An Excerpt from Last Days of Mankind from Act V, Scene 54 Translated by Max Spalter Introductory segment from George E. Wellwarth, German Drama Between the Wars (New York: Dutton & Co., 1972) Pp. xv-xvii Karl Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind: a Tragedy in Five Acts (1922) This excerpt from the 1974 abridgement tr. Alexander Gode and Sue Allen Wright pp 697-724 Kraus was born in Bohemia in 1874. In Vienna studied law, but abandoned it for acting and then to philosophy and German literature. In 1896 he left university without a diploma to begin work as an actor, stage-director and performer, but in 1897 he broke with theatre culture summing up his revulsion in his essay "The Demolishing of Literature." Strongly opposed to Zionism wrote "A Crown for Zion" in which he answered all of the arguments then being presented by Herzl against Jewish assimilation in Austria. In 1899 he renounced Judaism and began his own newspaper which he used to lead the attack on Zionism, psychoanalysis, militarism, war profiteering, money power, pan-Germanism and laissez-faire. In return for his efforts he was the subject of endless lawsuits and attempts by others to gain control of the publication. In 1911 he was baptized as a Catholic, but in 1923, disillusioned over the Church's support for the war, he left the Catholic Church, claiming sarcastically that he was motivated "primarily by antisemitism." Kraus wrote against World War One, and editions of his paper were repeatedly confiscated or ...

• published: 15 Nov 2011
• views: 896
• author: oldickeastman

An Excerpt from Last Days of Mankind from Act V, Scene 54 Translated by Max Spalter Introductory segment from George E. Wellwarth, German Drama Between the Wars (New York: Dutton & Co., 1972) Pp. xv-xvii Karl Kraus, The Last Days of Mankind: a Tragedy in Five Acts (1922) This excerpt from the 1974 abridgement tr. Alexander Gode and Sue Allen Wright pp 697-724 Kraus was born in Bohemia in 1874. In Vienna studied law, but abandoned it for acting and then to philosophy and German literature. In 1896 he left university without a diploma to begin work as an actor, stage-director and performer, but in 1897 he broke with theatre culture summing up his revulsion in his essay "The Demolishing of Literature." Strongly opposed to Zionism wrote "A Crown for Zion" in which he answered all of the arguments then being presented by Herzl against Jewish assimilation in Austria. In 1899 he renounced Judaism and began his own newspaper which he used to lead the attack on Zionism, psychoanalysis, militarism, war profiteering, money power, pan-Germanism and laissez-faire. In return for his efforts he was the subject of endless lawsuits and attempts by others to gain control of the publication. In 1911 he was baptized as a Catholic, but in 1923, disillusioned over the Church's support for the war, he left the Catholic Church, claiming sarcastically that he was motivated "primarily by antisemitism." Kraus wrote against World War One, and editions of his paper were repeatedly confiscated or ...

• published: 15 Nov 2011
• views: 906
• author: oldickeastman