Overview

"Berlin! Berlin! is a satirical selection from the ""man with the acid pen and the perfect pitch for hypocrisy,"" as New York author and Tucholsky-expert Peter Wortsman writes. This book os a complete collection of Tucholsky's news stories, features, satirical pieces, and poems about his hometown Berlin. It depicts Weimar Berlin, its cabarets, its policies, its follies, its ticks, and its celebrities, such as Pola Negri, Gussy Holl, Bert Brecht, Max Reinhardt, or Heinrich Zille. The book contains some of Tucholsky's most famous pieces, among them Berlin! Berlin!, a feature of the stereotypical Berliner on the phone, on vacation or doing ""bizness"", more than one satirical biography of the author himself, and some of his most famed stories such as where the holes in the cheese come from, or about the lion who escaped the Berlin zoo. Herr Wendriner, the chatty Berlin businessman makes an appearance, as well as Lottchen, the flapper, modelled after one of Tucholsky's real-life gilrfriends. Also Tucholsky's long-term friends Karlchen and Jakopp are part of this book."

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9783960260271

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Reviews

"In Weimar Germany, Tucholsky was big, the most brilliant, prolific and witty cultural journalist of his time. He poured scorn on the reactionary institutions of the old regime, the follies of the Weimar Republic, and the peculiarities of the German character. -- William Grimes, The New York Times Imagine a writer with the acid voice of Christopher Hitchens and the satirical whimsy of Jon Stewart. That's Tucholsky in a nutshell. -- Anne Nelson, author of ""The Red Orchestra"" and ""The Guys"" Kurt Tucholsky was one of the most brilliant German-Jewish writers of his time. Today's Berliners adore him as one of their greatest sons. The world has yet to discover his genius. -Peter Schneider, author of ""The Wall Jumper"" and ""Eduard's Homecoming"" A selection from the man with the acid pen and the perfect pitch for hypocrisy, who was as much the voice of 1920s Berlin as Georg Grosz was its face. - Peter Wortsman, author of ""Ghost Dance in Berlin"" . . . a small, fat Berliner, who wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter. -Erich Kästner, author of ""Emil and the Detectives"""

"In Weimar Germany, Tucholsky was big, the most brilliant, prolific and witty cultural journalist of his time. He poured scorn on the reactionary institutions of the old regime, the follies of the Weimar Republic, and the peculiarities of the German character. -- William Grimes, The New York Times Imagine a writer with the acid voice of Christopher Hitchens and the satirical whimsy of Jon Stewart. That's Tucholsky in a nutshell. -- Anne Nelson, author of ""The Red Orchestra"" and ""The Guys"" Kurt Tucholsky was one of the most brilliant German-Jewish writers of his time. Today's Berliners adore him as one of their greatest sons. The world has yet to discover his genius. -Peter Schneider, author of ""The Wall Jumper"" and ""Eduard's Homecoming"" A selection from the man with the acid pen and the perfect pitch for hypocrisy, who was as much the voice of 1920s Berlin as Georg Grosz was its face. - Peter Wortsman, author of ""Ghost Dance in Berlin"" . . . a small, fat Berliner, who wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter. -Erich K�stner, author of ""Emil and the Detectives"""

Author Information

"Kurt Tucholsky was a brilliant satirist, poet, storyteller, lyricist, pacifist, and Democrat; a fighter, lady's man, reporter, and early warner against the Nazis who hated and loathed him and drove him out of Germany after his books were burned in 1933. His contemporary Erich Kaestner called him a ""small, fat Berliner,"" who ""wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter."" The New York Times hailed him as ""one of the most brilliant writers of republican Germany. He was a poet as well as a critic and was so versatile that he used five or six pen names. As Peter Panter he was an outstanding essayist who at one time wrote topical sketches in the Vossische Zeitung, which ceased to appear under the Nazi regime; as Theobald Tiger he wrote satirical poems that were frequently interpreted by popular actors in vaudeville and cabartes, and as Ignatz Wrobel he contributed regularly to the Weltb�hne, an independent weekly that was one of the first publications prohibited by the Hitler government."" Tucholsky, who occupied the center stage in the tumultuous political and cultural world of 1920s Berlin, still emerges as an astonishingly contemporary figure. As an angry truth-teller, he pierced the hypocrisy and corruption around him with acute honesty. Imagine a writer with the acid voice of Christopher Hitchens and the satirical whimsy of Jon Stewart, combined with the iconoclasm of Bill Maher. That's Tucholsky in a nutshell. Like Hitchens, Tucholsky wrote a mixture of literary essays, social observations, and political commentary. His irony made the line between his ""serious writing"" and his ""entertainments"" almost invisible. The fashionable outsider watched the political ""center"" disappear, and, in the end, he found himself catapulted out of society altogether. His career was sandwiched between the two most deadly events of his century: the bloodbath of World War I and the scourge of Nazism. Just as the first war launched Hemingway's lifelong career as a wounded tough guy with a soft spot for guns and broads, Tucholsky discovered the reflexes of an escape artist. He was equally elusive as a writer. In today's world, a journalist isn't supposed to write plays, and a playwright isn't welcomed as a novelist. But in 1920s Berlin, Tucholsky was dealing with postwar realities that required shouting from the rooftops, and any rooftop would do Cindy Opitz earned a BA in German Language & Literature and Soviet Studies at Brown University, and spent two academic years in the former German Democratic Republic. She went on to earn an MFA in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa and currently lives in Iowa City (a UNESCO City of Literature), with her East-German husband, three children, and four cats. She also is the collections manager at the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History and was once described by an Austrian author as a ""curator of words."" Anne Nelson is an author, lecturer and playwright who specializes in media and international affairs from a human rights perspective. Nelson's most recent book is ""Red Orchestra: the Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler."" It was selected as a New York Times ""Editor's Choice"" in 2009. Its German edition, published by C. Bertelsmann, was widely reviewed and described as a ""masterpiece"" in the Frankfurter Rundschau. A screenplay based on the book is now in circulation. Nelson's dramatic writing include the 2001 play, ""The Guys,"" produced across the U.S. and as a feature film starring Anthony LaPaglia and Sigourney Weaver. Her 2005 play Savages, produced off-Broadway, dealt with the trauma of counter-insurgency warfare, and was described by the New Yorker as a work of ""lacerating beauty."" Her 1986 book, ""Murder Under Two Flags,"" was produced as a feature starring Robert Duvall and Kevin Spacey. Nelson has a second career as a media consultant. She blogs for PBS MediaShift and appears on twitter as anelsona. Nelson was born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and is a graduate of Yale University. She lives in New York with her husband, author George Black. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and teaches ""New Media and Development Communications"" at Columbia University."

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