learnt that publication is preferable to non-publication.

It can thus be seen that the recent reprinting of primary material hasadded significantly to the picture of Tucholsky. But his publishers deservealmost as much criticism as praise for the piecemeal way in which theywent about their task. For all her devotion to her late husband’s work,Mary Tucholsky was incapable of producing a scholarly edition, and Rad-datz, chairman of the Tucholsky-Stiftung which owned the copyright, wasunwilling to do so. In relation to Tucholsky’s correspondence, the editors’sins of omission proved greater still, with vast tracts of the letters, not only

6 Republik wider Willen, Reinbek 1989, pp.430–2. The article appeared originally in the WienerWeltbuhne, 29/3/32 and was republished by Berkholz in Carl von Ossietzky. 227 Tage im Gefangnis.Briefe, Texte, Dokumente, Darmstadt 1988, pp.211–14.7 Ich kann nicht schreiben%, pp.211–14, 217–19 and 193–4 respectively.8 Cf. his letters to the Arbeiderbladet Oslo, 17/12/35 and the Norske Studentersamfund, 20/12/35, ibid.,pp.215–16 and 198–9.9 Sudelbuch, Reinbek 1993, p.6.



to Mary Tucholsky but also to his Swiss friend Hedwig Muller, until nowforbidden territory to all but the most favoured researchers. While theneed not to offend surviving contemporaries is understandable, it appearsthat Tucholsky’s published letters have been censored. In short, West Ger-man editions of Tucholsky’s work have failed to come up to the mark.This is particularly surprising since Raddatz could have referred to otherexamples of how to edit Tucholsky effectively. It was not the Hamburgprofessor, but a local adult education lecturer, Gustav Huonker, who dis-covered in 1970 that Tucholsky’s friend Hedwig Muller was still living inZurich, and impressed her so much that she gave him a box of lettersfrom Tucholsky.10 Extracts from these were published by Huonker andMary Tucholsky as Briefe aus dem Schweigen 1932–35 and Die Q-Tagebucher1934–35 (Reinbek 1977 and 1978). Another researcher, Richard von Sol-denhoff, edited two anthologies of Tucholsky’s writings on the militaryand the judiciary, Unser Militar! and Justitia schwooft! (Frankfurt a. M. 1982and 1983). Other editors were therefore available who might have servedTucholsky better; they would surely have avoided Raddatz’s self-indulgentand inaccurate prefaces and the ill-chosen title Ich kann nicht schreiben,ohne zu lugen. Tucholsky had originally written: ‘Es gibt Tage, wo ich nichtschreiben konnte, ohne zu lugen – und das mag ich nicht.’ Raddatz’smisquotation, implying that his subject is a self-confessed liar, representsthe nadir of his editorial performance.11

The six-volume GDR edition of Tucholsky’s Ausgewahlte Werke, begun byRaddatz, was completed by a former colleague, Roland Links, after Rad-datz’s hasty departure for the West. Links was forced into at least oneminor compromise to ensure publication of the final volume: a passageof six lines in Ein Pyrenaenbuch, in which Tucholsky quotes with approvalan apparently innocuous observation about everyday life, was omitted fromthe GDR text, since the author of the quotation, Leon Trotzky, remainedunmentionable in a country bypassed by Krushchev’s destalinisation cam-paign.12 The replacement of Ulbricht by Honecker did not improve mat-ters : a new edition of Ein Pyrenaenbuch in 1972 still lacked the conten-tious passage.

Links’s edition was attacked by Gerhard Zwerenz for suppressing articles

10 Cf. Gustav Huonker, ‘Zur Entdeckung und Edition von Kurt Tucholskys Zurcher Korrespondenz’in Irmgard Ackermann/ Klaus Hubner (eds), Tucholsky heute, Ruckblick und Ausblick, Munich 1991,pp.141–8.11 The correct quotation is on page 96 of Ich kann nicht schreiben%. Cf. also the numerous historicalinaccuracies of Raddatz’s preface to the Gesammelte Werke of 1975, and the long and irrelevantdescription of Raddatz’s train journey to Rottach in the 1950s in the preface to Deutsches Tempo,Reinbek 1985, p.7. Though his original editorial efforts in the 1950s and 1960s deserve praise,Raddatz held on to the job of editor too long and throughout the Seventies and Eighties dischargedthe role inadequately.12 The original text of Ein Pyrenaenbuch (Berlin 1927, p.27) is reproduced unchanged in the WestGerman edition (Gesammelte Werke, V, p.127), but in expurgated form in the East German Ausge-wahlte Werke (cf. volume VI of the 1963 GDR edition, and volume II, p.178 of the revised editionof 1972).



critical of Marxism and the USSR.13 For two reasons the accusation isunfair. Links does republish such articles as ‘Gesunde und kranke Nerven’with its criticism of ‘unentwegte Marxisten’ (AW 5, p.161), and the poem‘Hej – !’ which amounts to a vote of confidence in individualism and arejection not merely of ‘das katholische Haus’ and ‘das Haus derNationen’, but also of ‘das russische Haus’ (ibid., pp.601–6). Secondly,with only about half of the space available to the West German edition,Links was bound to omit some articles, starting with those whose repro-duction might put the whole enterprise at risk. Zwerenz appears to bedemanding from Links not merely personal heroism, at a time when theprison sentences imposed on Walter Janka and his colleagues were freshin the memory of GDR publishing circles, but also a readiness to see theentire edition pulped if the SED considered it unfit for the eyes of theircitizens. In the circumstances Links deserves credit for steering a difficultcourse between the Scylla of censoring his own edition and the Charybdisof party disapproval and non-publication. A further point is that Links’s‘Nachworte’ are considerably more informative than Raddatz’s prefaces;as an analytical essayist, most recently in a 45-page introduction to Tuchol-sky, ein Lesebuch fur unsere Zeit (Berlin/ Weimar 1990), he stands head andshoulders above all other GDR critics of Tucholsky.

The collapse of the GDR in the winter of 1989–90 deprived the Rowohlteditions of their East German competitor. But it had long been obviousthat the policy of tacking on supplementary volumes to the GesammelteWerke and republishing paperback anthologies of already well-known worksin new jackets was inadequate. At last Raddatz decided to encourage thepreparation of the Complete Works, but took no part in the task himself.A team of editors based at Oldenburg University – Antje Bonitz, Dirk Grat-hoff, Michael Hepp and Gerhard Kraiker – has recently begun work onan edition planned to have twenty-five volumes, to appear on a twice-yearlybasis. The editors’ efforts will be assisted by their being able to refer tothe three-volume bibliography of Tucholsky’s articles prepared by AntjeBonitz and Thomas Wirtz (Marbach 1991). Thus after a long barren per-iod a solution to the editorial problems appears to be at hand.

SECONDARY LITERATURE FROM THE FIFTIES TO THE EIGHTIES

To discuss all the research on Tucholsky over this long period would gobeyond the limits of this essay, though an obvious starting-point is pro-vided by Katrin Lindner and Dieter Hess’s detailed survey in Tucholsky.Sieben Beitrage zu Werk und Wirkung, a collection of essays edited by IrmgardAckermann (Munich 1981). However, the degree of selectivity necessaryis facilitated by the poor quality of much of the secondary literature, whichis of interest mainly as a reflection of its time – the Cold War – and of a

13 Gerhard Zwerenz, Kurt Tucholsky, Biographie eines guten Deutschen, Munich 1979, pp.241–57.



misguided neglect of Tucholsky by most German university literary special-ists.

The few exceptions to these strictures merit first mention. Hans Pre-scher’s brief study Kurt Tucholsky (Berlin 1959, reprinted unchanged 1982)provided an exemplary if, of necessity, simplified analysis of how Tuchol-sky’s political ideas developed. Harold Lloyd Poor followed with Kurt Tuch-olsky and the Ordeal of Germany (New York 1968), which set these changingpolitical views in the context of Weimar society. Building on these works,Ian King’s Kurt Tucholsky als politischer Publizist (Frankfurt a. M. 1983) con-cerned itself with Tucholsky’s position as a free spirit between SocialDemocrats and Communists. It also pointed out that in the late 1920s heembraced more tenets of Marxism than had hitherto been suspected. It issignificant that none of these biographers worked at a German university:Prescher had studied journalism and became director of drama for theHessischer Rundfunk, Poor taught in the United States and King in Bri-tain. Other comparative ‘outsiders’, whether geographically or in terms oftheir discipline, who have written informatively on Tucholsky include theFrench lecturer Eva Philippoff, author of Kurt Tucholskys Frankreichbild(Munich 1978), and Anton Austermann (Kurt Tucholsky, der Journalist undsein Publikum, Munich 1985). This study of press structure, journalisticactivity and of how Tucholsky sought to influence his public was writtenby a professor not of ‘Germanistik’ but of ‘Erziehungswissenschaft’, whospecialises in practical training courses for journalists. Until recently itwas these authors and not Germany’s professional historians and literaryspecialists who stood at the forefront of Tucholsky research.

By contrast both West and East German historians for years remainedbogged down in the black and white certainties of the Cold War. Themost widely-read biography of Tucholsky, that by Klaus-Peter Schulz, madewhat he considered the sensational discovery that his subject had beenguided by ‘bedingungslosen Pazifismus’ and had perpetrated poems wor-thy of an ‘SED-Lesebuch zum proletarischen Hausgebrauch’,14 both ofwhich assertions owe more to Schulz’s parliamentary career in the ‘Front-stadt Westberlin’ than to any serious attempt at objectivity. Liberal his-torians avoided such emotional denunciations, but alleged that Tuchol-sky’s negative spirit had helped to bring Weimar to its knees (Golo Mann1959),15 or that he was an impractical ‘Gesinnungsethiker’, too naive tosee the need for compromise in a democracy (Marianne Doerfel 1971).16

The fact that the Weimar Republic was destroyed not by left-wing intellec-tuals but by the conservative elites against whom Tucholsky had repeatedlywarned is ignored by Mann, as is the misjudgement on the part of the

14 Klaus-Peter Schulz, Kurt Tucholsky in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, first published in Reinbek1959, p.75 and p.119. Schulz, a former SPD MP in West Berlin, joined the CDU in 1971 in protestagainst Brandt’s Ostpolitik. It remains a mystery why Rowohlt for so long kept the Schulz biographyin print, containing as it did misjudgements bordering on libel of their own author Tucholsky.15 Golo Mann, Deutsche Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt a. M. 1959, p.707.16 Marianne Doerfel, Kurt Tucholsky als Politiker, Mainz 1971, p.135 and p.141.



SPD leaders in leaving the saboteurs of the Republic in their posts byDoerfel. Tucholsky was a ‘lefty’, and for such critics that was enough todamn him.

Most East German critics too responded to Tucholsky’s writings withscepticism bordering on hostility, though for a reason which representeda mirror image of the view of western analysts. Leschnitzer and otherssimply wrote Tucholsky off as a progressive intellectual unable to find hisway to the working class and its avant-garde, the KPD.17 Only Roland Linksin 1990 was willing to take Tucholsky’s side against the party by admittingthat the KPD overestimated the possibilities for a revolution in 1929–30,and that through this mistake the party lost many potential allies amongindependent left-wing writers.18 By contrast, no other GDR critic dared toask whether Tucholsky’s hesitation owed more to the KPD’s disastrousrecord throughout the Weimar Republic than to any bourgeois individual-ism on his part. ‘Meine Voraussetzungen sind eingetroffen, die der RotenFahne aber samt und sonders nicht’19 was an assertion which no GDR criticcould refute and hence one which none dared confront.

Whilst German historians found it difficult to shed their own politicalpreconceptions in dealing with Tucholsky, the vast majority of their col-leagues in the field of ‘Germanistik’ simply sidestepped the issue. Whetherliterary historians or supporters of an approach based narrowly on textualstudy, whether adherents of Marxist or psychoanalytical schools, Ger-many’s ‘Literaturwissenschaftler’ spent the Fifties, Sixties and Seventiesstudiously ignoring Tucholsky. The only significant exceptions were FritzRaddatz and Hans Mayer. But in spite of the wealth of primary sourcesavailable to him alone, Raddatz proved as disappointing a biographer ashe was an editor. Tucholsky, eine Bildbiographie (Munich 1961) containsinteresting photographs from the literary and political life of Weimar, butits numerous inaccuracies make it unusable, even as an introduction. May-er’s brief essay on Tucholsky as a ‘pessimistischer Aufklarer’ demonstratedgreater sympathy and understanding, but its author was for years a voicecrying in the wilderness.20

Any explanation of why other ‘Germanisten’ were so reluctant toaddress themselves to the works of Tucholsky must contain an element ofspeculation. Some may have believed that Tucholsky lacked philosophicaldepth – in which case the research of Porombka and Hepp proves theywere wrong. Others may have been secretly scornful of Tucholsky’s prefer-ence for short literary forms such as satires and cabaret songs rather than

17 Rudolf Leschnitzer, Von Borne bis Leonhard, oder Erbubel – Erbgut?, Rudolstadt 1975, pp.184–5.Leschnitzer accuses Tucholsky of ‘Gesinnungslabilitat’. A similar attack on Tucholsky and hisWeltbuhne colleagues was made at the time by Walter Benjamin (‘Linke Melancholie’, in GesammelteSchriften, III, ed. H. Tiedemann-Bartels, Frankfurt a. M. 1981, p.281).18 Roland Links in Tucholsky, ein Lesebuch fur unsere Zeit, p.lxviii.19 Letter to Heinz Pol, 20/4/33, in Ausgewahlte Briefe, p.289.20 Hans Mayer, ‘Der pessimistische Aufklarer Kurt Tucholsky’ in Zur deutschen Literatur der Zeit,Reinbek 1967, pp.155–65.



tragic dramas or Bildungsromane. A few may have been dissuaded fromholding seminars on Tucholsky because so many of his articles reflectedephemeral journalistic activities, or been deterred by his support for left-wing causes. But only one ‘Germanist’ has attempted to explain why hiscolleagues regarded Tucholsky as beneath their dignity. Hans-HaraldMuller concludes an essay on Tucholsky’s career by asserting that it wasthe sheer breadth of his subject’s work which made it both attractive tothe average reader and uninteresting to ‘Germanisten’:

Der Schriftsteller Tucholsky verfugte uber fast alle Register, er war poli-tischer Publizist, Parodist, Satiriker, Feuilletonist, Komodienautor, Erzahler,Literaturkritiker, Aphoristiker und Lyriker. Populare Schriftsteller wieTucholsky haben es beim Publikum leicht, in der Literaturgeschichteschwer: er hat keine asthetischen Neuerungen eingefuhrt, keine ‘großenThemen’ behandelt %

21

Thus instead of accepting the challenge of defining what precisely werethe qualities of the protean Tucholsky, specialists in German literaturewere able to pretend that he did not exist.

Coincidentally, Muller’s criticism of his peers was soon followed by theone major achievement in the field, though it was by a Brussels-basedexpert, Hans-Werner am Zehnhoff, rather than a literary specialist at aGerman university. His dissertation Die Parodie in der satirischen SchreibweiseKurt Tucholskys (Brussels University 1983) distinguished between satire andparody and came closer than most previous attempts to discovering whythe Lottchen and Wendriner monologues and passages from Deutschland,Deutschland uber alles are so effective. But Zehnhoff’s fellow-‘Germanisten’seem to have been deterred rather than stimulated by his 770-page ‘Fleiß-arbeit’. Only Dieter Hess shared such comprehensive ambitions. Takingas his subject Tucholsky’s ‘Aufklarungsstrategien’, Hess himself provedsingularly unenlightening, partly on account of a turgid and pretentiousstyle, but mainly because he concentrated exclusively on texts from theWeltbuhne and hardly referred to the period after 1924, when more thanhalf of Tucholsky’s work was written.22 In short, with the honourableexception of Zehnhoff’s study, Helmut Morchen was justified in conclud-ing in 1990: ‘Kurt Tucholsky, einer der meistgelesenen und -zitierten Auto-ren dieses Jahrhunderts, wird von der Literaturwissenschaft nach wie vorstiefmutterlich behandelt.’23

21 Hans-Harald Muller, in Hinderer, p.351.22 Dieter Hess, Aufklarungsstrategien Kurt Tucholskys, Frankfurt a. M. 1982.23 Helmut Morchen, ‘Neujahrsgedichte Kurt Tucholskys als Beispiele deutscher Gelegenheitsdich-tung’ in Ackermann/ Hubner, p.175.



DAYS OF HOPE: TUCHOLSKY RESEARCH IN THE LATE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES

The advances made in Tucholsky research since 1988 have several causes.One indirect contributory factor was Raddatz’s decision to abandon thefield. After writing the biographical sketch Tucholsky, ein Pseudonym(Reinbek 1989), he concluded that he had nothing more to say aboutTucholsky. There was no shortage of aspirants to his critical mantle. In1988 experts from both German states, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Bri-tain and the USSR founded the Kurt Tucholsky Gesellschaft, which nowstages annual meetings and publishes the proceedings; prominent mem-bers of the society include Harry Pross, Gustav Huonker and the currentchairman, Michael Hepp.

A second factor in the Tucholsky renaissance was his centenary in 1990,which spawned a series of exhibitions, of which the two most significantwere held in Zurich and Marbach. The former, organised by Huonker,concentrated on the period of over a year which Tucholsky spent therebetween 1932 and 1934, and on his relationship with Hedwig Muller. How-ever, its catalogue went beyond the scope of the exhibition to embraceessays such as that by Volker Kuhn on Tucholsky’s ‘ungluckliche Liebezum Kabarett’ and a fascinating medical history of Tucholsky’s final yearsby Olle Hambert.24

The other important exhibition, organised by Jochen Meyer at theDeutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach, proved more controversial. Underthe title Entlaufene Burger: Kurt Tucholsky und die Seinen (Marbach 1990),Meyer began soundly by placing Tucholsky in the context of the authorshe admired in his youth, such as Raabe, Schopenhauer and Keller. How-ever, as Ulrich Ott pointed out in the catalogue’s preface, Meyer was keento follow ‘Pfade abseits der abgetretenen Wege’ (p.7). Meyer was quiteright to criticise Tucholsky’s journalistic activities in the Upper Silesianreferendum campaign of 1920–1, a point understated by most previouscritics. Tucholsky himself later admitted that by editing Pieron, a crudepropaganda gazette designed to persuade the inhabitants of the region tostay with Germany rather than opt for Poland, he had compromised hispolitical reputation.25 But on other occasions Meyer went too far. Histheory that Tucholsky suffered from a complex about personal hygieneand was constantly washing himself in real life and in his writings – a viewbacked up by an exhibit of a large Basque waterjug which Tucholsky andMary brought back from their visit to the Pyrenees – was, to say the least,bizarre (pp.481–501). More seriously, to juxtapose Tucholsky’s last letterto Arnold Zweig with an illustration of anti-Semitic caricatures from the

24 Gustav Huonker (ed.), Kurt Tucholsky: ‘Liebe Winternuuna, liebes Hasenfritzli’. Ein Zurcher Briefwech-sel, Zurich 1990, pp.75–91 and 126–41.25 Cf. Jochen Meyer, Entlaufene Burger: Kurt Tucholsky und die Seinen, pp.258–67. For Tucholsky’sself-criticism, see ‘Ein besserer Herr’, GW VII, p.105.



Sturmer-Verlag implied a similarity of opinion between Tucholsky andJulius Streicher (pp.462–79). By late 1935 Tucholsky was a sick man, bit-terly critical of German Jews for their lack of resistance and failure to fleethe country, but an anti-Semite he was not. Although both the exhibitionand the catalogue assembled a formidable array of material, such distor-tions are unacceptable.

Still more significant for Tucholsky studies than the stimulus providedby the centenary was the coincidence that three studies prepared over aperiod of years independently of one another all saw the light of publi-cation in the early Nineties: Beate Porombka’s Verspateter Aufklarer oderPionier einer neuen Aufklarung? Kurt Tucholsky, 1918–35 (Frankfurt a. M.1990), Helga Bemmann’s Kurt Tucholsky, ein Lebensbild (Berlin 1990), andMichael Hepp’s Kurt Tucholsky, biographische Annaherungen (Reinbek 1993).

Porombka is primarily concerned not with the details of Tucholsky’sbiography, but with placing his writings in the context of the contempor-ary history of ideas. Thus when Tucholsky attacked militarism as a culturaldanger, Porombka sees this not so much as reflecting his experiences onthe eastern front, but as a view bearing a strong similarity to the FrankfurtSchool’s later criticism of the ‘authoritarian personality’.26 Whether theassumption is that Tucholsky actually influenced such theorists as Hork-heimer – which seems unlikely – or simply that he was able to anticipatemany of their conclusions is not clear.

Porombka may have a point in claiming that Tucholsky’s initial sus-picion of the Berlin revolutionaries of 1918 as an unruly mob interestedonly in trouble-making and higher wages owes something to Le Bon’s anti-democratic contempt for the masses: after all, he does mention Le Bonapprovingly in an article of 1920.27 But surely the simpler biographicalexplanation is at least as important: the initial understandable uncertaintyabout the political scene after his return from service in Romania. How-ever, Porombka is correct in recognising that in the late 1920s Tucholskycame to take a more sympathetic view of the masses as representing ‘dieKraft jedes Volkes’.28 This was the period when he was seeking to influenceworkers through his poems in the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung and the under-lying tension between the individualist writer and the forces calling forhim to commit himself totally to one political group was at its height.

Porombka explains the tension by examining the contending intellec-tual influences on Tucholsky of Marx and Freud. Avoiding the error ofsome earlier critics who had concluded that Tucholsky was simply an anti-Marxist,29 she instead follows the line taken by Willi Zimmermann andmyself: that Tucholsky sought a synthesis of Marxist and Freudian theories

26 Cf. ‘Militarbilanz’, GW II, p.313 and Porombka, Verspateter Aufklarer oder Pionier einer neuen Aufkla-rung? Kurt Tucholsky, 1918–35, Frankfurt a. M. 1990, p.25.27 Cf. ‘Das politische Kino’, Deutsches Tempo, p.169 and Porombka, pp.41–58.28 Cf. ‘Masse Mensch’, GW VI, p.249 and Porombka, p.50.29 Cf. Schulz, p.120 and Prescher, p.62.



such as was later achieved by Wilhelm Reich.30 But Porombka differs fromearlier interpretations in her assessment of how Tucholsky emerged fromthe painful process of rethinking. While others simply noted that by 1932he had given up writing for the public, she detects continuity between hisjournalistic work and his later correspondence, based on the theory thatTucholsky recognised the bankruptcy of one traditional type of ‘Aufkla-rung’ and saw this as a necessary stage on the road to a new form ofenlightenment. Whereas many exiles persisted in forming cliques, writingessays and manifestos as if they were still living in Germany and had apublic to influence, Tucholsky scornfully condemned such activities. Buthe claimed that his attitude was far from nihilistic. ‘Entmutige ich? Dasist schon viel, wenn man falsche und trugerische Hoffnungen abbaut’(Ausgewahlte Briefe, p.338). New ideas were required, which Tucholskyfound in the periodical L’Ordre Nouveau, edited by Raymond Aron andArnaud Dandieu.

Porombka begins her analysis by summarising L’Ordre Nouveau’s expla-nation of the crisis in Europe: that abstract forces and mechanisms,embodied by the banks and industry, were producing economic progressbut crushing any moral or spiritual advance. However, human beings werenot created merely to serve monstrous conglomerates, nor could individ-uals be reduced to the role which they played within the economic struc-ture.31 The relationship between the French editors’ opinions and thoseof Tucholsky is indeed striking, since he too had been suspicious of suchvulgar-Marxist determinism and for some years had seen the individualrather than mass organisations at the heart of the universe. In the lastyear of his life he expressed his enthusiasm for Dandieu to his friendHasenclever: ‘Lesen Sie % Dandieu. Sie werden daran vieles finden, furdas uns bisher nur der konkrete Ausdruck gefehlt hat. Der Mensch isteben nicht ein homo oeconomicus und nichts als das – sondern er ist einganzer, runder Mensch %’ (Ausgewahlte Briefe, p.303).

However, it is less clear how this similarity of view qualifies Tucholsky,in the words of Porombka’s title, to become the pioneer of a new type ofenlightenment. For ultimately Tucholsky was compelled to admit that notonly his writings but human activity in general were to be seen at best asan end in themselves or an occupational therapy (Die Q-Tagebucher, p.108),and that after abandoning his earlier approach, he had nothing positiveto put in its place: ‘Es ist schade, daß mein Format und mein Wissen nichtausreichen, ich kann nicht ein Wort offentlich sagen, weil jeder, mit vol-lem Recht, fragte: Also bitte – wie dann? Und das weiß ich nicht. Aberich weiß wenigstens, daß ich es nicht weiß % ’ (ibid., p.53). This is a newenlightenment in the negative sense that the knowledge of one’s own

30 Cf. Zimmermann, ‘Kurt Tucholsky als politischer Aufklarer’ in Ackermann, Sieben Beitrage,pp.109–30; King, Kurt Tucholsky als Politiker, Frankfurt a. M. 1983, pp.142–5; Porombka, pp.62–83and Reich’s Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, Copenhagen 1933.31 Porombka, p.214.



ignorance represents the beginning of wisdom – but only the beginning.Thus the interpretation of Tucholsky as a new type of ‘Aufklarer’ whichlies at the centre of Porombka’s thesis is ultimately unconvincing, and themore conventional view of him as a gallant failure emerges from her studystrengthened rather than refuted.

Helga Bemmann’s contribution to research consists of two books: Inmein’ Verein bin ich hineingetreten, Tucholsky als Chanson- und Liederdichter in1989 and the 590-page biography Kurt Tucholsky, ein Lebensbild in the fol-lowing year. She begins with new details from her subject’s childhood andadolescence and with a reference to his skills as a public speaker, a topicignored by most previous critics. But perhaps the most valuable chaptersare those describing his activity on behalf of left-wing and pacifist organis-ations, such as the ‘Nie wieder Krieg!’ movement, the Deutsche Liga furMenschenrechte and Rote Hilfe. He wrote highly effective verse in supportof the first organisation, and was elected to the executive of both the Ligaand Rote Hilfe in the late 1920s (Tucholsky, ein Lebensbild, p.476).

However, Bemmann’s biography suffers from several major weaknesses.First, she identifies too closely with her hero. Thus his brief and generallytrivial early articles for Vorwarts were hardly proof of a ‘gefestigtes Urteilund konsequente Haltung’ (ibid., p.70), nor could his editorship ofPieron – when he was some nine years older – be excused on the groundsof naivete. (‘Die politischen Hintergrunde waren fur ihn zu diesem Zeit-punkt nicht durchschaubar’, ibid., p.201.) He may have been mature in1911, or still immature in 1920, but hardly both. Also over-generous is thepraise which she lavishes on Tucholsky’s dubious efforts as editor of Ulk,which had involved attacks not only on the reactionary right, but also onKarl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Kurt Eisner. After describing hiscontributions in all their ambiguity, Bemmann concludes mildly that afterhis resignation in 1920 Tucholsky was sadly missed. The facts revealed byBemmann herself do not bear out this interpretation.

Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg excuses Bemmann’s unwillingness tocomment on contradictions in Tucholsky’s writings: ‘Mit Wertungen undpsychologisierenden Deutungen halt Bemmann sich vollig zuruck; sie laßtFakten sprechen, und die sind aufregend genug. Die Schlusse daraus uber-laßt sie weitgehend dem Leser.’32 But when a biographer has almost sixhundred pages at her disposal, such reticence amounts to a significantlost opportunity. Another serious omission is the absence of footnotes,which leaves readers to take her sources on trust. The impression givenis of a heroic Tucholsky and a somewhat naive biographer, when whatwas required was an analytical study, revealing his weaknesses as well ashis achievements.

In the most recent biography, Michael Hepp undertakes precisely thistask. Tucholsky has too long been regarded as a monument to be revered,rather than as a searching, sometimes erring human being, Hepp declares

32 Schmeichel-Falkenberg, in Ackermann/ Hubner, p.131.



in the introduction to Kurt Tucholsky, biographische Annaherungen (p.13). Ina 576-page work which amounts to the most detailed and scholarly biogra-phy to date, Hepp explains Tucholsky’s vulnerability: he was scarred byan unhappy childhood, in which his father died when Kurt was only fif-teen, and his mother terrorised the household. Whilst these facts wereknown to previous biographers, Hepp is the first to construct a logicalargument out of them; by forcing him into early responsibility for hisyounger brother and sister, Doris Tucholsky unwittingly set the scene forthe abiding tension of her elder son’s life: ‘Angst und Fluchtreaktionenvor dem Leben, Scheu vor Verantwortung, Suche nach Nahe und gleich-zeitige Flucht davor, Unfahigkeit, sich ganz zu offnen, Beziehungsunfahig-keit, Minderwertigkeitskomplexe, der heimliche Wunsch, ewig ein Kindbleiben zu konnen % ’ (Hepp, p.34).

The best example of Tucholsky’s ‘Suche nach Nahe und gleichzeitigeFlucht davor’ was the relationship with his second wife Mary. Though pre-viously critical of Mary’s inadequacies as an archivist and of her attemptsto influence researchers,33 Hepp does justice to both parties. While theywere able to give expression to their feelings in writing (initially in Alt-Autz from one office to the next), crucial meetings went awry. Armedwith the opportunity of promotion and a transfer to Romania, Tucholskyprobably wished nothing more than for Mary to admit her love and askhim to stay; Mary, shocked but not devoid of self-respect, advised him todo what was best for himself. They became engaged; but when at lengthMary was able to settle in Berlin in January 1920, the relationship againcame under pressure. Tucholsky’s consternation is evident from a letterin which he writes of having loved Mary for two years as much as anyhuman being could love another, only to find when they came togetherthat there was a sort of glass wall between them which he could not breakdown.34 As Hepp rightly observes, whenever they were together therelationship became a constant struggle, yet separation transfigured itonce more and made it almost impossible for them to stay apart.

After this second separation from Mary, Tucholsky married Else Weil,a friend from university days. But Hepp quotes passages from Tucholsky’sdiary within three months of the wedding which show that the marriagewas doomed, because Mary was the only woman Tucholsky had ever loved.After separating from Else, Tucholsky married Mary in 1924, but livingtogether again proved too much of a strain. Hepp returns to his theme:apparently Tucholsky was studying Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complexand complained about the ‘Knacks im Verhaltnis zu allen anderen Frauen’which stemmed ultimately from the problems with his mother (Hepp,p.152). In November 1928 Mary left him permanently and they were div-

33 Michael Hepp, ‘Mutmaßungen uber Tucholsky’ in Dokumentation der Tucholsky-Gesellschaft, 1,pp.24–5.34 Letter of 16/2/20 in Unser ungelebtes Leben, Briefe an Mary, Reinbek 1982, p.296.



orced in 1933, but Tucholsky still chose her as his sole heir. A very specialrelationship, as Hepp reveals.

It can therefore be seen that this biographer’s method takes him beyondnarrating facts to constructing causal connections between them, and heis not afraid to apply these at length to the writer’s life. Another areawhere he does so successfully is his explanation for the somewhat abstractslogans with which Tucholsky greeted the revolution and proclamation ofthe republic. While other critics merely noted the uncertainty and vague-ness which characterised Tucholsky’s responses in this period,35 Heppexplains such ideals as the ‘geistige Revolution’ and ‘anstandige Gesin-nung’ by relating them to classic authors of the Enlightenment, to Kantand later Schopenhauer rather than Marx or Lenin.36 The Enlightenmenthad produced the emancipation of the Jews, but left them victims of dis-crimination throughout Germany. Hence their general sympathy for socialchange, but a change which would not threaten the Enlightenment values,for an intellectual rather than a political or economic revolution. The highproportion of Weltbuhne contributors who were Jewish, or like Tucholsky atleast began life so, suggests that Hepp is right in his explanation of theidealistic but ‘unpolitical’ view they took of the revolution.

However, there are other occasions when Hepp’s determination to sus-tain his arguments to the bitter end produces less satisfactory results. Themost significant relates to a contrast which he purports to discoverbetween Tucholsky’s writings and his life. Attacks on groups of which hehimself had been a member are seen to amount at best to covert ‘Selbstan-klage’, at worst to straightforward hypocrisy. Thus Tucholsky savagely criti-cised the officers who during the war had enjoyed positions of privilegebehind the front line; yet after his early dangerous weeks with the pion-eers, he himself was soon to be found at a similar distance from the fight-ing, and even created and edited the increasingly reactionary newspaperDer Flieger to ensure that his comfortable existence continued. Conservativeex-comrades found Tucholsky’s post-war attacks on the officer class hypo-critical, and Hepp agrees: ‘Die Scharfe, in der er spater vor allem mitden Etappenoffizieren abrechnete, steht in deutlichem Kontrast zu seinereigenen Haltung wahrend des Krieges’ (Hepp, p.106).

Hepp produces other examples to support his theory of self-criticismand hypocrisy. Was it right to attack the government for wasting moneyon propaganda, while himself earning a fortune in highly suspicious com-pany with Pieron?37 And why did he later publish articles in the ArbeiterIllustrierte Zeitung for supposedly revolutionary workers, when he was

35 Cf. Ian King, ‘Tucholsky und die Novemberrevolution: vom Ulk und der geistigen Revolutionbis zur Politik’ in Dokumentation der Tucholsky-Gesellschaft, 2 (1992), 41.36 Cf. ‘Zur Erinnerung an den ersten August 1914’, GW II, p.38 and ‘Wir Negativen’, ibid., p.56and Hepp, pp.171–84.37 Cf. ‘Zehn Prozent’, GW II, p.420 and Hepp, p.226.



enjoying a thoroughly bourgeois existence and in Hepp’s view had ceasedto believe in what he was writing?

Hepp is usually a reliable source. But on this issue he appears to haveselected the labels of ‘Selbstanklage’ and implied hypocrisy first, and onlythen chosen a series of examples to fit the preconceived theory. It is surelypreferable to evaluate each case individually. On Pieron it is impossible todefend Tucholsky, but Der Flieger falls into a different category. To keephis head down, edit the paper as ‘non-politically’ as possible – even ifeventually it deteriorated into a chauvinistic rag – and store up the angerthat fuelled the Militaria-series seems reasonable and preferable to beingsent to Verdun. Even if Tucholsky was temporarily seduced by the military,in itself a debatable point, the indignation and verve of his post-1918 pol-emics more than compensate for any possible offence.

The third charge of self-criticism and hypocrisy sees Tucholsky the well-heeled bourgeois agitating among the proletariat against his own class, insupport of a revolution in which he did not believe. Here Hepp’s attackis both moralistic and unfair, since it was precisely Tucholsky’s social statuswhich enabled him to recognise the failings of others from a similar back-ground. Thus the polemic of 1919 against the conservative ‘Burger durchAnlage, nicht durch Geburt und am allerwenigsten durch Beruf’38

reflected both familiarity and contempt. Similarly the satirical monologuesput into the mouth of the Jewish businessman, Herr Wendriner, wouldhave been far less effective without Tucholsky’s experience of work as priv-ate secretary to the owner of the Bett, Simon & Co. merchant bank in1923. Politically alienated from his own class, Tucholsky had come to sym-pathise with the workers instead, and he possessed an enviable ability toformulate feelings which the latter could not express so well. Was it hypoc-risy for Tucholsky, who had no ambition to lead the workers, to enjoy aprosperous middle-class life-style? An idealist wishing to assist those lessfortunate does not help them by living in a hovel. Above all, Hepp doesnot take sufficient account of Tucholsky’s motivation in writing his AIZpoems and the bitter polemics of Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles. Hewas struggling to come to terms with ideological ‘Heimatlosigkeit’, fearingfor his country’s future yet aware that as an individual he could do littleto influence it. To maintain contact with the last major progressive force,the Communist workers, he was temporarily ready to swallow some of hisdoubts about their leaders and doctrines. Tucholsky’s writings at this timerepresented not calculating hypocrisy, but a lifebelt clutched convulsivelyby a man drowning in a sea of despair.

A more intriguing point is made by Hepp about the circumstances ofTucholsky’s death. For years the standard explanation has been that hecommitted suicide by taking poison, leaving a note ‘Laisse-moi mourir enpaix.’ Interpretations of this have varied; it has been attributed to theidealistic despair of one who could not bear to see how far his country

38 GW II, p.52.



had sunk and also to the more prosaic motive that he had no public, nowish to write, no money and had been ill for many months. Tucholskywas a manic depressive, had already tried to kill himself in 1922 and inDecember 1935 he succeeded.

But doubts have surfaced about the suicide theory, since apart fromGertrude Meyer, whose memory may have been playing her false, no onehas ever seen the alleged suicide note. Could Tucholsky have been mur-dered by Nazi agents, and the deed made to look like suicide? Hitler’sminions kept a close eye on their opponents, and the German embassyin Stockholm knew of his whereabouts. Other exiles such as Theodor Les-sing were murdered; why not Tucholsky, whose death caused the Nazissuch jubilation? Tucholsky’s former colleague Walter Mehring advancedthis theory and Helga Bemmann too puts it forward, though characteristi-cally without indicating whether she herself supports it (Bemmann1990, p.565).

While admitting that the truth may never be known, Hepp produces atheory of his own: that Tucholsky died by his own hand, but not intention-ally. His illness, a severe form of sinusitis, caused headaches which madesleep impossible unless he took an increasingly dangerous dose of tablets.Particularly if consumed in combination with alcohol, the effect couldhave proved deadly:

Es ware also durchaus denkbar, daß Tucholsky in den fruhen Stunden des21. Dezember auch mit der ublichen Menge Schlafmittel nicht richtigeinschlafen konnte; durch Alkohol und Veronal schon mude und benebelt,nahm er eine weitere Dosis, die dann allerdings todlich wirkte, ohne daß erdies wollte. (Hepp, p.369)

This is certainly possible, though I still believe that Tucholsky ultimatelycould not come to terms with illness, poverty and the apparent point-lessness of continued existence for another new year.Hepp does not answer every question about Tucholsky’s life and work,

nor attempt to do so. Though his ‘Abrechnung’ with the Prussian militaryimmediately after the war is covered, the pacifist articles of the late 1920sin which he looked forward to a common ‘Vaterland Europa’ (GW 6,p.84) are never mentioned. The new material on his work in Paris onbehalf of the German Foreign Office and his contacts with French poli-ticians is fascinating, but obviously requires much further research. Thesame could be said of the vexed question of his relationship with the KPD,and of his activities as a freemason, a topic discussed elsewhere in greaterdetail by fellow-mason Hans-Detlef Mebes.39

Nevertheless it would be unfair to criticise Hepp for not answering ques-

39 Mebes’s article ‘Kurt Tucholsky 1924–35. Ein zweites Leben im geheimen’ was published inhumanitat, das deutsche Freimaurermagazin, No. 7, October/November 1985, and deserves to be madeavailable to a wider public.



tions which, for reasons of lack of space or expertise, he had not set him-self. To see patterns in Tucholsky’s life which had eluded previous criticsis a laudable skill, particularly enlightening on the malign influence ofDoris Tucholsky; however, he occasionally overplays his hand. But for itsreadiness to ask awkward questions and its skilful use of previously unavail-able material, this is by far the best study of Tucholsky to date.

Arguably, 1996 would seem to represent a transitional period in Tuchol-sky research. The Rowohlt Verlag has discontinued its policy of publishinginadequate Gesammelte Werke supplemented by ‘Erganzungsbande’ on apiecemeal basis; the end of this practice must represent a step forward.But the first volumes of the Oldenburg Complete Edition, the letters toHedwig Muller, are at the time of writing still not available, and somevolumes of Tucholsky articles are not due to see the light for over tenyears longer. The secondary literature too is at something of a crossroads.After the studies by Porombka and Hepp, a less idealised Tucholsky hasemerged. He has been positioned amid the intellectual currents of histime, and Porombka shows how he learned to swim in them. Hepp’sbiography removes for ever the image of Tucholsky the ‘Saulenheilige’and explains the evolution of his political views at critical points in hiscareer. He was a complicated personality and in spite of the new bio-graphies these contradictions have still not been fully examined. However,the biggest gap in scholarship still relates to intellectual influences andstylistic techniques. A younger generation of literary researchers such asRenke Siems and Kirsten Erwentraut, at the recent conference of theTucholsky Society in Sweden, have shown on a small scale what can bedone to remedy this: more power to their elbow.40 But no ‘Germanist’,not even Am Zehnhoff, has yet demonstrated just why Tucholsky was sucha brilliant satirist: it remains as mysterious as where the holes in cheesecome from.

40 Cf. Renke Siems, ‘Republikanische Mystik – Tucholsky und Peguy’ and Kirsten Erwentraut, ‘Auchhier : es geht nicht ohne Freud. Tucholskys Schloß Gripsholm’, papers given at the Tucholsky SocietyConference in Mariefred, 20 May 1994, and published in Michael Hepp/Roland Links (eds),‘Schweden – das ist ja ein langes Land!’, Kurt Tucholsky und Schweden, Oldenburg 1994, pp.89–116 and149–80.


Documents

Ein Suchender, Kein Denkmal: An Analysis of Research on Kurt Tucholsky