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Erich Kästner (1899-1974) | |
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German satirist, poet and novelist, whose military experiences made him pacifist after World War I and opponent of totalitarian systems. Erich Kästner is best known for his juvenile novels, later burned by the Nazis. Emil und die Detektive (1929, Emil and the Detectives) did not first get publishing permit. Kästner's works reflected his social optimism based on his belief in the renewing power of the each new generation of youth. His books have been popular with Israeli children. "Emil felt very small among them all, in that big city, bury city. Mobody cared about his having no money, or that he didn't know where he was going. There were four million people in Berlin at that moment, and not one of them cared what was happening to Emil Tischbein. No one has time for other people's troubles in a city. They've all the troubles enough of their own." (Emil and the Detectives, translated from the German by Eileen Hall, London: Red Fox, 1959, p. 76) Erich Kästner was born in Dresden, the only child of Emil
Kästner, a saddler, and Ida (Augustin) Kästner. When Emil could not
continue his special line of work, he ended up in a luggage
factory. To help to support the family, Ida took odd jobs as a
semstress and hairdresser. Kästner attended the Lehrerseminar, a
teacher's training college. During World War I he was conscripted into
an infantry regiment for a year. The experience made him a life-long
opponent of militarism. After military service, Kästner studied German literature at Leipzig university. In the 1920s he worked in a bank and contributed to the pacifist Die Weltbühne and other papers. In 1925 Kästner received his Ph.D. for a dissertation on Frederick II and German literature. Kästner's early works, collections of poems, appeared in the 1920s. When Kästner lost an editorial position after publishing 'Abendlied des Kammervirtuosen' (Evening Song of the Chamber Virtuoso), an erotic poem, he moved in 1927 to Berlin, and became a freelance writer. Upon publishing Ein Mann gibt Auskunft (1930) Kästner devoted himself entirely to writing. In 1931 he was elected to the membership of the German PEN club. Kästner gained first wider fame with the juvenile novel Emil
and the Detectives. It has been dramatized and filmed several
times. Emil Tischbein, the hero of the novel was featured also in Emil und die drei Zwillinge (1933).
Kästner's own mother Ida served as the model for Frau Tiscbein. Emil und die Detektive - Emil and the Detectives (1931), film directed by Gerhard Lamprecht, screenplay by Billie Wilder, starring Rolf Wenkhaus (Emil), Käthe Haack (Emil's mother), Fritz Rasp, Rudolf Bierbrach, Olga Engl, Inge Landgut. Remade in 1935 as Emil and the Detectives, directed by Milton Rosmer, original screenplay Billie Wilder. – Following the novel closely but not exactly, the film depicts a valiant boy from Neustadt. Emil is sent off to Berlin to visit his grandmother and his cousin. His mother gives him 140 marks to give to Grandma. On a train a fellow passenger steals the money. In Berlin Emil spots the thief on a streetcar. He finds assistance from a gang of Berlin street kids. They follow the thief into a hotel, but Emil don't find the money from the man's room. Next morning a hundred or so children follow the man to a bank, where he tries to change a hundred-mark bill. Emil can prove that the money is his – there is hole in the bill from his pin. The man turns out to be a wanted bank robber. Emil gets a reward, which he uses to buy his mother a new hair dyer. – The novel concludes with a triple moral. When each character has been asked what he or she has learned, Emil responds that you can't trust anybody, his mother says that you can't allow children to travel alone, and Grandma states that you should send the money through the post office. – Kästner complained that the screenplay vulgarized the story. He had written the original script in collaboration with Emeric Pressburger. In the 1920s, the most lively art form in Berlin was the literary political cabaret. In the stage procuctions, Kästner cooperated with Kurt Tucholsky, "a fat little Berliner who tried to stem the catastrophe with his typewriter", as the author himself put it. (Wit as a Weapon by Egon Larsen, 1980, pp. 37-38) Many of his lyrics were set to music and performed in cabarets. 'Das Abschiedsbrief' (The Farewell Letter) was composed by Kurt Weill. In one of his poems Kästner parodied Goethe's 'Mignon song': "Do you know the land where cannons are in bloom? /You don't? You're going to!" If we had won the war – good heavens! – As
a poet Kästner represented the "new factualism" movement
that began in Germany in the 1920s. In the four collections of verse
published between 1928 and 1932, he combined stylistic elements of
expressionism with conservative verse forms and his own social
philosophy. In the satirical poem 'Kennst du das Land, wo die
Kanonen blüchen?' (1928, Knowst Thou the Land Where Only Cannons
Grow?) Kästner predicted the rise of Nazism: "Du kennst es nicht? Du wirst es kennenlernen!" Walter Benjamin
criticized Kästner's poems, coining the phrase "left-wing melancholia"
(Linke Melancholie)
in a review first published as 'Linke Melancholie. Zu Erich Kästners
neuem Gedichtbuch' (1931). Benjamin argued that "Kästner's poems are
for the higher-income bracket, those mournful, melancholy dummies who
trample anything or anyone in their path," and concluded: "Constipation
and melancholy have always gone together. But since the juices began to
dry up in the body social, stuffiness meets us at every turn. Kästner's
poems do not improve the atmosphere." (The Weimar Republic Sourcebook,
edited by Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, Edward Dimendberg, 1995, p. 306) Fabian (1931, Fabian: The Story of a Moralist) told about Germany's "lost generation", in the chaotic last years of the Weimar Republic. Jakob Fabian, the moralist of the title, loses his low-paid job, girlfriend, and his friend commits suicide. Fabian returns to his home town, Dresden, but there is no hope for him. Despite the sad tone, the book has its humorous moments. With his friend Fabian visits a lesbian bar: "'La Cousine' was a sort of club, frequented mainly by women. They danced together. They sat arm-in-arm on little green sofas. They looked deep into each other's eyes. They drank schnaps, and some wore velveteen coats and high-cut blouses in oder to look like men." (Fabian: The Story of a Moralist, translated by Cyrus Brooks, Northwestern University Press, 1993, p. 70) Fabian was published in censored form. The Nazis attacked the book because of its sex scenes. Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party newspaper called it a "dirty tale," filled with "descriptions of subhuman orgies." (''How the Nazis Ruined Erich Kästner's Career' by Georg Dietz, Spiegel International, 18.04.2023) The uncut version of the book, Der Gang vor die Hunde (Going to the Dogs), came out in 2013. Kästner's view of women, who dress in tuxedos smoke cigars, and drink hard liquor, has been criticized for making them symbols of urban degeneracy. In spite of the pressure of the Nazis, Kästner refused the
membership of Reich Chamber of Literature, controlled by Goebbels's
propaganda ministry. Moreover, he refused to move to Switzerland. From 1933
to 1945 he was prevented from publishing his books in his home country
– they appeared first in Switzerland. Emil and the Detectives
remained still available also in Germany. Kästner's other widely translated juvenile books include Das fliegende Klassenzimmer (1933) – while working on this novel he had a brief affair with the actress Cara Gylin – and Das doppelte Lottchen (1949), in which twin sisters try to reunite their parents. Unlike several other
intellectuals and writers, who suffered from Nazi policy, Kästner
remained in Germany during Hitler's rule. He was among the few authors,
perhaps the only, who was present, when the Nazis burned books in Berlin on May
10, 1933, his own included. Kästner did not leave the scene on Opernplatz until being recognized. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1934 and 1937 because
he used to cross the border regularly to consult his Swiss publisher. For Josef von Baky's Münchhausen (1943), starring Hans Albers in the title role, Kästner wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym of Berthold Bürger. The spectacular Agfacolor production was set in motion by the propaganda minister Josef Göbbels to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the UFA studios. Goebbels wanted to prove that an Ufa color film was as good as American color films. Münchhausen borrowed freely from such Hollywood productions as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Thief of Bagdad. Its fantasy world was far from the harsh realities of the ongoing war. After the movie was released, Hitler ordered that Kästner should receive no further commissions. At the end of the war, he was penniless but soon recovered from the enforced silence of the Nazi years. He became magazine editor of Die Neue Zeittung of Munich, and he also founded the children's periodical Der Pinguin. During the postwar period, Kästner was an active participant in the Munich cabaret Die Schaubude (from 1951 Die kleine Freiheit). Die Schule der Diktatoren, staged at the Kammerspiele theatre in Munich in 1956, unmasked totalitarian rule in the form of comedy. Kästner did not gain such success with his plays as with his novels. Der kleine
Mann (1963, The Little Man), about
two inches tall boy, received the Batchelder Award in
1968 for its translation. Its sequel was Der kleine Mann und die
kleine Miss (1967, The Little Man and the Big Thief). Drei Männer im Schnee
(1934), written for adults, was successfully filmed in the 1930s. Die Konferenz der Tiere (1949,
The Animals' Conference) adopted the mode of George Orwell's
famous Animal Farm (1945). Kästner was a devoted cat person;
his writings about felines were collected in Meine Katzen (2013). One of his
cats was named Pola after the film star Pola Negri. Later works include memoirs, Als
ich ein kleiner Junge war (1957, When I Was a Little Boy), a diary
Notabene 45 (1961), plays, several collections of poems,
and anthologies of world humor. In 1957 Kästner was awarded the Büchner
Prize for literature,
the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1960 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf
Award in 1961 for his autobiography. From 1952 to 1962 he was president
of the West German chapter of the PEN Club. Much of his writing Kästner did in cafés. One of his favorite places in Berlin was Romanisches Café, where he sat with a quizzical look across his face, accompanied with a small
smile. "He looks like his
books," said the American playwright and novelist Thornton
Wilder. ('Kästner, Erich,' in World Authors 1950-1970, edited by
John Wakeman, 1975, p. 751) Throughout his life, Kästner maintained a certain suspicion toward political ideologies
in general. Erich Kästner died of cancer on
July 29, 1974, in Munich. Closely
tied to his mother, Kästner
never married, but had an illegitimate son. He wrote to his
mother about his love affairs, and even once revealed that he had contracted
gonorrhea. Kästner was treated with silver compounds and sulphonamides,
and with electrical charges. "I could hack the chest of drawers to pieces," he said in frustration to his mother in a letter. (Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39 by Florian Illies, Penguin, 2023, p. 116) Almost 40 years Kästner lived with the journalist and dramaturgist Luiselotte Enderle, the model for the mother of Lisa and Lottie in Das doppelte Lottchen. Kästner's grave is situated in an idyllic churchyard of the baroque Church of St George in Bogenhausen. After Kästner's death, the Bavarian Academy of Arts established a literary prize in his honor. In Dresden, a café-bar on Alaustrasse, Neustadt, was named after Kästner. A statue stands close to the house where he was born. For further reading: Social Criticism in the Early Works of Erich Kästner by J. Winkelman (1953); The Poetic Style of Erich Kästner by J. Winkelman (1957); Erich Kästner in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten by L. Enderle (1966); Erich Kästner by K. Beutler (1967); Erich Kästner: Studien zu seinem Werk by R. Benson (1973); Erich Kästner by H. Wagener (1973); Erich Kästner by R.W. Last (1974); 'Kästner, Erich,' in World Authors 1950-1970, edited by John Wakeman (1975); Erich Kästner by H. Kiesel (1981); Erich Kästner by W. Schneyder (1982); Erich Kästner, edited by R. Wolff (1983); Erich Kästner: Eine Personalbibliographie , ed. U. Lämmerzahl-Bensel (1988); Erich Kästner by H. Bemmann (1994); Erich Kästner, edited by M. Flotnow (1996); 'Kästner, Erich,' in Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Vol. 2, edited by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Erich Kästner: Lebensphasen, politisches Engagement, literarisches Wirken by Klaus Doderer (2002); "Was darf die Satire?": Kurt Tucholsky und Erich Kästner, ein kritischer Vergleich by Harald Vogel (2015); Wir leben noch: Ida und Erich Kästner, Kurt Vonnegut und der Feuersturm von Dresden: eine Zugfahrt by Sven Hanuschek (2018) - Other major writers banned in the 1930s and during WW II: Alfred Döblin, Bertolt Brecht (fled to the United States), Thomas and Heinrich Mann (fled to the United States), Franz Werfel (fled to the United States), Erich Maria Remarque (fled to the United States), Joseph Roth (fled to Paris and died in a poorhouse), Robert Musil (fled to Switzerland), Nelly Sachs (fled to Sweden). - See also Ernest Jünger, who first supported the Nazis. Selected works:
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