Kraus proposed radical new texts for inclusion in school textbooks. In place of the cult of military valour, children should learn about the debilitating effects of war on the civilian population. The need to educate the next generation in an antimilitarist spirit led him to wonder why the reformers had not included any poems from The Last Days of Mankind in their school anthology (F 588–94, 86). This would help to ensure that “little Aryans, when they grow up, would not develop into such big Aryans that they can’t wait for a World War” (F 668–75, 58).

Kraus responded to Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany by composing Dritte Walpurgisnacht (Third Walpurgis Night), an incisive analysis of Nazi atrocities compiled during the summer of 1933. It could not be published until after the defeat of Hitler’s Germany, and there is as yet no English translation. Kraus did not live long enough to witness the annexation of Austria, followed by an even more apocalyptic Second World War. He died in Vienna of natural causes on 12 June 1936 and lies buried in a Grave of Honour. His most eloquent memorial is The Last Days of Mankind. To mark the play’s centenary we now present the complete text in English for the first time, incorporating translation strategies that are summarized in our Afterword and elucidated in the Glossary.

Notes

1. References to Die Fackel, ed. Karl Kraus (Vienna, 1899–1936), are identified by the abbreviation F followed by the issue and page number.

2. For a comprehensive account of the apocalyptic themes that shaped Kraus’s career, see Edward Timms, Karl Kraus—Apocalyptic Satirist, Part 1: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), and Part 2: The Post-War Crisis and the Rise of the Swastika (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005).

3. See Paul Reitter, The Anti-Journalist: Karl Kraus and Jewish Self-Fashioning in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

4. For an English translation of “In dieser großen Zeit”, see In These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader, ed. Harry Zohn (Montreal: Engendra Press, 1976; repr. Manchester: Carcanet, 1984), 70–83. Much as we admire the pioneering translations of Harry Zohn, we feel that “In This Age of Grandeur” comes closer to capturing the resonance of Kraus’s title.

5. Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time: Containing an Assortment of the Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War (London: Garland, 1928), 11; for an update, see Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Iraq (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

6. www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/shattered-school-in-gaza-2 (New Yorker, July 30, 2014; viewed August 2014).

7. G. K. A. Bell, “Obliteration Bombing”, in Bell, The Church and Humanity 1939–1946 (London and New York: Longmans, 1946), 129–41.

8. Kant’s Schriften (Akademieausgabe), vol. 8 (Berlin, 1912), 346 and 356; cf. Kant’s Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, tr. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 96 and 104.

PREFACE

by Karl Kraus

The performance of this drama, which would take some ten evenings in terrestrial time, is intended for a theatre on Mars.