Kurt Tucholsky Museum Tour

Tucholsky belonged to the early campaigners for the „United States of Europe“. Long before Helmut Kohl and Mickhail Gorbachev he talked about the “House Europe” and a “Europe without borders” and noted in 1926:

“We don’t live in the separate strongholds of the Middle Ages anymore, we live in one house. And this house is called Europe.”

Tucholsky was certain that only a Europe that was wanted and accepted by its people, a Europe of mutual trust and open borders could avert the dangers of a new war. 1928 he wrote in “Die Weltbühne”:

“We take the war of the nation states for a crime, and we fight it wherever we can, whenever we can, with whatever means we have. We are traitors. But we commit treason against a state  we negate in favour of a country we love, for peace and for our true home country: Europe.”

Especially since Tucholsky lived in France and closely observed the development in Germany he became a self-confessed European, who revolted against national borders and limitations:

“The thought of the “United States of Europe” shall triumph over witless pan-German nationalist thoughts of the state sovereignty.”