Karl Kraus - The Last Days of Mankind

KANT, Immanuel (1724–1804), German philosopher whose writings inspired Kraus’s ethical radicalism: x, xix, xxii, 107, 264, 332, 404, 593.

KAPPUS, Franz Xaver (1883–1966), corps commandant in →War Press Bureau; author of Kriegsnovellen (War Novellas, 1916) and recipient of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet : 109.

KARL FRANZ JOSEF (1887–1922), Archduke, became Emperor Karl I in 1916; nephew of →Franz Ferdinand, whose children were excluded from succession because of their father’s morganatic marriage: 176, 180f, 273f, 309, 379, 402f, 431ff, 478ff, 483ff, 493, 517, 519ff.

KARL STEPHAN, Archduke (1860–1933), patron of War Welfare for the Disabled: 276.

KÄRNTNERSTRASSE (Plan C3/C5), main shopping street, running from Karlsplatz beyond →Ring to Stock im Eisen-Platz (→Iron Post) at Stephans-Kirche (→St Stephen’s Cathedral): 29, 47, 168, 172f, 195f, 240, 318, 418, 481, 597.

KASTAN, Castans Panoptikum, Waxworks, Berlin (1877–1922): 435.

KATHI →Schratt.

“KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING”, song composed in 1914 by Ivor Novello to words by Lena Guilbert Ford; English equivalent of →“In der Heimat”: 57, 374.

KERENSKI, Alexander Feodorovitch (1881–1970), Russian minister of war responsible for failed “Kerenski Offensive” (1917), prime minister in Provisional Government from July 1917 until ousted by October Revolution: 354.

KERNSTOCK, Ottokar (1848–1928), Styrian priest and author of patriotic poems: 184, 282f.

KERR, Alfred (1867–1948), journalist and prominent theatre critic on → Berliner Tageblatt , criticized by Kraus for writing nationalistic poems during the war: 270.

“KISSING IS NO SIN” (“Küssen ist keine Sünd”), waltz from operetta Bruder Straubinger (1903) by →Edmund Eysler (1874–1949), popularized by →Alexander Girardi: 490.

KLADDERADATSCH (“crash, bang, wallop”), popular Berlin satirical weekly (1848–1944): 396.

KLEIN, Ernst (1876–1951), journalist on → Neue Freie Presse and in →War Press Bureau, author of novel An den Ufern der Drina (On the Banks of the →Drina, 1915): 68.

KLEINE WITZBLATT, Das , humorous weekly: 34.

KLUCK, Alexander von (1846–1934), Prussian general, commander of First Army halted on the Marne (9 September 1914); ordered reprisals against Belgian francs-tireurs including mass execution of civilians: 247.

KNACKFUSS, Hermann (1848–1915), German painter and critic: 126.

KNESEBECK, Frau von, probably wife of Prussian field marshal Karl Friedrich Knesebeck (1768–1848): 461.

KOCH, Ludwig (1866–1934), painter of the vast celebratory canvas In This Age of Grandeur (→age of grandeur): 325.

KOHLFÜRST, Armin (1880–1932), lieutenant attached to →War Press Bureau: 120.

KOHLMARKT (Plan B3/C3), elegant shopping street behind the →Hofburg: 67, 325.

KOLBERG, town on Baltic, midway between Oder and →Vistula (Map E1), Hindenburg’s headquarters on Eastern Front after Kaiser’s abdication: 468.

KOLOWRAT, Count Alexander (“Sascha”) von Kolowrat-Krokowsky (1886–1927), cosmopolitan aristocrat and cinema pioneer, founder in 1912 of →Sascha Film, produced weekly newsreels during the war: 32, 55, 82, 109, 115, 172, 212, 222, 238, 242, 320, 419, 470, 491, 528, 592.

KOLOWRAT, Leopold (“Poldi”), member of →Kolowrat-Krakowsky family.

KONOPISTE, castle south of Prague, residence of →Franz Ferdinand: 38.

KONSTANTIN, Leopoldine (1886–1965), celebrated actress: 399.

KÖRNER, Theodor Carl (1791–1813), German poet. Quotation taken from “Gebet während der Schlacht” (“Prayer during battle”, 1813): 325.

KORNGOLD, Erich Wolfgang (1897–1975; son of →Julius Korngold); precocious composer exempted from front-line service and assigned to position as regimental music director: 233, 398f.

KORNGOLD, Julius Leopold (1860–1945) chief music critic of → Neue Freie Presse; championed the work of Mahler: 398ff.

KOTOR →Cattaro.

KOTZEBUE, August von (1761–1819), popular German dramatist whose comedy Der Wirrwarr oder Der Mutwillige (Chaos, or the Wanton One, 1818) remained in repertoire of →Hofburgtheater for decades: 391, 397.

KRAGUJEVAC (Map F4), centre of Serb resistance to Austro-Hungarian advance (August 1914), taken by German army in October 1915. Kraus highlights the execution in June 1918 of 44 soldiers serving in the Austro-Hungarian Seventy-first Infantry Regiment after acts of drunken insubordination (V, 55; cf. IV, 32). History repeated itself in October 1941 when 2,800 Serb civilians were executed at Kragujevac (as reprisal for partisan attacks) by German forces under the command of General Franz Böhme (1885–1947), Austrian veteran of the First World War, who committed suicide while awaiting trial for war crimes: 240, 398, 531, 541.

KRAMER, Leopold (1869–1942), popular actor, later theatre director in Prague: 240.

KREMSER, café on →Kärntnerring (Plan C5): 102.

KROBATIN, Baron Alexander (1849–1933), minister of war (1912–17), commander of Tenth Army on Italian front (1917–18): 63, 101.

KRUPP, largest German armaments manufacturer, based in Essen with subsidiary producing →U-boats at Kiel: 294, 296, 580.

KÜHLMANN, Richard von (1873–1948), undersecretary in German Foreign Office (1917–18), negotiated treaties of →Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest: 461.

KULKA, Georg (1897–1929), Expressionist poet: 235.

KUNDMANN, Rudolf (1869–1934), major, adjutant to →Conrad von Hötzendorf: 131.

KURSALON (Plan D4) in →Stadtpark: 489.

LABOUR LEADER (1891–1922) London daily, mouthpiece of Labour movement: 220.

LACHENDE EHEMANN, Der , operetta (1913), music by Edmund Eysler (1874–1949), libretto by Julius Brammer (1877–1943) and Alfred Grünwald (1884–1951): 30.

LADY-KILLER, The ( Der Frauenfresser , 1911), operetta, music by →Edmund Eysler (1874–1949), libretto by Leo Stein (1861–1921) and Carl Lindau (1853–1934).

LAMMASCH, Heinrich von (1853–1920), eminent international lawyer, admired by Kraus for outspoken attack in Upper House on war as “immense catastrophe” and for his advocacy of a →negotiated peace; briefly Austrian prime minister (October 1918): 422.

LANDESBERGER, Edler Julius (1858–1912), president of Anglobank: 44, 506.

LANDESGERICHTSSTRASSE (Plan A2/A3): 427.

LANG, Josef (1855–1925), executioner (→Caesare Battisti): 252, 383, 385f, 467, 515, 549.

LAUFF, Josef von (1855–1933), German writer of dramas glorifying House of Hohenzollern, Der Burggraf (1897), Der Eisenzahn (1899), and Kriegslieder (War songs, 1915–16), admired by →Wilhelm II: 126, 128, 257.

LEBER, restaurant on Babenbergerstrasse (Plan B4): 196, 207f.

LEHÁR, Franz (1870–1948), Hungarian composer of operettas, notably Die lustige Witwe ( The Merry Widow , 1905), against which Kraus, a champion of Offenbach, waged a quixotic war, → Das Fürstenkind, Der Sterngucker: 185, 375, 399, 525.

LEHMANN, gazetteer, commercial directory for the city of Vienna: 104.

LEMBERG (Lvov, Map G3), capital of Austrian →Galicia since first division of Poland (1792–1918), occupied by Russians (September 1914), relieved by Austrians under →Böhm-Ermolli (22 June 1915), retained with German help after Battle of →Gorlice during →Brusilov offensive (summer 1916). “Lemberg ist noch in unserem Besitz” (In Lemberg we are still holding on) was the phrase used in a report from the Eastern Front, dated 2 September 1914 and signed by the then →Generalmajor von Höfer. In reality, the Austro-Hungarian army had already withdrawn from the city on 1 September. By the time this report appeared (on 5 September in → Streffleur Militärblatt ) Lemberg was firmly in Russian hands — hence Kraus’s use of the phrase as an ironic leitmotif: 53, 58, 63, 64f, 69, 77, 78f, 86, 129, 235, 414f, 498.