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At the beginning of 1933 Erich Kästner was doing really well.
His children's books, especially “Emil and the Detectives”, are slowly but surely developing into long-running hits.
His time novel “Fabian” from the previous year has now been translated into several languages.
Even his volumes of poetry achieve unusually high print runs.
Portrait of Erich Kästner from the early 1930s by Grete Kolliner
Source: picture-alliance / IMAGNO / Schostal archive
In January, the almost 34-year-old colleague Stefan Zweig from Salzburg acknowledged: “If success could make you happy, you would have to be the happiest person in Germany.” The lucky literary man cannot be said twice and does the first after a long time Real vacation again.
When he returned to Germany in April (against the advice of many friends, who mostly opted for exile), however, he quickly felt that the wind was gradually turning.
Attacks are hailing in the German press, which is already almost completely aligned.
But it wasn't until May 10th that Erich Kästner realized that things were getting serious for him.
"Un-German spirit"
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On this day one of those carefully planned and efficiently carried out "actions" takes place for which the Nazis will soon be notorious: the "action against the un-German spirit".
Better known today as "Book Burning".
Contrary to Kästner's assumption that Goebbels was behind the matter, it was the German student body who had come up with the spectacle.
She finally wanted to make a contribution to the “rebirth of the German people” on her part.
The same scenario will therefore take place in 19 university towns on May 10, 1933.
8.30 p.m .: rally in the auditorium of the respective university.
10 p.m. Torchlight procession to the cremation site.
11 p.m. to midnight book burning.
The process is binding for everyone because Deutsche Welle broadcasts a “relay report”.
A long-running hit since 1929: Erich Kästner's first children's book "Emil und die Detekive" with the cover by Walter Trier, which Atrium Verlag still uses today
Source: W1-Service GmbH
May 10th is a rainy day in Berlin.
Kästner, who had dinner with friends in the evening, was just in time when the action started on Opernplatz (today Bebelplatz) at 11 p.m.
To his amazement, he sees that fire brigade vehicles with gas cans help out when the books don't want to go up in flames.
Will his be there too?
Into the fire with it!
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Kästner doesn't have to wait long: he's already there on the second swing.
For him the same “fire sentence” applies as for his colleagues Heinrich Mann and Ernst Glaeser (who, by the way, will return to Nazi Germany from exile in Switzerland in 1939): “Against decadence and moral decline / For discipline and customs in the family and the state”.
And - rum!
- the young academics, who have dressed in SA uniform to celebrate the day, throw his writings into the fire.
"Pünktchen und Anton" from 1931 also became one of the most popular German children's books.
Walter Trier drew the envelope again
Source: W1-Service GmbH
Erich Kästner is actually the only German writer who is present at one of the spectacular book burnings.
The most hated ones - Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Tucholsky, Alfred Döbin, Erich Maria Remarque - have long since left Germany.
They cannot bear witness to the 20,000 books that are "given to the flames" in Berlin alone.
You don't see the 70,000 people who come here to watch the spectacle.
Kästner, on the other hand, stands in the crowd, according to his own admission, with his hat pulled down over his forehead.
But none of it helps.
He will of course be recognized.
"There is Kästner", he wrote later, is said to have called "a shrill female voice".
“I was feeling uncomfortable.
But nothing happened. ”That was his conclusion.
But it shouldn't stop at this “nothing”.
"The flying classroom" was published just in time for the 1933 Christmas business.
It is the last book by Erich Kästner to appear in Germany during the Third Reich
Source: W1-Service GmbH
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All the life of a writer is paper
is it [called.
We step into this
Line up the counter-evidence.