Karl Kaiser (writer)

Karl Kaiser (born in Strasbourg in 1868 ; died after 1901) was a German poet . He is considered an outstanding talent in early worker poetry in Germany.

Life

Kaiser was the son of a Swabian locksmith. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the father had to leave Strasbourg, so the son went to school in Zurich and then did an apprenticeship as a piano mechanic in Stuttgart , which he eventually settled in Munich . There the barely 20-year-old joined the labor movement and, together with Ernst Klaar, became an important employee of the satirical magazine Süddeutscher Postillon , which was then headed by Eduard Fuchs and in which Kaiser’s poems subsequently appeared. The last of his poems appeared in 1901, after which his traces are lost. The time and place of his death are unknown.

As an example of Kaiser's poetry, the poem on the one hand and on the other: a study by professors :

With "on the one hand" and "on the other hand",
like kitties by the bush,
the German professor sneaks
past every tricky point.

With a proud sentence “on the one hand” he
swings on his high horse boldly
To immediately
slide down “on the other hand” into the dirt again!

Today: “Darwin up!” And tomorrow: “
Up, the sacred tradition!” -
So “on the one hand” and “on the other hand” he
succeeds every stone's throw.

As a real priest of science,
he is great at mirror fencing :
Look for “on the one hand” the “ultimate reason”,
“on the other hand” lies completely bottomless! ...

As long as the state is not in danger, it
lets things take their course.
But if it goes wrong - then he nimbly cancels the
class antagonisms!

"Dear work" and "dear capital" He
wants to reconcile not lazy at all.
But unfortunately he always gets
one in the mouth as a thank you from both!

However, as a leather camel, he
remains as before:
A “on the one hand” and “on the other hand”,
a real German professor!

Works

• with Eduard Fuchs and Ernst Klaar: From the class struggle. Social poems. Ernst, Munich 2nd edition, 1894. New edition ed. by Klaus Völkerling. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978.

Emperor's poems printed in:

• Konrad Beißwanger (ed.): Voices of freedom. Blossom harvest of the most outstanding creations of our worker and folk poets. Nuremberg 1899.
• Bruno Kaiser (ed.): The Paris Commune in the German poem. Berlin (GDR) 1958.

literature

• Ursula Münchow: Labor movement and literature. Berlin & Weimar 1981, pp. 380-396.
• Martin Rector: Kaiser, Karl. In: Wilhelm Kühlmann (Ed.): Killy Literature Lexicon . Authors and works from the German-speaking cultural area. 2., completely revised Ed. De Gruyter, Berlin 2009, vol. P. 252 f.
• Lexicon of socialist German literature from the beginnings to 1945. Monographic-biographical presentations. van Eversdijck, The Hague 1973, sv Kaiser, Karl .

Web links

• Anti-clerical caricatures and satires VIII: Süddeutscher Postillon (1882–1910) with some poems by Kaiser

Individual evidence

1. ^ In: Süddeutscher Postillon. 1892, No. 11. Quoted from: From the class struggle. Social poems. Edited by Klaus Völkerling. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978, p. 34 f.