The Political Development of Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) William John King Thesis Presented for the Degree of Ph.D., to the Germ
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'The Political Development of Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) William John King Thesis presented for the degree of Ph.D., to the German Department, Glasgow University, March 1977. ProQuest Number: 13804113 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13804113 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ACKNCWLEDG&ENTS I am very grateful to Mary Tucholsky, the widow, sole heiress and literary executor of Kurt Tucholsky, for her generous hospitality, and her readiness to allow me to consult material in the Tucholsky-Archiv in Rottach. Dr. Fritz J. Raddatz, the chairman of the Tucholsky- Stiftung, and Professor Walter Jens, of Tubingen University, gave me valuable advice. I should like to give particular thanks to two colleagues : to Dr. Margaret McHaffie of Glasgow University for her encouragement and advice, and to B e m d Klewitz of Sheffield City Polytechnic for his friendly criticism. CONTENTS Pages Summary i-iv Chapter 1 1-27 Chapter 2 28-57 Chapter 3 58-86 Chapter 4 . 87-117 Chapter 5 118-162 Chapter 6 163-192 Chapter 7 193-224 Chapter 8 225-262 Chapter 9 263-297 Chapter 30 298-310 Abbreviations 311 Bibliography 312-321 (i) SUMMARY This study examines the works of Kurt Tucholsky ^(1890-1935). Tucholsky was well-known in Germany during the nineteen-twenties and early nineteen-thirties as a poet, reviewer, essayist and satirist. However, his most significant work was in the field of political journalism, and it is this aspect of his writings which is analysed in this thesis. The first six chapters of this study examine the development of Tucholsky*s political opinions. His short articles in the Social Democratic newspaper VorwcSrts indicated an early scepticism about the moral standards and political institutions of Wilhelminian society. From 1914 the existence of censorship temporarily restrained his social criticism, but his experience of military service on Germany’s Eastern Front transformed him into a pacifist and a bitter opponent of German militarism. Tucholsky greeted the Revolution of November 1918 with enthusiasm, since it premised to sweep away the Wilhelminian system. Along with other left-wing writers, he supported the ideal of intellectual engagement and Die Weltbiihne, the weekly journal to which he contributed, was to become the leading organ of independent, progressive writers throughout the Weimar Republic. Tucholsky believed that his country required a period of peaceful consolidation. He opposed the violence of the revolutionary left almost as fiercely as he attacked the conservatives who had formerly ruled Germany; and in Ulk he gave cautious support to the Democratic Party* However, he soon began to recognise that the new government, led by the Social Democrats, was corprcmising with the officers, judges and civil servants of the old regime. Tucholsky pointed out rightly (ii) that such tactics would endanger the Republic. In March 1920 he emphasised his concern for the future of Germany by joining the USPD and contributing to its newspaper, Die Freiheit. Until 1922 he regularly warned his country's politicians against the threat from the right, but he became frustrated as his prophecies were ignored and his advice was rejected. During the crisis of 1923 he lapsed into a despairing silence, but his appointment as the Paris correspondent of the Weltbuhne restored his enthusiasm for literary work. By the mid-1920,s Tucholsky1 s political views had undergone a gradual change. He no longer believed that the Republic might provide a framework for democratic reform. On the contrary, Weimar democracy now seemed to be a mere facade, concealing the fact that power remained with the bourgeoisie and the army. Tucholsky*s opinion was reinforced when Fieldmarshal Hindenburg was elected as the second President of the Republic in 1925. Tucholsky rightly feared the anti-Republican plans of Hindenburg*s advisers, and he recognised the danger that Germany might prepare for war in order to avenge the defeat of 1918. In order to resist this development, and also to put into practice the Marxist principles which he new held, Tucholsky sought an alliance of left-wing forces and advocated a second revolution, more radical than that of 1918. During the late 1920's Tucholsky adopted a radically left- wing position. He accepted the revolutionary tenets of Marxism, sympathised with the KPD and wrote regularly for Ocranunist news papers. However, the KPD leaders did not respond to his offers (iii) of encouragement and his constructive criticism; they were not ^interested in discussing with the intellectual left, but only in compelling the latter to join the party and obey its unquestioning discipline. Tucholsky refused to do so, partly because he wished to preserve his artistic integrity and partly because he was beginning to suspect that the KPD was being exploited by Stalin as an instrument of Soviet foreign policy. Tucholsky had lost much of his interest in political polemic by the time of the National Social 1st electoral victories in the early 1930's. He opposed the advance of Fascism in Germany in a number of satirical poems and prose articles ; but he regarded Fascism merely as a new variant of Wilhelminian Conservatism, and underestimated the persuasive powers of its leader. Recognising that the progressive cause was facing inevitable defeat, Tucholsky wrote his last political articles in the spring of 1932 and committed suicide in his Swedish exile three years later. In the latter part of this study Tucholsky's significance as a political writer is assessed through a detailed analysis of the important themes in his work. Ihe relationship of the intellectual and polemicist with the leading Realpolitiker of the Weimar era, Ebert, NOske and Stresemann, is studied in Chapter 7. This is followed by an examination of his attitude to the German officers and the Prussian militarism which they represented. His comments on the judiciary, the educational system, the press and the middle classes are considered in Chapter 9. Tucholsky was an intellectual, a man of integrity who refused to betray his idealistic, humanitarian convictions in Vi slavish obedience to the doctrine of any political group. Never theless, even as a young man he was aware of the value of solidarity with progressive organisations. His oommitment to the left-wing cause after the war led him to give temporary support to the DOP, the USPD, the Pacifist Movement and the KPD. However, none of these groups retained his allegiance, and he finally abandoned politics in despair. Tucholsky has been criticised frcm the right for Utopian radicalism and from the left for bourgeois individualism. Ihis study concludes that he was prepared to make concessions to the Social Democrats in the early years of the Republic, and to the Ocraraunists in the late 1920's; but neither party listened to his pleas that they should change their policies. Their failure to retain Tucholsky' s support was partially due to his intellectual idealism, but largely caused by their own lack of perception and political errors. - 1- CHAPTER 1 Kurt Tucholsky, the eldest son of a prosperous Jewish family, was b o m in Berlin on January 11th, 1890. He attended two of the best-known grammar schools in the city, studied law at the universities of Berlin and Geneva and gained his doctorate in 1915. However, he gave only brief consideration to a legal career; his vocation lay elsewhere. As a seventeen-year-old schoolboy he wrote the first of his newspaper articles bo be published. In the next twenty-five years it was follovred by a further 2500 journalistic and literary works, ranging from lyric poetry to political polemic, from witty feui lie tons to speculations on the after-life. In the 1920*s he became one of his country's foremost satirists, and a controversial figure whose writings aroused enthusiasm on the left and indignation on the right. Tucholsky strove to influence events in Germany in his own time, and his books abound in references to contemporary politics; yet forty years after his death his works are more widely read than during his life-time. The young Tucholsky began his journalistic career in 1907, with a Marchen (1) which satirised Wilhelm II, who had controlled Germany since Bismarck's resignation in 1890. The Emperor enjoyed considerable popularity among the middle and upper classes, who regarded him as the symbol of Germany's increasing strength and prestige, and a guarantee that the existing social order would be preserved. A significant minority, led by (1) Marchen, Ulk, 22/11/07, Gesairmelte Werke, Vol.l, p. 13. the Social Democrats and sane progressive Liberals, recognised the Enpenor's weaknesses : his penchant for theatrical poses and resounding cliches, and his belief in the Divine Right of the Hohenzollems. Wilhelm's most formidable opponent was Maximilian Harden, who in the pages of his magazine Die Zukunft for years exposed corruption among the Emperor's advisers. (2) Wilhelm's blunders were also frequently satirised in the magazine Siroplicissimus, which was founded in Munich in 1896 and soon became, in Tucholsky's words: „das A und 0 der politischen deutschen Satire" . (3) The young author of Marchen joined the number of writers on the Liberal left who were sceptical about the Emperor's ability.