The case of Georg Kaiser

The case of Georg Kaiser

(Tribuna, 3. Maerz, 1921)

For several months Berlin was busy with a sensational trial whose echo could be heard well into foreign countries. Georg Kaiser, a young German dramatist of exceptional ability and expressive power, who was not only successfully played by Max Reinhardt, but also by other leading European theaters, had been arrested. The accusation was: theft. After a trial that went on for several days, Georg Kaiser was sentenced to one year of prison and his plays disappeared from the stages, as if they had been swallowed by the earth. The public trial painstakingly exposed the details of the case: Georg Kaiser, who for years had been suffering from hunger with his wife and three children, got by chance a villa from a friend in which he was allowed to life during the absence of the owner. The substantial royalties which Kaiser’s plays generated were suddenly not enough. The expenses of the last months summed up to tens of thousands. Persian carpets and silverware were taken out of the villa and partly pawned, partly sold. Georg Kaiser was accused, arrested, sentenced.

All of this is a sad, murky, distinctive characteristic of our times (if you like), and it so desolatingly obvious and clear that I would not dare to add a word to it. The question what an exceptional man may or may not do, Raskolnikow’s question, is probably one of the most painful questions. The conflict with the law, a conflict of the roughest nature, like we see it here, the upheaval of a person who thinks he can do anything and that he would pay for stolen goods with his productivity, the stolen carpets of Mr X.Y. (a millionaire, by the way) the silver spoons that had been pawned by a man who was able to penetrate the human soul with such dignity, all these are grotesque facts on which our reason should be silent and only our heart should speak. It is something entirely different which forces me to write this article: the stupidity of all middle European journalists, who pour out blathering words about this case, words of such an amazing stupor and ignorance, of such a lack of knowledge of the most basic human secrets, without the most primitive human kindness, that even a stranger, bystander is taken aback. Oh, this forgiveness, that no one asks for! If laws are of  mathematical and mystical reality, if one judges by the concept of justice -if that is even possible in this world- and if the laws are something that each one of us accepts as a necessity that is imposed by a higher pursuit of humankind (even if men would have to go through hell to understand this necessity), if all this was true, then people (even the most tactful and gentle ones) who voice their opinion about the human soul, are like thongs in a scourge that bite off a piece of flesh with each whip.

Sometimes it seems to me that people should be ashamed of each word, good or bad, that they say to a criminal. Both exclude from human society, both are painful, and both humiliate. Compassion is something beautiful, but almost no one knows how to express it. Whether we say something good or bad, we express that something has happened. The only acceptable compassion we can show with a person who had sinned is that nothing has changed in our relationship to him. If he realizes two days after his crime or after he finished his sentence that his friends behave differently towards him, then a cold greeting hurts as much as a warm one. Should however someone greet him in the same way he greeted him before, then this person immediately wins his trust.

The press reproached Georg Kaiser that with the stolen money he did not buy bread, but oysters. That he did not need a overall but a tailcoat with silky cuffs. That he was not content with two rooms but wanted a palace. Something important got forgotten here: Life is not logical. There would be no luxury if there was no hunger. Luxury and hunger are not related with satiety. Between them there are no barriers. To explain it with a simple example: a person who was starving for months can neither eat bread nor veal, the stomach vomits the food immediately. However, many people who starved can eat caviar, pineapples, and salmon mayonnaise. Hunger is the most awful thing in the world, yet not per se. Being hungry is not awful. But what hunger causes is awful: people who were starving for a long time are dreadfully frightened of hunger. Fright of such an extent that it not only sickens the stomach but also the soul, heart and thoughts. To satisfy a person who really faced hardship, is tremendously hard, maybe impossible. The worst traits of character are rooted in misery: arrogance, greed, alcoholism. Hunger does not drive a person to a full plate, hunger drives him to the insanity of indulgence. Someone who never had to go hungry cannot understand how much a person, whose stomach has been empty for three days, is tempted by the street five storeys below when he is looking out of the window, how enviable a beggar can appear because he can reach out with his hand and say: Please, give me something. Never will I believe that people prostitute themselves because of hunger. But I do believe that they become millionaires because of hunger. Georg Kaiser needed tens of thousands because of hunger, because of hunger he craved for recognition, because of hunger he cried in front of the judges: “I am a big poet who may do anything”. Not because of immediate hunger. Because of hunger he suffered years ago. Because of hunger that now merely appeared in the form of a whip to drive him onward. One can condemn many things about this attitude, but not what Kaiser was generally condemned for: insincerity.

Only few could escape from this fear and narrowness, from this hunt: only those who can be humble. Only he who can bow with his heart, without reasoning rationally, and recognizes with his heart that the Big, the Indescribable above us, the cross on Golgotha, is just there and has consistent significance for everyone, without justification, revelation, and unraveling. Only he who understood that surrender does not mean humiliation, but that to bow down means to love.

I did not want to just write about Georg Kaiser. He may forgive me for using his great name instead of all the unknown ones, who appear on the last page of the morning newspapers. His fights, sins, forgiveness, pains, and penance are between him and god. I do not want to judge, neither about him nor about anyone else on this world. I just wanted to write what kind of rude, stupid and greasy fingers the writers of feuilletons usually have, who -for 50 heller per row-  condemn and pity a human soul. I just shily wanted to point out what happens to someone when several people have a different opinion on him that they each hold for true. I just wanted to say that one thing hurts more than one year of prison, more than losing ones freedom: the explaining. I wanted to say that psychology  is the lie, the poison, the crime of our time. Nothing more: please, do not misunderstand me.