Simplicissimus
Encyclopedia
- Simplicissimus is also a name for the 1668 novel Simplicius SimplicissimusDer abenteuerliche SimplicissimusSimplicius Simplicissimus is a picaresque novel of the Baroque style, written in 1668 by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and published the subsequent year...
and its protagonist.
Simplicissimus was a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
weekly magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
started by Albert Langen
Albert Langen
Albert Langen was a German publisher and founder of the satirical publication Simplicissimus.-Early years:...
in April 1896 and published through 1967, with a hiatus from 1944-1954. It became a biweekly in 1964. It took its name from the protagonist of Grimmelshausen
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen was a German author.-Biography:Grimmelshausen was born at Gelnhausen. At the age of ten he was kidnapped by Hessian soldiery, and in their midst tasted the adventures of military life in the Thirty Years' War...
's 1668 novel Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch.
Combining brash and politically daring content, with a bright, immediate, and surprisingly modern graphic style, Simplicissimus published the work of writers such as Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
and Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
. Its most reliable targets for caricature were stiff Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n military figures, and rigid German social and class distinctions as seen from the more relaxed, liberal atmosphere of Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Contributors included Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, storyteller, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel The Golem.-Childhood:...
, Fanny zu Reventlow
Fanny zu Reventlow
Franziska Reventlow was a German writer, artist and translator, who became famous as the "Bohemian Countess" of Schwabing in the years leading up to World War I.- Life :Fanny...
, Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann was a Jewish-German writer and novelist.- Life :Born in Fürth, Wassermann was the son of a shopkeeper and lost his mother at an early age. He showed literary interest early and published various pieces in small newspapers...
, Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
, Heinrich Kley
Heinrich Kley
Heinrich Kley in Munich was a German caricaturist, editorial cartoonist and painter.Kley studied "practical arts" at the Karlsruhe Akademie and finished his studies in Munich. His early works were conventional portraits, landscapes, still lifes, city scenes and historical paintings...
, Alfred Kubin
Alfred Kubin
Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin was an Austrian printmaker, illustrator and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism.-Biography:...
, Otto Nückel
Otto Nückel
Otto Nückel was a German painter, graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist. He best known as one the 20th century's pioneer wordless novelist, along with Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward.- Life :...
, Robert Walser
Robert Walser
Robert Walser may refer to:* Robert Walser , Swiss modernist writer* Robert Walser , American musicologist, author and professor...
, Heinrich Zille
Heinrich Zille
Rudolf Heinrich Zille , German illustrator and photographer, was born in Radeburg near Dresden, as the son of watchmaker Johann Traugott Zill and Ernestine Louise...
, Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
, Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
and Erich Kästner
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known for his humorous, socially astute poetry and children's literature.-Dresden 1899–1919:...
.
In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm is a common reference to two German emperors:* Wilhelm I, German Emperor , King of Prussia; became the first Kaiser of a united Germany...
's objections to being ridiculed on the cover resulted in the magazine being suppressed. Langen, the publisher, spent five years' exile in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and was fined 30,000 German gold marks. A six-month prison sentence was given to the cartoonist Heine, and seven months to the writer Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
. Again in 1906 the editor Ludwig Thoma
Ludwig Thoma
Ludwig Thoma was a German author, publisher and editor, who gained popularity through his partially exaggerated description of a Bavarian workday....
was imprisoned for six months for attacking the clergy. These controversies only served to increase circulation, which peaked at about 85,000 copies. Upon Germany's entry into World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the weekly dulled its satirical tone, began supporting the war effort and considered closing down. Thereafter, the strongest political satire expressed in graphics became the province of artists George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century...
(who were both contributors) and John Heartfield
John Heartfield
John Heartfield is the anglicized name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld...
.
The editor Ludwig Thoma
Ludwig Thoma
Ludwig Thoma was a German author, publisher and editor, who gained popularity through his partially exaggerated description of a Bavarian workday....
joined the army in a medical unit in 1917, and lost his taste for satire, denouncing his previous work at the magazine, calling it immature and deplorable. He left the magazine in the 1920s.
During the Weimar era the magazine continued to publish and took a strong stand against extremists on the left and on the right. As the National Socialists
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
gradually came to power, they issued verbal accusations, attacks, threats and personal intimidation against the artists and writers of Simplicissimus, but they did not ban it. The editor Thomas Theodor Heine
Thomas Theodor Heine
Thomas Theodor Heine was a German painter and illustrator. Born in Leipzig, Heine established himself as a gifted caricaturist at an early age, which led to him studying art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and, briefly, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich...
, a Jew, was forced to resign and went into exile. Other members of the team, including Karl Arnold, Olaf Gulbransson
Olaf Gulbransson
Olaf Leonhard Gulbransson was a Norwegian artist, painter and designer. He is probably best known for his caricatures and illustrations.-Biography:...
, Edward Thöny, Erich Schilling and Wilhelm Schulz remained and toed the Nazi party line, for which they were rewarded by the Nazis. It continued publishing, in declining form, until finally ceasing publication in 1944. It was revived from 1954-1967.
Other graphic artists associated with the magazine included Bruno Paul
Bruno Paul
Bruno Paul was a German architect, illustrator, interior designer, and furniture designer.Bruno Paul was born in Seifhennersdorf, a village in rural Saxony, in 1874. His father was an independent tradesman, craftsman, and dealer in building materials...
, Josef Benedikt Engl
Josef Benedikt Engl
Josef Benedikt Engl , also known as J.B. Engl, was a German caricaturist and illustrator known for his work for the journal Simplicissimus.-References:...
, Rudolf Wilke
Rudolf Wilke
Rudolf Wilke was a German caricaturist and illustrator known for his work for the journal Simplicissimus, to which he was invited to contribute by Albert Langen. Before working for Simplicissimus, he had studied fine art at Munich and Paris and had set up a studio with Bruno Paul...
and Ferdinand von Reznicek
Ferdinand von Reznicek
Ferdinand Freiherr von Rezniček was an Austrian painter, caricaturist, and illustrator. Born to a noble Austrian family of Czech descent, he was a half-brother of composer Emil Nikolaus von Rezniček.His father had been a military officer, and Rezniček became a cavalry officer before following his...
.