Erich Kästner: An appeal for active resistance against right-wing extremism

Erich Kästner, author of popular children's books such as "Emil and the Detectives" and "The Flying Classroom", is on everyone's lips half a century after his death - in a completely different way. His conclusion on the Third Reich and its causes is currently being widely quoted in articles and online posts, from politicians to sportspeople and at demonstrations in many places in Germany, in order to rouse people to actively resist the rise of right-wing extremism. The bitter balance sheet of the writer, who was born in Dresden 125 years ago on February 23, is still explosive.

"The events of 1933 to 1945 should have been combated by 1928 at the latest. Later it was too late," Kästner stated in 1958 in a speech on the book burning at the PEN Club. The following warning can still be understood as an appeal today, says the Munich literary scholar Sven Hanuschek and continues: "One must not wait until the snowball has become an avalanche. You have to crush the rolling snowball. No one can stop the avalanche. It only comes to rest when it has buried everything underneath it."

According to Hanuschek, who is considered an expert on Kästner's work, the author gave political speeches, took part in demonstrations, wrote essays and articles in the post-war years, unlike in the Weimar period. "And these are the metaphors that are now being quoted." He got involved, took to the streets. "He preferred to be active too often and too quickly rather than being too reserved." He protested against the Vietnam War and took part in Easter marches.

Kästner spent his childhood and youth in Dresden, wrote poetry as a schoolboy and wanted to become a teacher. After a year of military service, he completed his A-levels and then studied German, history, philosophy, journalism and theater studies. He went to Leipzig in 1919, where he wrote his first newspaper articles, later moving to Rostock and Berlin. While still a student, he became editor of the features section of the "Neue Leipziger Zeitung" in 1924, switched to the political section in 1926 and was officially dismissed together with the illustrator Erich Ohser for a poem - but remained a freelancer.

In 1927, he went to Berlin and wrote feature articles for "Die Weltbühne" and "Vossische Zeitung". In 1929, his novel for children "Emil and the Detectives" was published, which was made into a film two years later, based on a screenplay by Billy Wilder. In 1933, he accidentally witnessed his books going up in flames on Berlin's Opera Square. This was followed by years of walking the tightrope of National Socialism for the popular writer. He stayed, partly because of his mother, with whom he had a close relationship throughout his life. Due to the publication ban, he was only able to publish under a pseudonym in Germany.

At times he went into hiding, but then he regularly sat in a Berlin café, says Hanuschek. "That was also known." The Gestapo arrested him twice. "There were also phases where he slept somewhere else every night." He supported people in the underground financially "and tried to lash out against the sting", to resist.

"He made compromises, had to make compromises, he wasn't the Scholl siblings, not a hero in that sense." But his tabloid comedies show "what it means not to know what is what, where is what", says the literary scholar. Kästner's books continued to be printed in other German-speaking countries and were still distributed in Germany. And he was allowed to write the screenplay for the movie "Münchhausen" under a different name. It was not until 1943 that he was actually banned from working, and he lived off his savings until the end of the war.

In the meantime, he collected material for a novel, "a kind of moral history of the Third Reich", says Hanuschek. There were only fragments - whispered jokes, comments on newspaper reports, descriptions of the adversities of everyday life. Kästner then realized that it was not possible to write about the Holocaust, the dimensions of which only became apparent after the war. He quietly buried the project.

The successful author then spent two and a half years working as a journalist for the "Neue Zeitung" again, trying to shed light on the Nazi era, attending the Nuremberg trials and describing "the absurd realities, the murderous nature of the Third Reich". Later, he returned to writing, achieving his former popularity with children's books such as "Das doppelte Lottchen" and "Die Konferenz der Tiere".

And he accompanied political protests. According to Hanuschek, this can be found in cabaret texts, chansons, newspaper articles, speeches and short speeches at demonstrations. In the 1960s, the writer lived between two wives, alternating between Munich and Berlin, where his son also lived. In 1974, Kästner, who never let go of Dresden and Saxon, died of cancer - and found his final resting place in Munich.