Cadet literature
Kurt Tucholsky satirically calls cadet literature a kind of " edifying literature " for citizens who are pious in the military .
The genre of cadet literature
Because of its entertaining character, cadet literature is also classified as trivial literature. With it, the reading public is entertained by the corps spirit and the everyday world of the military, mostly in the form of a Schmonzette .
Categorization of goods
In the book trade , literature is listed under entertainment literature. Especially antiquarian works, but also historical works, are also classified under militaria in the trade .
Examples
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Thomas Balzen :
- The folding spade. Vol. 1: Basic training
- The folding spade. Vol. 2: Basic training phase two - Kopp zu und durch , Balzen reports in cartoons how the Bundeswehr "really is" in "olive-green humor".
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Hans-Joachim Freiherr v. Reitzenstein
- Barred youth. Stories from the Cadet Corps. Publishing house by Dr. Eysler & Co. in Berlin. This booklet was the occasion for Tucholsky's gloss on cadet literature.
- Ernst von Salomon : The Cadets . Rowohlt, Berlin 1933
“Cadet literature” by Kurt Tucholsky
The gloss cadets literature by Kurt Tucholsky appeared on 25. August 1920 in the weekly magazine the world stage under the pseudonym Ignaz Wrobel .
Tucholsky takes the genre of cadet literature as an occasion for his criticism of military society. The starting point for this text was to write a review of Hans-Joachim Freiherrn von Reitzenstein's work, the littered youth . So the text also appeared under the heading Reviews in the Weltbühne.
Content and structure
At the beginning of his text he quotes what he had already published in 1913 on this form of literature: "There is a very strange branch of literature in Germany that one tends to call naval cadet or ensign literature (...)".
He lists individual titles in this genre:
- His Majesty's Cadet
- Fritz, the Chinese ensign
- SMS seagull
Tucholsky considers the vocabulary, which consists of powerful words , to be distinctive . The stories focus on the discretion and ideas of the superiors:
“The whole story is always under the victorious idea that the will of the superior means heaven, hell and all unearthly realms. It depends on him, everything revolves around him (...) "
Tucholsky Weltbühnen -Artikel Kadettenliteratur turns to a rejection of collective claims of honor after a satirical cursory treatment of the manifestations of this literature with a reference from Heinrich Heine :
“All this fraudulent collectivity is a crime. There is no 'honor of the sexta', just as there is no uniform honor of the fire brigade or the security police. There are no special honors. There are no caste differences among people - there are none, there are none, there are none "
After appeals to refuse obedience (“refuses to obey, even if a 'superior' orders”), Tucholsky turns against all forms of military communities that stand outside of society : “There must be no state within a state”. In conclusion, he formulates his satire and criticism of the spirit of the corps with the often quoted sentence: “This country has masters and fellows. Men don't have it ”.
literature
Kurt Tucholsky: Cadet literature. Die Weltbühne, August 26, 1920, No. 35