Kurt Tucholsky Museum Tour

This little note was enclosed in one of Kurt Tucholsky’s letters to his sister Ellen. It is dated to July 21, 1916, at this time Tucholsky was soldier in the First World War in the area of the river Neman.

The brand-new attorney Tucholsky met the outbreak of war with little interest. But the war, mainly spent in offices, turned him into a radical pacifist. In “Eigenhändige Vita” Tucholsky wrote in 1934:

“Besides his literary work, Tucholsky acted as a fierce pacifist in Germany between the years1913 and 1930.”

Indeed, Tucholsky was considered a feared critic of militarism during his life. His words “soldiers are murderers” are still used as a slogan by opponents of war. In hundreds of essays and poems Tucholsky tried to fight the militaristic zeitgeist:

“Every glorification of a man killed in a war means three dead men in the next war.”

“Kill the German military-: and you have a German culture.”

Over the time his pleas became more and more radical and culminated in John Heartfields famous collage. This collage features the heads of World War I generals and in Tucholsky’s hand the words:

“Animals are looking at you.”

However, already in 1923 Tucholsky’s remarks were increasingly pessimistic:

“I have success but I have no effect at all.”

“I might be successful but I have no effect at all.”