Kurt Tucholsky, the short fat Berliner who tried to stop a catastrophe with a typewriter

Harold L. Poor’s biography of the iconic German Jewish author, journalist, satirist, playwright, and poet is the most important and thorough work on Kurt Tucholsky in the English-speaking world; a labor of love by the Rutgers history professor that is still unmatched. For this book, Poor has not only spent years of research in American Universities, he also visited Tucholsky’s widow Mary Gerold in her home in Germany, his family in tow, and unearthed material, letters, and pictures previously unknown. This book is an entertaining and well-written gem that has finally been rediscovered.