Authors, German -- 19th century -- Biography; May, Karl Friedrich, 1842-1912
It has been said that our publishers of trashy literature annually
make fifty million marks from the German people. This is
terrible, though this estimation is still far too low. A single
trashy novel which is a so-called hit can cost the people more
than five or six million, and there are catalogues in which, for
instance, just the single company Münchmeyer is offering
fifty-eight - read it and be amazed - fifty-eight of these novels
at the same time! You can figure it out; do the multiplications!
What a loss! What an immense amount of poison and mischief! How
many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are busy creating and
distributing this poison! And now, open your newspapers,
magazines, and books to see who is held responsible for all this,
who is publicly accused, who is despised, jeered at, and
slandered! Karl May, Karl May, again and again Karl May, and only
and only Karl May! Where can ever another name be seen and read
than just this one? Whatever have I done to be counted among the
trash at all? Where are those two thousand real trashy authors,
who restlessly make sure, year after year, that in Germany and in
German-speaking Austria there will never be a shortage of trash?
In court, in "scientific" writings, in the meetings of
commissions, in public speeches by writers, editors, teachers,
ministers of the church, professors, artists, psychiatrists, at
all fitting and unfitting occasions where the "moral degradation
of the youth" is being discussed, Karl May is mentioned again and
again! He is to blame, only he! He is the archetype of those who
poison the youth! He is the father of all those ruthless
characters like Captain Thürmer, Nick Carter, and Buffalo Bill!
My God, do these gentlemen really not know what they are doing?
What a sin they are committing? How they are talked about among
those who know better? Let them name just a single case where it
has been really proven in court, that someone has been corrupted
by one of my books! Hundreds of trashy stories of the most
morally corrupting kind have been read by such a boy, and also one
volume or several volumes by Karl May. This one is known, but not
the others; therefore, he must be the one to be singled out and
to named as the perpetrator! Week after week, newspaper offices
are sending me fifty, sixty, or seventy newspaper clips, where I
am being executed instead of all those German trashy authors and
trashy publishers. This is inhumanly cruel! They pile up their
disgrace all over me, but tip their hats to those who are really
guilty. Why are their names never mentioned? Why are these not
nailed to the cross? There are hundreds of publishers and writers
who have been punished for distributing indecent material. And
even larger is the number of those who, with the full intent,
publish filth for the youth, only to make money. Why are their
names not given? Why are their crimes against the youth and the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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