In
1896 he left university without a diploma to begin work as an actor, stage-director and performer, joining the
Jung Wien (
Young Vienna) group, which included
Peter Altenberg, Leopold Andrian, Hermann Bahr, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Felix Dörmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and
Felix Salten. In 1897, however, Kraus broke from this group with a biting satire
Die demolierte Literatur [Demolished Literature], and was named Vienna correspondent for the
newspaper Breslauer Zeitung. One year later, as an uncompromising advocate of Jewish assimilation, he attacked the Zionist
Theodor Herzl with his polemic
Eine Krone für Zion [A Crown for Zion] (1898).
On
April 1, 1899, he
renounced Judaism and in the same year founded his own newspaper,
Die Fackel (The Torch), which he continued to direct, publish, and write until his death, and from which he launched his attacks on
hypocrisy, psychoanalysis, corruption of the
Habsburg empire, nationalism of the
pan-German movement,
laissez-faire economic policies, and numerous other
bêtes noires.
In 1901, Kraus was sued by
Hermann Bahr and
Emmerich Bukovics, who felt they had been attacked by
Die Fackel. Many lawsuits by diverse offended parties would follow in later years.
Also in 1901, Kraus found out that his publisher, Moriz Frisch, had taken over his magazine while he was absent on a months-long journey: Moriz Frisch had registered the magazine's front cover as a trademark and published the
Neue Fackel (New Torch). Kraus sued and won. From that time,
Die Fackel was published (without a cover page) by the printer Jahoda & Siegel
While at the beginning
Die Fackel was similar to journals like the magazine
Weltbühne, it became more and more a magazine that was privileged in its
editorial independence, that Kraus could provide by his funding.
Die Fackel printed what Kraus wanted to be printed. In its first decade, contributors included many well-known writers and artists such as
Peter Altenberg, Richard Dehmel, Egon Friedell, Oskar Kokoschka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Arnold Schönberg, August Strindberg, Georg Trakl, Frank Wedekind, Franz Werfel, Houston Stewart Chamberlain and
Oscar Wilde. After 1911, however, Kraus was usually the sole author. Kraus' work was published nearly exclusively in
Die Fackel, of which 922 irregularly-issued numbers appeared in total.
Authors who were supported by Kraus include
Peter Altenberg, Else Lasker-Schüler, and
Georg Trakl.
Die Fackel targeted corruption, journalists and brutish behaviour. Notable enemies were
Maximilian Harden (in the mud of the
Harden-Eulenburg affair), Moritz Benedikt (owner of the newspaper
Neue Freie Presse), Alfred Kerr, Hermann Bahr, Imre Bekessy and
Johannes Schober.
In 1902, Kraus published
Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität (Morality and Crimical Justice), for the first time commenting on what was to become one of the main issues in his writings: the allegedly necessary defense of sexual morality by means of criminal justice (
Der Skandal fängt an, wenn die Polizei ihm ein Ende macht, The scandal starts when the police is stopping it).
Starting in 1906, Kraus published the first of his
aphorisms in
Die Fackel; they were collected in 1909 in the book
Sprüche und Widersprüche (Sayings and Gainsayings).
In addition to his writings, Kraus gave numerous highly influential public readings during his career - between 1892 and 1936 he put on approximately 700 one-man performances, reading from the dramas of
Bertolt Brecht, Gerhart Hauptmann, Johann Nestroy, Goethe, and
Shakespeare, and also performing
Offenbach's operettas, accompanied by piano and singing all the roles himself.
Elias Canetti, who regularly attended Kraus' lectures, titled the second volume of his autobiography
"Die Fackel im Ohr" (translation : The Torch in the Ear) in reference to the magazine and its author.
In 1907, Kraus attacked his erstwhile benefactor
Maximilian Harden because of his role in the
Eulenburg trial in the first of his spectacular
Erledigungen (dispatches).
After an obituary for
Franz Ferdinand who had been
assassinated in Sarajevo, Die Fackel was not published for many months. In the December of 1914, it appeared again with an essay titled
In dieser großen Zeit (In this grand time):
„In dieser großen Zeit, die ich noch gekannt habe, wie sie so klein war; die wieder klein werden wird, wenn ihr dazu noch Zeit bleibt; […] in dieser lauten Zeit, die da dröhnt von der schauerlichen Symphonie der Taten, die Berichte hervorbringen, und der Berichte, welche Taten verschulden: in dieser da mögen Sie von mir kein eigenes Wort erwarten.“ (
In this grand time that I still know from when it was very small; that will become small again if it has the time; […] in this loud time that resounds from the ghastly symphony of deeds that spawn reports, and from reports that are to blame for deeds: in this one, you may not expect any word of my own.
In the subsequent time, Kraus wrote against the World War, and editions of
Die Fackel were repeatedly confiscated or obstructed by censors.
Kraus' masterpiece is generally considered to be the massive satiric play about the
First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (
The Last Days of Mankind), which combines dialogue from contemporary documents with
apocalyptic fantasy and commentary from two characters called "the Grumbler" and "the Optimist". The play was begun in 1915 and first published as a series of special
Fackel issues in 1919. Its epilogue,
Die letzte Nacht (The last night) had already been published in 1918 as a special issue.
Edward Timms has called the work a "faulted masterpiece" and a "fissured text" because the evolution of Kraus' attitude during the time of its composition (from
aristocratic conservative to
democratic republican) means that the text has structural inconsistencies resembling a
geological fault.
Also in 1919, Kraus published his collected war texts under the title
Weltgericht (World court of justice).
In 1920, he published the satire
Literatur oder Man wird doch da sehn (Literature or One will see there) as a reply to
Franz Werfel's Spiegelmensch (Mirror man), an attack against Kraus.
During January of 1924, he started to fight against Imre Békessy, publisher of the tabloid
Die Stunde (The hour). Békessy retaliated with a libel campagne against Kraus, who in turn launched an
Erledigung with the catchphrase
Hinaus aus Wien mit dem Schuft! (Throw the scoundrel out of Vienna). In 1926, Békessy indeed fled Vienna in order to avoid his being arrested. In the following year, Kraus unsuccessfully tried a similar undertaking against
Johann Schober, police prefect during the forcefully suppressed
July Revolt.
In 1928, the play
Die Unüberwindlichen (The insurmountables) was published. It included allusions to the fights against Békessy and Schober.
During that same year, Kraus also published the records of a lawsuit that Kerr had filed against him after Kraus had published Kerr's war poems in
Die Fackel.
In 1932, Kraus re-translated
Shakespeare's sonnets.
He supported
Engelbert Dollfuß, hoping Dollfuß could prevent Nazism from engulfing Austria.
This estranged him from some of his followers.
When asked why he never said anything about Hitler, he reportedly answered:
I cannot think of anything to say about Hitler.
His last work, which he declined to publish for fear of Nazi reprisals, was the verbally rich, densely allusive anti-Nazi polemic
Die Dritte Walpurgisnacht (
The Third Walpurgisnacht). However, lengthy extracts appear in his apologia for his silence at Hitler's coming to power,
Warum die Fackel nicht erscheint (
Why the Fackel Does Not Appear), a 315-page edition of his periodical. The last issue of the
Fackel appeared in February of 1936. Karl Kraus died of an
Embolism of the heart in Vienna on June 12th, 1936 after a short illness.
Kraus never married, but from 1913 until his death, he had a conflict-prone but close relationship with the Baroness Sidonie Nádherný von Borutin (1885-1950). Many of his works were written in Janowitz castle, Nádherny family property. Sidonie Nádherny became an important pen-friend and addressee of books and poems.
In
1911 he was
baptized as a
Catholic, but in
1923 he left the Catholic Church, because he disapproved of the revival of the
Salzburg Festival. He is buried in the
Zentralfriedhof cemetery outside Vienna.
Kraus was the subject of two books written by noted libertarian author Dr.
Thomas Szasz. Karl Kraus and the Soul Doctors and
Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry portrayed Kraus as a harsh critic of
Sigmund Freud and of
psychoanalysis in general. Other commentators, such as Edward Timms (
Karl Kraus - Apocalyptic Satirist) have argued that Kraus respected Freud, though with reservations about the application of some of his theories, and that his views were far less black-and-white than Szasz suggests.
