Wilhelm Lamszus: Oracle of Doom

In 1912, Wilhelm Lamszus published his anti-war novel The Human Slaughterhouse. It was a vision of the Armageddon of World War I still to come. The book was written for a young audience, but received general interest and much acclaim. It became an unlikely bestseller and a thorn in the side of the Kaiser.

Wilhelm Lamszus

The success of the book confirmed Wilhelm Laszus in his hope to warn humanity of impending disaster. “The Human Slaughterhouse” was published by Alfred Janssen Verlag in Berlin and Hamburg. It had an enormous echo. In a few months, the 110-page novel had been reprinted 70 times. After three months, 100,000 books had been sold. In 1913, a reduced-price "popular edition" of 20,000 copies was instantly sold out. In the same year, the book became available in an English translation with a starting edition of 10,000 copies. It was quickly published in French, Danish, Czech, Finnish and Japanese, too. The importance of the novel was recognized by publishers in all languages: The French translation was done by the eminent novelist Henri Barbusse; the Danish translation contained a foreword from Martin Andersen; and a later German edition was prefaced by an introduction by Carl von Ossietzky.

Among German Social Democrats, the popularity of the publication was extremely high. Shortly after its first release, excerpts from the book appeared in print in the party newspaper Hamburger Echo. They were also published in Stuttgart’s socialist weekly newspaper Die Neue Zeit. Editors praised the author emphatically.

As a matter of course, book and author were celebrated at the 5th German Peace Congress in Berlin as well as on the 19th International Peace Conference in Geneva. Publisher Bruno Wille said of the novel that it was a book sized pamphlet which should be distributed all over the country. The 1911 Nobel Peace Prize winner Alfred Hermann Fried was the founder of the German Peace Society. He wrote: This book should come into millions of hands. It will become one of the sacred books of mankind.

But the triumph with the intelligentsia was followed by repression by militaristic bullies. His Imperial and Royal Highness Crown Prince Wilhelm of the German Empire intervened directly with the Senate in Hamburg. He demanded that Wilhelm Lamszus be dismissed from his teaching post immediately. Hamburg only caved in partly to imperial pressure and banned the sale of the book for a short period. But to be sure, the senate set its secret police to spy on the author. The reports are still available in Hamburg archives. Secret policemen came dressed as mourners to the funeral of Wilhelm Lamszus' father in June 1914. The spooks filed all reviews and newspaper reports about The Human Slaughterhouse meticulously. With so much work, they still failed to incriminate him. With no proof of him being a public enemy, his expulsion from school and teaching post was impossible.

The reactionary press opened full fire on him Daily Mail style, lots of bombast and little truth. They denounced Wilhelm Lamszus as unpatriotic, a weakling, a nerveless coward, an anarchist, a syndicalist and a revolutionary. The escalation in the press finally kicked the Hamburg Senate into action. They feared riots and protests in the street and promoted the teacher out of the centre of the storm: Wilhelm Lamszus was commissioned to travel to North Africa. His task was completely spurious. He was to study the situation of Germans in the French Foreign Legion. The senate effectively exiled him on a state pension.

Further reading
Robert Koch: With System Against Disease
Lohengrin: Sweet History of Product Placement
Borussia: Not (Quite) Soccer History

Grandage, Inishmaan, and Daniel Radcliffe

Daniel Radcliffe is one of those actors that don't need an introduction. A star since he started playing Harry Potter, the movie series saw him grow from child to man. He then made his memorable stage appearance in Equus. Next came his singing debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He is a bag full of surprises. And now he plays a cripple in the West End.

Daniel Radcliffe in The Cripple of Inishmaan

 

Daniel Radcliffe plays the Cripple of Inishmaan in Michael Grandage's West End production in the Noel Coward Theatre of the play by Martin McDonagh. While the good people of Inishmaan think it a famous joke that the lad known as Cripple Billy has dreams of becoming a movie star. Billy's aunts agree that any girl who would consider kissing him would have to be both blind and backward. They have a list of what makes their nephew so unprepossessing; it's not just his deformed body but his face, eyes and personality, too.

Maybe you think that looker Daniel Radcliffe is not the obvious choice for that role. You would also think that a cripple is not the obvious choice for a leading part in a comedy. The two improbabilities go together exceedingly well. It works because Daniel Radcliffe blends right into the scenery on stage and the cast. Cripple Billy is an anomaly on Inishmaan. His physical deformity sets him apart from all other inhabitants. But on this remote island being bored is the dominant pastime. Billy is not so much an outsider as part of the same old landscape in the same old village of familiar and therefore irritating people.

Martin McDonagh’s uses the remote setting on an Island off the Irish coast to evolve a acute analysis of what makes human tick. Nothing ever happens on Inishmaan, not even the news. It follows that the most humdrum gossip gets inflated into big and necessarily distorted news. When word spreads that Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is shooting a film on nearby Inishmore, the excitement knows no bounds. (The Cripple of Inishmaan is set at the time of the making of Robert Flaherty’s 1934 movie Man of Aran.)

Martin McDonagh revels in the art of creating myths out of nothing. He has a gift for inventing village tittle-tattle. He then takes is and through repeated phrases and actions gives it a liturgical cadence. At this point, rumour becomes truth. The play lives of this and switchback narratives that keep changing directions on the spectator.

The Cripple of Inishmaan is the third production from the newly formed Michael Grandage Company residing at the Noel Coward Theatre in London's West End. The troupe is notable for its illustrious leading actors and actresses playing alongside raw talent and journeyman players.The two previous plays were Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols starring Simon Russell Beale, and the premiere of Peter and Alice by John Logan with Dame Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw. There is a treat to come in November with Jude Law as Henry V.

Further reading

Brideshead Revisited
Douglas Booth
Politically Incorrect