Audio guide for reading
Audio guide for reading 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: