Wrobel - Der Tucholsky-Podcast · Frank Dittmer

Kurt Tucholsky: Eine Schreckenskammer (1925)

·13 min·1 clip

Tucholsky buys a French war album that retouches Kaiser Wilhelm's face to make him look falsely deceitful.

In this 1925 text, Kurt Tucholsky reviews a French illustrated war album called L'Illustration, which he describes as the most complete visual chronicle of World War I. He begins by noting the album's portrayal of the Sarajevo assassination and political alliances, criticizing retouched images that falsely depict Kaiser Wilhelm as deceitful. Tucholsky points out biased representations of German soldiers with bloodthirsty expressions, contrasting them with individual actions. He describes scenes of war frenzy, destroyed towns, and the chaos of battlefields filled with dead soldiers. Tucholsky analyzes a famous photo of German soldiers appearing to surrender while hiding a machine gun, which he believes is fabricated propaganda. He argues that modern generals are merely administrators, not true soldiers who endured hardships like lice, hunger, and combat. The text details the mistreatment of prisoners by power-hungry commanders and German atrocities, including aerial bombings affecting civilians. Tucholsky highlights a specific German inscription 'Nicht ärgern, nur wundern' on the ruins of the Perron town hall, calling it a vulgar act. He notes the album's coverage of the Russian Revolution and young German prisoners, emphasizing that working-class soldiers died for an economic war. Tucholsky critiques the absence of generals at the Armistice signing in Compiègne and the failed German revolution. He concludes by rejecting pacifist ideals that glorify soldiers, instead honoring those who resisted the war. Tucholsky vows to dismantle wartime myths and preserve the war's true, horrific reality for future generations, describing it as a dirty, cowardly conflict that destroyed souls.

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