Additional information
by Cindy Opitz (Translator), Kurt Tucholsky (Author), Anne Nelson (Preface by)
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.
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"
