Karl Kraus - The Last Days of Mankind

“OFF WE GO TO FAR-OFF PLACES!” (“Hinaus in die Ferne!”) (1814), marching song in Napoleonic wars, music and words by Albert Methfessel (1785–1869): 75.

OH, AMALIA, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? ( Ach, Amalia, was haste blos gemacht? — Luxfilm, Berlin, January 1917), hit comedy film: 372.

“ON ETERNAL PEACE” (“Zum ewigen Frieden”), poem by Kraus inspired by →Immanuel Kant’s essay of 1795, in → Die Fackel , F 474–83, May 1918: 478.

“ON THE BANKS OF THE MANZANARES” (“Am Manzanares”), song, music by Adolf Jensen (1837–1879) and lyrics by Emanuel Geibel (1815–1884): 526.

OPERA (Café De l’Opera), in Operngasse (Plan C4): 102.

OPERA HOUSE (Plan C4): 172f.

OPPENHEIMER, symbolic name for influential financier, probably derived from Jewish court financier and army contractor Samuel Oppenheimer (1630–1703): 120.

ORSINI-ROSENBERG, Count Maximilian (1846–1922), general, privy councillor, and court chamberlain: 41.

ORTELSBURG, town in East Prussia on south-west edge of →Masurian Lakes: 236.

OSTDEUTSCHE POST , probably Viennese Ostdeutsche Rundschau , German-nationalist, anti-Semitic daily: 259.

OTTAKRING, suburb west of Vienna, site of army kitchens (V, 38): 481.

“OUR OLD FRIEND NOAH KNEW WHAT’S BEST” (“Der olle Noah hats doch gewusst”), slow march from operetta Die Faschingsfee (1917), music by Emmerich Kálmán (1882–1953), libretto by Rudolf Österreicher (1881–1966) and Alfred Maria Willner (1859–1929): 517.

“O YOU, MY AUSTRIA” (“O du mein Österreich”), song (1849), music by Franz von Suppé (1819–1895) and words by Anton von Klesheim (1812–1884): 315.

PALLFY, probably Aline, member of princely family. The Palais Pallfy on Josephsplatz (Plan B3/B4) was used as a hospital during the war: 63, 124, 319.

PARMA, Prince Elias von (1880–1959), half-brother of →Empress Zita, chief of staff of Fifty-seventh Infantry Division (September 1916), participated in →Isonzo battles: 531.

PARROT (Cabaret Nachtlicht, 1906–8, then Bradys Wintergarten), cabaret in Ballgasse (Plan C4), so called after its insignia, also shorthand for its regular clientele of archdukes: 483.

PATTAI, Robert (1864–1920), Christian-Social politician, president of Chamber of Deputies (1909–11), member of Upper House (1911–18): 422.

PETER FERDINAND, Archduke (1874–1948), brother of →Joseph Ferdinand, lieutenant field marshal (1914), general of infantry (1917): 275, 531.

PFLANZER-BALTIN, Baron Karl (1855–1925), commanded right wing of Austrians against Russians (1914–16), disastrously during →Brusilov offensive; commander in Albania (July 1918); nicknamed “Pflanzer Bald-her, Bald-hin”, implying his men were dead soon after arrival: 101ff, 111, 412, 519.

PHAEACEANS, a peace-loving people in Greek mythology, term sometimes applied to carefree Austrians: 66.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF EXECUTIONS, “For while some were being hanged, others were posing for the camera; and photos were taken not only of executions, but also of the spectators, and even of the photographers” (IV, 29) — a reference to the execution of →Caesare Battisti in the Citadel in Trento, Trentino (Map D4), watched by several hundred soldiers and a small number of civilians, some of whom can be seen holding cameras in the panoramic photo reproduced by Holzer in Das Lächeln der Henker (p. 27).

PIAVE (Map D4), river north of Venice, scene of fierce fighting after Italian defeat at Caporetto in autumn 1917 until end of war: 253, 461, 482, 489, 492, 538.

PICCAVER, Alfred (1883–1958), tenor with Court Opera: 470.

PLACE IN THE SUN, slogan coined in 1897 by Prince von Bülow, Germany’s Chancellor (1900–1909), in respect of her colonial ambitions: 294, 301, 304, 505, 566.

PLAGUE COLUMN (“Säule”, Plan C3), on →Graben, erected by Emperor Leopold I after plague of 1679: 172f, 316.

POETS AND THINKERS, “Germany, the land of poets and thinkers”, coined by Johann Karl August Musäus (1782), popularized by Madame de Staël in De l’Allemagne (1813). Kraus plays “Dichter und Denker” against “Richter und Henker” (judges and hangmen): 148f, 158, 504, 594.

POGATSCHNIGG, Paul (1873–1929), leader of Federation of German Post Office Workers whose name is used to highlight the absurdities of German nationalism in III, 11 (see Timms, Karl Kraus — Apocalyptic Satirist , vol. 2, pp. 112–13): 258f, 347ff.

POINCARÉ, Raymond (1860–1934), French prime minister and foreign minister (1912–13), president (1913–20), strengthened Triple Alliance with Britain and Russia: 80, 87, 251, 290.

POISON GAS, in the form of chlorine, was first effectively used by the German army in April 1915 near Ypres; denounced by the Grumbler as a “chlorious offensive”: 262, 502, 535ff, 545, 564ff, 596.

POLACCO, wife(?) of Emil Polacco, president of “Heimat” Mission for girls without means: 236.

POLDI →Andrian zu Werbung; →Leopold Kolowrat.

POLISH QUESTION. The Central Powers fighting in Austrian →Galicia from 1914 purportedly sought Poland’s independence from Russia as a central war aim. “Congress Poland” including Warsaw, →Brest-Litovsk, →Grodno, and Vilnius were all occupied by Central Powers in 1915 and an independent kingdom of Poland proclaimed in November 1916: 198, 429f, 433.

POLLAK, Soffi, stereotypical boastful nouveau riche , butt of Jewish “Pollak-jokes”: 67.

POPOVICS, Alexander (1862–1935), governor of Austro-Hungarian Bank, Hungarian finance minister (1918): 357.

POSSE, Ernst (1860–1943), patriotic editor of influential Kölnische Zeitung : 345.

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK (Postsparkassenamt, Plan D3): 56, 497.

POTIOREK, Oskar (1853–1933), governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1911), commander of Army of the Balkans, invited →Franz Ferdinand in 1914 to final military manoeuvres in Bosnia. Captured →Belgrade on 2 December 1914, dismissed after failure to hold it: 63, 102.

PRASCH, Erwin (b. 1879), captain, active in Montenegro and on →River Save in Serbia (1914), on →Isonzo (1915–17); →sabre: 532, 541f.

PRATER (Plan F1), Vienna’s large public park. The “Wurstelprater” section contains numerous amusements and restaurants. The →Venedig in Wien theme park staged the →Adriatic Exhibition in 1913: 42f, 180ff, 537.

PRESBER, Rudolf (1868–1935), German journalist, editor of Lustige Blätter (from 1898), author of comic novels and plays: 292.

PRIME MINISTER →Count Karl von Stürgkh.

“PRINCE EUGENE MARCH”, hugely popular celebration of →Prince Eugene’s bridge-building and crossing of Danube to rout Turks from Belgrade (1717), music, using traditional melodies: Josef Strauss (1827–1870); as song, “He Made a Bridge” (“Er liess schlageen eene Bruckn”), with words reputedly by participant in campaign, adapted by Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810–1876), music by Carl Loewe (1796–1869). The destruction of the railway bridge at the same spot in 1914 initiated hostilities at →Zemun: 32, 47, 51, 52, 55, 58, 118, 313, 315, 462, 464, 507, 520, 593.

PRISONERS OF WAR. Their fate, including sufferings in the camps, forced labour, and Austro-Russian prisoner exchanges agreed at →Brest-Litovsk, is highlighted by the play. Over a million Russian prisoners were held by the Habsburg Monarchy (as indicated in V, 21), while a comparable number of Austro-Hungarian prisoners languished in Russia: 84ff, 367, 438ff, 448ff, 476ff, 505ff, 543, 577.

“PROMOTE THE TOURIST TRADE!” (“Pfleget den Fremdenverkehr!”), winning song (1912) by Else John in competition organized by Ministry of Culture: 75, 455.

PRZEMYSL (Map F3) on River San, stronghold in western →Galicia, allocated to Austria (1792), its garrison of 100,000 men capitulated to Russians (March 1915); retaken in June by Austro-German troops during spectacular advance. There were over 2.2 million Russian casualties in the war as a whole: xx, 127, 167, 203, 271f, 543.