Kurt Kluge

Mr. Kortum (Der Herr Kortum) Kurt Kluge

The German narrator Kurt Kluge (* 1886, + 1940), who was influenced by the style of German late realism and the enigmatic and humorous novels of Jean Paul, creates an image of the quirky German par excellence with the title character of the novel "Der Herr Kortüm", published by Engelhard in Stuttgart in the tradition of the Simpliziaden: The village landlord Kortüm is a combination of a bizarre brooding person, a fantastic schemer, an energetic organizer, and a crazy, humorous sage. Under the conditions of fascist tyranny, the author wants to say, a person can only assert himself as a "wise gate": "Life depends on timely laughter" and "humor is metamorphorphosed tragedy".