Kurt Tucholsky Museum Tour

In 1931 Tucholsky published the novel „Castle Gripsholm. A Summer Story“. The bittersweet love story is one of Tucholsky’s most known texts and ties in with the successful Rheinsberg-narrative, less light-hearted but more sophisticated “Castle Gripsholm” recounts the vacation of a loving Berlin couple in Sweden.

Even more than in his first novel “Rheinsberg” Tucholsky embellished this tale with – for those days – bold love life and even hinted at an erotic adventure a trois.

Even though the first-person narrator is named “Kurtchen” there are no autobiographical traces in “Castle Gripsholm” as contrary to “Rheinsberg”. Tucholsky said:

“During the long winter month, while I occupied myself with “Gripsholm”, nothing gave me as much trouble as trying to create this atmosphere of real events.”

The novel became a great success. To the critique, that the narrative was to easygoing and lacking depth, Tucholsky answered:

[…] Gripsholm: No, it does not have much content/substance. It seems to me now, that one of the greatest assets of an Omelette soufflé is to have as little substance as possible, and roast beef was just not on the menu.”