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Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist, Volume 2: The Postwar Crisis and the Rise of the Swastika

By (author) Edward Timms

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In this second volume of Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist, Edward Timms takes up Krausâ€™s story in November 1918, when the satirist responded to the creation of the new republics with a defiant hope, invoking international law against the dual threat of reactionary politics and irresponsible media. While contemporaries like Walter Benjamin regarded Kraus as heroically isolated, this book places him within a dynamic field of cultural production. Timms highlights the court cases Kraus pursued with his lawyer Oskar Samek and the theatrical projects that earned him Brechtâ€™s friendship. In the final section of the book, the author refutes the legend that Kraus responded with stunned silence to Hitlerâ€™s seizure of power. His career culminated in Third Walpurgis Night, an analysis of Nazi ideology that has proved enduringly influential. Timms concludes that Krausâ€™s lifelong critique of the media, combining Orwellâ€™s political radicalism with Joyceâ€™s linguistic playfulness, incisively anticipates the propaganda techniques of our own age.