Karl Kraus - The Last Days of Mankind

FRIEDRICH, Archduke von Österreich-Toskana, Duke of →Teschen (1856–1936), field marshal, appointed commander in chief of Austro-Hungarian forces in 1914: 111, 113, 176, 208, 216f, 222, 252, 272ff, 308f, 325, 381f, 519.

FRIEND, The, Ludwig von Ficker (1880–1967), founder of bi-monthly journal for art and culture Der Brenner (1910–54), from March 1918 in →Galicia as commandant of company of repatriated →prisoners of war (letter to Kraus dated 17 July 1918, V, 36): 476ff.

FRISCHAUER, Berthold (1851–1924), war correspondent on Bosnian campaign (1878) and companion to →Crown Prince Rudolph on tour through Balkans, later Paris correspondent for the → Neue Freie Presse: 74, 486.

FÜRSTENBERG, Prince Maximilian Egon (1863–1941), hereditary member of Austrian and Prussian Upper House, friend of →Kaiser Wilhelm II: 234.

FÜRSTENKIND, Das (1909), operetta, music by →Franz Lehár and libretto by →Viktor Léon, 170.

GALICIA (Map G3), Habsburg province on the frontier with Russia, scene of fierce battles; home to some two-thirds of all Austrian Jews, many of whom became refugees during the war: 85, 96, 120, 161, 168, 206, 357, 389, 414, 476, 515, 533.

GALLOWS, “an integral part of my play” (IV, 29). The Grumbler’s claim that “under the command of Archduke Friedrich … 11,400, or according to another version 36,000 gallows were erected” may understate the victimization of allegedly disloyal Habsburg minorities, according to the analysis of Anton Holzer, Das Lächeln der Henker (pp. 73–77). The figure 11,400 derives from the diary of Liberal politician Joseph Redlich, but higher numbers were cited by Polish, Ukrainian, and South Slav deputies during debates in the Austrian Parliament after its recall in May 1917. For further details, see Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914–1918 (London, 2014): 142, 156, 309, 381f, 384, 455, 561.

GANGHOFER, Ludwig (1855–1920), author of popular romantic novels and dramas celebrating Bavaria, wartime reporting, poems, and articles: 93, 115, 117f, 124ff, 131, 592.

GARTENBAU Gesellschaft (Horticultural Society, Plan D4), location of restaurant on Parkring; hospital during war: 29, 68, 113, 171, 235, 319, 534.

GEIRINGER, possibly Leo von, banker: 34, 35.

GENTZ, Friedrich von (1764–1832), anti-Bonapartist publicist, main proponent of conservative-legitimist principle in collaboration with Metternich: 368.

GERL, Lieutenant Heinrich (1891–1954), sapper on →River San: 339.

GERMANIC NAMES. In addition to sonorously Teutonic invented names like von Schmettwitz, Bambula von Feldsturm, and Demmer von Drahtverhau, Kraus introduces the names of real-life German nationalists that sound incongruously Slavonic or Slovenian, such as Homolatsch or →Pogatschnigg. This onomastic satire counterbalances the pervasive allusions to →Jewish names.

GERSTHOF, suburb in north-west of city, adjacent to →Grinzing and Viennese Woods.

GINZKEY, Franz Karl (1871–1963), writer, war correspondent, then Rilke’s superior in →War Archive: 172.

GIPSY PRINCESS → Csardasfürstin .

GIRARDI, Alexander (1850–1918), popular actor and operetta singer in mainly comic roles, highly regarded by Kraus: 490.

GLAWATSCH, Franz (1871–1928), singer, first Bogdanowitsch in →Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow : 31.

GLÜCKSMANN, Heinrich (1864–1946), dramatist and journalist, dramaturg in →Volkstheater (1910): 44, 45, 507.

GOD PRESERVE ( Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser ), Austro-Hungarian national anthem, music by Joseph Haydn and original text by Lorenz Leopold Haschka (1797), revised by Johann Gabriel Seidl, Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze/Unsern Kaiser, unser Land! (1854): 54, 56, 255, 346, 384, 486f, 493, 497.

GOETHE ALLUSIONS: 107f, 149, 158, 296, 332, 478, 485;

I, 6: “though the juice bubbles madly in fermentation”, says Mephistopheles (in Faust Part One, line 6813), “it finally does produce a wine”, 66;

I, 6: “Time’s humming loom”, a further platitudinous reference to Faust Part One (lines 508–9), implying that this will create “the living raiment of the divine”: “So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit/und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid”, 66;

I, 29: “Goethe’s Iphigenie may not yet have escaped into Esperanto”: Kraus regarded Iphigenie auf Tauris (1786), in which the heroine’s “pure humanity” enables her to escape from the barbarians, as the epitome of German classicism: 149;

II, 13: For reasons explained in the Translators’ Afterword, Wordsworth’s “To Daffodils” has been substituted as equivalent for what Kraus regarded as “the nation’s most sacred poem” (F 454–56, 1): “Über allen Gipfeln/ist Ruh,/In allen Wipfeln/Spürest du/Kaum einen Hauch;/Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde,/Warte nur, balde/Ruhest du auch” (“Wanderers Nachtlied”, 1780)—“O’er all the hill-tops/Silence reigns,/In all the tree-tops/There remains/Scarce a breath of air./The woodland birds fall silent, too,/Just wait, ’til peace envelops you,/And sleep without a care” (“Wanderer’s Night Song”): 373f, 593.

II, 18: “Wasn’t it Schiller who said: Life’s for the living, so plunge right inside”: 210. Our rendering does less than justice to Frau Funk-Feigl’s garbled words “Wie sagt doch Schiller, bitte greif nur herein ins volle Menschenleben”—. Her quotation actually derives from Goethe: “Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben!” ( Faust Part One, line 167). Moreover, she substitutes “herein” for “hinein”, a solecism construed by Kraus as a sign of Austro-Jewish insecurity. See the erudite commentary on a passage from Die Fackel of June 1913 (F 376–77, 33) in Agnes Pistorius, Ein Lexikon zu Karl Kraus (pp. 202–4).

III, 4: Travesties of “Wanderers Nachtlied”: “Unter allen Wassern ist—‘U’”—“There, in the deep, is lurking—‘U’!”; “Über allen Kipfeln ist Ruh”—“No one’s baking the croissants today, the bakers are all asleep in the hay” (II, 13): 373f; “Wanderers Schlachtlied”, “Wanderer’s Battle Song” (also II, 13);

III, 40: “We’re proud of Schiller, make quite a fuss, and Goethe, too, was one of us”: Goethe’s heartfelt eulogy in “Epilog zu →Schillers Glocke”, a decade after death robbed him of his collaborator, is here appropriated by a rabid nationalist: 296;

III, 46: “leaving a trace of his immortal mission”, adapted from the “Spur von meinen Erdentagen” passage expressing the dying hero’s vision of constructive toil amidst a free people in Faust Part Two (lines 11583–86): 317;

IV, 36: “The fate of man, how like the wind!”—from “Gesang der Geister über den Wassern” (1779)—“Song of the Spirits over the Waters”: 402;

IV, 36: “if the Germans hadn’t escalated submarine warfare, they would have called on the hero of Goethe’s play to force England to its knees”—an allusion to the ineffectual hero of Egmont (1787), set in the Netherlands at the time of the revolt against Spanish tyranny: 402;

V, 2: “Knowst thou the heart’s desire” (“Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt”)—“Mignon’s Song”, set to music by Franz Schubert, from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96): 421;

V, 54: “At the end was — the Word. Having killed the spirit, the printed word had no alternative but to bring forth the Deed”: In Faust Part One (lines 1224–37) the hero attempts to translate Greek logos from Saint John’s Gospel. Dismissing “the Word” as inadequate, he settles for “the Deed”, committing himself to a post-Christian “Faustian” vitalism: 513.