← Back to Articles | Original (German)
150 years ago, on April 28, 1874, Karl Kraus was born in Gitschin, Jičín (Bohemia). He died in Vienna on June 12, 1936. So much for the life of the renowned journalist who founded the magazine Die Fackel in 1899. The feared critic and satirist wrote The Last Days of Mankind between 1915 and 1922 and thereby made a lasting name for himself. Neither the media nor recognized scientists such as the geologist and President of the Academy of Sciences, Eduard Suess (1831 to 1914), were spared from his critical perspective.
On May 8, 1902, a devastating eruption of the 1,397 meter high Mont Pelé in the north of Martinique (Lesser Antilles) in the Atlantic destroyed almost the entire capital of the island, Saint-Pierre. The next day, the first reports of disasters reached the Old World. "(…) almost the entire population, numbering over 25,000 souls, is said to have perished." (Wiener Zeitung, May 9, 1902). The media sought expert opinions to determine the cause of the disaster. Since the specialist knowledge of volcanologists did not yet exist at that time, geologists had to answer questions. The country's most prominent geologist was Eduard Suess, he was president (1898 to 1911) of the Academy of Sciences and author of the multi-volume work The Face of the Earth; he had virtually worldwide expertise. What could be better than asking him?
Two days later, the article The Destroyed City of St. Pierre (Neues Wiener Tagblatt, May 11, 1902) from the professor's pen appeared. The content of his statements was very general and vague. No wonder, he only had information from telegrams. Only the sentence "I repeat that the number of people who perished does not provide a measure of the severity of the physical phenomenon" attests to his expert knowledge.
It didn't take long for Karl Kraus to comment on Suess's report. In the Fackel (issue 103 of May 16, p. 20) he published a ruthless analysis of Suess's article under the short heading "The Geologist" in the "Editor's Answers" section. At the beginning he complains about the media, which is only too happy to make use of the expertise of experts. "(…) every paper was able to find a man of science who had to say his little thing about an event whose external character cannot even be described by guaranteed news." The President of the Academy was put under pressure by the request from the Neue Wiener Tagblatt; it was difficult for him to say no, for which Kraus found polemical words: "But Eduard Suess obliges and writes an article about the fact that he has nothing to say." Not only that, Kraus, like a strict German teacher, dissects the article word for word.
Karl Kraus says this in the original wording: "Prof. Suess tells us what could be gathered from the 'previous reports' anyway. But further: 'The side effects such as darkness (that is a consequence and not a side effect), general terror, the sudden outbreak of individual cases of madness and the like are almost always repeated in similar large outbreaks'. But to know that through ash rain, smoke and masses of opaque bodies flying around in the air, So by simply covering up the light, an eclipse is created that usually frightens people when they are threatened with doom, and that some even go crazy with the most horrible horror - yes, you really don't need to be Eduard Suess to know all of this."
After weighing every word and subjecting it to his strict judgment, he expressed compassion at the end of the article. "It hurts your heart to see how a scholar brings himself to give up his name as a figurehead for an empty display. But Eduard Suess can claim irresistible compulsion as a mitigating circumstance."
Less than six years later, Karl Kraus had his next contact with geosciences. This time it was an earthquake that he also felt. The k. k. The Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics on the Hohe Warte (today: Geosphere Austria) reported: "The pens of all devices were thrown off, so that we can currently only indicate the beginning of the earthquake." (Neue Freie Presse, February 20, 1908). Here are the scientific facts, based on the evaluation of historical observations by Geosphere Austria: In the Austrian Earthquake Catalog (AEC), an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.8 and an epicentral intensity of 6 to 7° (European Macroseismic Scale-98) was recorded on February 19, 1908 at 10 p.m. 11 minutes. In other words: a moderately strong earthquake. The epicenter was near Breitenbrunn in northern Burgenland.
It was also noticed by many in Vienna. Countless reports came in from the population and were printed in the newspapers. The tower keeper of St. Stephen's had several kitchen utensils fall off the wall, clocks stopped elsewhere, and dishes clinked almost everywhere. Everyone had their own personal quake experience. Suess, who had felt the quake at dinner, was asked again. "The earthquakes are triggers of the tensions that exist in the mountains, and since Vienna is located in the middle of the Alps, which mountains continue into the Carpathians, expressions of tectonic earthquakes can also be seen here in many cases." Even from today's perspective, Suess' words cannot be contradicted. But this time he was not the focus of Karl Kraus, who rather brought himself into the conversation.
Two days later there were only isolated reports of the quake in the Neue Freie Presse (February 22, 1908). Specifically, in the "Small Chronicle" section on page eleven, a certain civil engineer J. Berdach from Glockengasse (Vienna-Leopoldstadt) writes: "I was reading your esteemed paper when I felt a tremor in my hand. Since this phenomenon was all too familiar to me from my long-term stay in Bolivia, the well-known source of earthquakes, I immediately rushed to the Bussole, which I have had in my house since those days." Wer weiterliest, muss hellhörig werden: "Allem Anscheine nach handelt es sich hier um ein sogenanntes tellurisches Erdbeben (im engeren Sinne), das von den kosmischen Erdbeben (im weiteren Sinne) wesentlich verschieden ist. Die Verschiedenheit äußert sich schon in der Variabilität der Eindrucksdichtigkeit."
The editor who read the letter and then approved it for printing should have asked himself critically: "What is a cosmic earthquake and what does impressionability mean?" But he apparently trusted the civil engineer's expertise. In any case, he didn't know Hugo Portisch's (1927 to 2021) credo, "You always have to be committed to the truth, check, re-check, double-check", which is now a self-evident tool of journalism.
A little later ("February 1908"), Karl Kraus, whose journalistic work was not published by the Neue Freie Presse, revealed that he himself had written the lines under the name of civil engineer J. Berdach and sent them to the editorial team. You can read it under the title The Earthquake, published in the volume of essays The Wall of China (1910). Kraus was after the sensationalism of the media, especially the Neue Freie Presse, which he wanted to thwart. If you believe Kraus, the editors were even warned. "I pointed out to the Neue Freie Presse that the letters they received from Leopoldstadt after some elementary event could have been written by me. I warned them expressly. But dear recklessness doesn't want to listen, sits comfortably during the earthquake, records incoming letters and believes that things will continue like this."
He describes his view with malicious joy. "A friend who was there and to whom I owe the information that an earthquake has definitely never occurred in Bolivia said: That won't appear. I said: It will appear! The Neue Freie Presse will be pleased that it can finally let an expert speak among so many laypeople who has the Bussole at hand, speaks of a variability of impression density and, above all, knows about a division into telluric and cosmic earthquakes. My friend said: But that 'Trembling of the hand' will give away the sender! No, I said, even if the shaking of the hand as a side effect of an earthquake should appear suspicious to the editorial team, it will still mean the respect of the reader who takes the Neue Freie Presse into his hands."
The obituary for Karl Kraus in the Neue Freie Presse (June 13, 1936) was correspondingly differentiated. "He had enthusiastic supporters and passionate opponents in abundance. He knew this and found it the highest satisfaction in life." The Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung mentioned the "bitter fight against the liberal press." Edwin Rollett (1889 to 1964) wrote in the Wiener Zeitung that Kraus "had the most immediate and intensive effect, artistically, critically and especially ethically." (Thomas Hofmann, Christa Hammerl, April 25, 2024)