Satire Zwischen Schreiben Und Schweigen: Karl Kraus' Dritte Walpurgisnacht

Karl Kraus reacts to the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor with his voluminous essay "Third Walpurgisnight", but decides against publishing it. Theresa Homm shows how Kraus marks a disruption of normality and points out the violence of national socialism by staging a silence on political events in Germany. She analyses the "Third Walpurgisnight" against the background of this silence and illustrates how Kraus uses citations from Goethe's "Faust" and Shakespeare's tragedies to comment on German politics and to structure his essay. Resorting to theories of satire and the essay, the author investigates in what way Kraus' writing from 1933 onwards differs from his earlier satire whilst still continuing it.