Allow me to introduce myself, I am a man of wealth and taste.

Well, and if there's an aberration in taste, I'll just tip my hat and say "pardon".

However, the gallant request of the hotshot, who raised his headgear in an apparently friendly manner, did not catch on from the start, as the figure was only the logo designed by a young FK Waechter for a magazine founded in 1962, which had made it its noble task, “without reservation for the preservation of the human cerebral vessels".

Last but not least, the means to achieve this should be “bitter irony and whimsical merriment”, precisely the weapons of a “German satirical monthly”.

Christian Riethmuller

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Not everyone understood such fun when the first issue of "Pardon" appeared in September 1962, with a caricature of Loriot on the front page and a cartoon of a merry tram ride inside, which made the Catholic Volkswartbund based in Cologne head for the palm tree or Criminal charges were brought, whereupon the magazines, which were accused of being “harmful to young people”, were confiscated in the Cologne area.

In Frankfurt, on the other hand, people were not bad about the measure, at least this was the case for Messrs. Hans A. Nikel and Erich Bärmeier, from whose publishing house located at Mainzer Landstrasse 239 the magazine "Pardon" came and which, as a result of the confiscation, was published nationwide at one fell swoop was known.

The newspaper quickly developed from a young editorial team, which included Hans Traxler, Chlodwig Poth and Kurt Halbritter from the start, to a box office hit and, with more than 300,000 copies sold per issue, becoming the largest satirical magazine in Europe not only humor, comedy and polemics found their place, but also serious reports that described the conditions in the turbulent Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and always rubbed shoulders with the political situation.

In line with the 60th anniversary of the first edition of "Pardon", the exhibition "Teuflische Jahre - Pardon" in the Caricatura Museum für Komische Kunst is now reminiscent of these times, which uses more than 800 objects to review the history of the satirical writing that was discontinued in 1982 as well as highlights the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The show is largely based on the private collections of Till Kaposty-Bliss and Gerhard Kromschröder.

The graphic artist and magazine publisher Kaposty-Bliss has been the administrator of the estate of the "Pardon" publisher Hans A. Nikel since 2020, and Kromschröder, who became famous as a reporter and Middle East correspondent for the magazine "Stern", worked for "Pardon" from 1967 to 1979. most recently as deputy editor-in-chief.

You can see enlightening correspondence on satirical actions, photos, many cartoons by cartoonists such as Gerd Hüsch, Erich Rauschenbach, Arno Ploog, Brösel or Volker Reiche, which are still relevant today, all of which, like the heroes of the "New Frankfurt School", are longer or just briefly worked for "Pardon".

Above all, however, numerous covers of the satirical magazine are shown and thus a lot of bare skin.

In the fight against rigid moral concepts, freedom of movement was the order of the day, which meant above all undressed women, who were often depicted in the graphic language of the erotic magazines that were available at the kiosk at the time.

Presumably no one would try to do that in such a clumsy way today,

"Devilish years - sorry.

The German satirical monthly 1962 - 1982 until March 19, 2023 in the Caricatura Museum Frankfurt, Weckmarkt 17. Opening hours: Wed to Sun 11 a.m. to 6 p.m