Karl Kraus - The Last Days of Mankind

WEDDINGEN, Otto (1882–1915), captain of →U-boat that sank three British armoured cruisers in a single day in 1914: 194.

WEIKERSHEIM, Prince Karl Ernst Bronn von (1862–1925), general, intimate of →Franz Ferdinand and his intended Comptroller of Imperial Household: 38, 40, 41.

WEISKIRCHNER, Richard (1861–1926), Christian Social politician, minister of commerce (1909–11), mayor of Vienna (1912–19): 56, 57, 78, 175, 222, 235, 497, 531.

WEKERLE, Alexander (1841–1921), successor to →István Tisza as Hungarian prime minister (August 1917–October 1918): 430f.

WELT AM MONTAG , independent, republican-leaning Berlin weekly for politics and culture: 461.

WERFEL, Franz (1890–1945), Expressionist poet, proclaiming universal brotherhood, later dramatist and novelist; on Eastern Front (1916–17), then in →War Press Bureau (1917); delivered propaganda lectures: 252.

WERNER, Fritz (1871–1927), celebrated operetta singer (star of → Walzertraum ): 30, 32, 58, 237, 482, 484, 493.

WERTHEIM, Berlin department store: 425, 461.

WESTMÜNSTER, Münster, city in Westphalia, also a cathedral. Café Westminster was a coffeehouse near the Western →Railway Station: 69ff.

“WHAT NEED HAVE I OF GOODS OR GOLD” (“Was frag ich viel nach Geld und Gut”), song (1776), music by Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748–1798) and words by Johann Martin Miller (1750–1814): 75.

“WHEN FIRST I SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY”. Kraus wrote text of Franz Joseph’s long “Lamentatio” (IV, 31) in 1915; music probably by Otto Janowitz (1888–1965): 391ff.

“WHEN THE LAST TRAIN’S GONE” (“Wenn die letzte Blaue geht”), bar song, in ragtime, music by Willy Engel-Berger (1890–1946) and lyrics by Artur Rebner (1890–1949): 462.

“WHEN THE ROMANS HAD THE NERVE” (“Als die Römer frech geworden”), student song (1875), music by Ludwig Teichgräber (1840–1904) and lyrics by →Joseph Viktor von Scheffel, celebrating Hermann’s victory over Quintilius Varus in Teutoburger Wald (AD 9): 327.

“WIENER BLUT” (“Viennese Blood”), waltz by Johann Strauss II; also operetta, libretto by →Victor Léon, incorporating Strauss’s music: 76.

WIENER WERKSTÄTTE, manufacturer and retailer of objets d’art , furniture, and jewellery: 131.

WILD, Josef (1881–1957), captain, intelligence officer on General Staff, Second Army headquarters, responsible for arbitrary executions: 387, 389, 532.

WILDGANS, Anton (1881–1932), religious dramatist and patriotic poet, author of “Vae Victis!” (Woe unto the Defeated, 1914), a poem proclaiming the need for ruthlessness in a “holy war”: 252.

WILHELM, Archduke (1895–1948), son of →Karl Stephan, commanded “Ukraine Legion” (1918): 276.

WILHELM, German Crown Prince (1882–1951), commander Fifth Army (August 1914), commander “Army Group German Crown Prince” (November 1916). He is the savage Death’s Head Hussar of V, 55, whose watchword “immer feste druff” (“Give ’em a good kicking!”) recurs in I, 23; I, 25; III, 14; III, 40 (repeatedly); and IV, 29, and is cited by the Voice from Below in the climactic V, 55: 309, 333, 425, 437, 546f, 562f, 596f.

WILHELM PRESS AGENCY, Viennese agency, specializing in society gossip: 235.

WILHELM II (“the Kaiser”, 1859–1941), King of Prussia and German Emperor (1888–1918): x, xix, 113, 123ff, 131, 143, 186, 255ff, 264, 293, 300f, 325, 370f, 381f, 394ff, 404ff, 431ff, 437, 439, 494, 513, 521, 528, 553, 561f, 567, 592, 595.

WILLRAM, Brother (Anton Müller, 1870–1939), Styrian priest and patriotic poet: 184f.

WILLY LOSES HIS PANTS (Willi geniert sich nicht) , possibly allusion to the short French Willi films, comedies starring William Daniel Sanders (1906–1990), 584.

WILSON, Thomas Woodrow (1856–1924), American president who led the United States into the war in April 1917 and in January 1918 enunciated Fourteen Points for a just postwar settlement: xvii, xix, 318, 365, 368, 502.

WINDISCHGRÄTZ, “Bubi”, son [?] of →Prince Alfred von Windischgrätz: 122, 527.

WINDISCHGRÄTZ, Prince Alfred von (1851–1927), leading conservative statesman, prime minister (1893–95), president of Austrian Upper House (1897–1918): 56, 497.

WOCHE, Die (The Week), Berlin illustrated weekly (from 1899): 126, 130f, 307, 461.

WOCHEINER-FEISTRITZ, on Trieste-Villach railway line along →Isonzo River: 529.

WOHLGEMUTH, Else (1881–1972), Countess Thun, →Hofburgtheater actress (from 1910): 399.

WOHTE, Anny (1858–1919), prolific author of light novels aimed at keeping spirits up during war. Quotation from Die Vogesenwacht (Watch on the Vosges, 1915): 126, 300.

WOLFFBÜRO, official German news agency: 258, 295, 306, 333, 436, 501f.

WOLF IN GERSTHOF, wine restaurant in north-western part of city, with musical entertainment, named after proprietor Franz Wolf, providing a symbol for mindless Austrian hedonism: 37, 38, 164ff, 219, 488.

WORDSWORTH, William (1770–1850), English nature poet whose “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” appeared in Poems (1807): 373f, 593.

“WOTSA MATTER, HONEYBABY?” (“Ach Puppe sei nicht so neutral!”), duet from operetta Wenn zwei Hochzeit machen (1915), music by Walter Kollo (1878–1940), libretto by Rudolf Bernauer (1880–1953) and Rudolf Schanzer (1875–1944): 401.

WURMBRAND (“Putzo”), possibly Count Friedrich Karl Eugen (1865–1938), privy councillor, Master of the Household to →Archduchess Maria Annunziata: 63.

WYDENBRUCK, Countess Mysa von (1859–1926), prominent in charity work: 234.

ZAGORSKI, Stanislaus von (b. 1872), military judge (1914–17), authorized the executions recorded in IV, 30, which actually took place on 18 October 1914 in the Ukrainian village of Synowidzka Wyzna (see Holzer, Das Lächeln der Henker , pp. 33–35): 386ff.

ZAUNER’S, tearoom in →Bad Ischl: 399.

ZEIT, Die , liberal Viennese daily: 489, 492.

ZEMUN (Semlin), on the left bank of the →River Save, opposite →Belgrade. The destruction by Serbian troops of the railway bridge between Zemun and Belgrade on 27 July 1914 marked the onset of hostilities between Austria-Hungary and →Serbia: 57.

ZEPPELIN, Count Ferdinand (1838–1917), German officer and airship pioneer: 164, 301.

ZITA, (1892–1989), Archduchess (1911–16), Empress (1916–18): 275ff.

ZOIS, Baron Michelangelo von Edelstein (1874–1945), writer, editor of Kriegsjournal (War Journal) of Tenth Austro-Hungarian Army, its pamphlet anthologies distributed to all fronts: 246.

ZUNTZ, Nathan (1847–1920), professor of physiology, Berlin: 330, 332.

European battle zones of the First World War

The Austrian Jewish author KARL KRAUS (1874–1936) was the foremost German-language satirist of the twentieth century. As editor of the journal Die Fackel ( The Torch ) he conducted a sustained critique of propaganda and the press, expressed through polemical essays, satirical plays, pungent aphorisms, and resonant poems.

EDWARD TIMMS, founding director of the University of Sussex Centre for German-Jewish Studies, is best known for his two-volume study Karl Kraus — Apocalyptic Satirist . The title of his memoirs, Taking Up the Torch , reflects his long-standing interest in Kraus’s journal.

FRED BRIDGHAM is the author of wide-ranging studies in German literature, history, and the history of ideas. His translations of lieder and opera include Hans Werner Henze’s The Prince of Homburg for performance by English National Opera.