I Want to be a Student (Ich möchte Student sein)

„I was just a fresh student teacher at the time“, some people say; it’s what they had read in books. I was not a fresh student teacher at the time, but I can still clearly remember the time after I had graduated, and all the revision for exams and everything was over, sitting at the feet of a great teacher, whose lectures I had disgraced, in the university, and some things suddenly became clear to me. I suddenly understood everything which just three years ago had been completely in the dark; then I saw connections, and paid attention, and didn’t sleep for a second; then I was an attentive and useful student. Then, when it was too late. And that is why I want to be student again.

The Man with the Two Short-Service Commissions (Der Mann mit den zwei Einjährigen)

Now, when everyone is wrapping up the war; when the last memoirs are congealing into books, when the time is very gently approaching in which the heroes of yesterday become the invalids of tomorrow, now, here is someone who wants to unburden his conscience. The midday sun reveals all, it must be said, he has carried it for seventeen years, he can’t carry it any longer. But let’s hear what he has to say:

A Boy in My Class (Ein Kind aus meiner Klasse)

For Hans M.

I recently ran into a boy from my school class, after so many years. It was just like in a storybook. The poor man was standing outside the fence, begging, and the rich man was inside, brushing the cake crumbs from his jacket. “Don’t you recognize me?“ asked the poor man, gently. And then the rich man recognized his former class-mate, and… I can’t remember how the story ends. Anyway, the boy from my school class, with whom I used to walk around the school playground in deep discussions, has become a government councillor. I probably won’t achieve anything respectable during my lifetime, either. And I have my doubts about afterwards as well.

Reactionaries on the March (Der Aufmarsch der Reaktion)

While the left-wing parties fight out their quarrels with German thoroughness, the right is getting ready for battle. While the republican parties are conducting a more or less intellectual struggle against each other in the big cities, the monarchists are taking control of the countryside and rural areas, and they will soon be able to completely surround the cities and industrial areas. When shots fall in Berlin, the Pomeranian Vendée will dance for joy. The republic is bad, that is the political creed of innumerable Germans these days. The lack of self-control of the radical left-wing opposition is the best help that the reactionary right could hope for.

Dear Jake (Lieber Jakopp!)

Did we survive all those Rumanian parties, shoulder to shoulder, just so that you don‘t write to me any more?

The Case Against Immortality (Plädoyer gegen die Unsterblichkeit)

The unshakeable faith with which every writer assumes they will make an impact on posterity, is very touching. Their feet wade through muddy puddles, but their eyes gaze, calf-like, at the stars of a new age.

State of Emergency

Weyrauch, Wolfgang (ed.) (1966) Ausnahmezustand: Eine Anthologie aus ‘Weltbühne’ und ‘Tagebuch’. Kurt Desch

Tucho. Na Und?

 Tucholsky, Kurt & Gerold-Tucholsky, Mary (ed.) (1950) Kurt Tucholsky: Na Und? Eine Neue Auswahl aus Seinen Schriften und Gedichten, Rowohlt

The Contra-Part (Das Gegenstück)

The news reached us from Munich that the officers and men of the local reserve formations are staging their own theatre, under the title ‘The Field Grey[1]s for the Field Greys’, and they are performing a play written by a Field Grey, Hias[2].

The Great Families (Die großen Familien)

In the trial of our friends Küster[1] and Jacob before the Imperial Court, the State Prosecutor, Herr Jörns, rose, and spoke to Berthold Jacob[2], „Do you have a brother in Paris?” “Yes.“ „What is your brother doing there?“ „He is studying literature and history. He is about to publish a book.“ The prosecutor, „Does your brother have contacts to the French General Staff?” “No.” “To the scond level of the French General Staff?”