Wilhelm Busch, the great Cartoonist

The publishing business belonging to Friedrich Daniel Bassermann, whose political career came to a sad end with his suicide in 1855, was continued by his son Otto in Heidelberg and later moved to Munich. Here it was that a most exciting and profitable relationship developed. In October 1871 Otto Bassermann received a card requesting a meeting in the Holländer Hof in Heidelberg. When he arrived he found the brothers Otto and Wilhelm Busch waiting for him. Wilhelm was an old friend from student days in Munich in the 1850s. He asked Bassermann to take a look at two manuscripts and see if he wanted to publish them. Bassermann found himself reading the two stories Die fromme Helene and Bilder zur Jobsiade with their series of humorous illustrations. Busch’ previous publisher had recently just survived a court case against him for publishing Der Heilige Antonius von Padua which had supposedly offended public decency.

Portrait of Wilhem Busch c. 1875 by Franz von Lenbach (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Perhaps it was not surprising that Bassermann immediately recognised the value of a certain notoriety and drew up a contract with Busch that very evening, one that lasted with small modifications until 1896. Perhaps also Bassermann shared his father’s Liberal views and saw an opportunity to challenge the authorities. Prussia was at the height of its power, having just won the Franco-Prussian War, and Bismarck had achieved his ambition of imposing the Empire from above – Reichsgründung von oben with himself as Reichskanzler. He had brought the south German states into the Empire without the help of the Liberals and now set about consolidating the new Germany, from which Austria had been successfully excluded, and introducing his own version of Liberalism, Revolution von oben.

Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) started life wanting to be a serious artist and ended it as Germany’s most brilliant satirist and cartoonist, though “cartoon” is not really the correct word for his grotesque and hilarious line-drawings, most of which illustrated a series of humorous satires in doggerel verse. Busch was a sharp observer of his fellow humans, of whom he “took the mickey” mercilously but with evident affection for their, and his own, weaknesses. In tune with the new Bismarckian Kulturkampf against the influence of the Roman Catholic church in Germany, Busch was also not averse to the occasional dig at saints and priests.

Wilhelm Busch: St. Anthony of Padua

Of his works the best loved and most often quoted today is Max und Moritz (1865). My own children enjoyed the rhymes as much as the pictures and still recite whole chunks years later. It is the story of two boys who made their neighbours’ lives hell and who came to the sort of sticky end that would be grossly politically incorrect at the beginning of the twenty-first century and is therefore totally satisfying to any of us who have had to suffer the results of current educational trends. Here they are, looking ready to terrorise a poor widow, half drown the tailor, blow up their teacher, nearly meet their match in the bakery…… And really meet it at the miller’s hands…….

Animals and birds took on absurd human characteristics under Busch’s pen – a famous evil-doer is the raven Hans Huckebein……

who also came quite literally to a sticky end.

Die fromme Helene (1872), which initiated Bassermann’s long co-operation with Busch, is the story of a teenage girl who is sent to live with an uncle and aunt in the country. Helene is what the Germans call frühreif – she is an early developer and turns out to be a great deal more than her relatives can handle. Hardly has she arrived than she plays her first prank on her unsuspecting uncle, sewing up the openings of his nightshirt sleeves and collar, and then going gleefully to bed to await the result…..

Cousin Franz comes to stay and Lenchen, as she is called, can’t wait for him to get up in the morning…..

After several more episodes in which her poor aunt and uncle are the objects of her slapstick sense of humour, Lenchen gets herself thrown out of the house. She settles for marriage and respectability with an unpromising fellow who eats himself to death. Even Cousin Franz becomes the victim of his penchant for servant girls. Lenchen opts for a pious life. But alcohol beckons. A paraffin stove is overturned during a drinking bout, and the Devil himself is waiting to collect her soul…..

Of all the Busch stories, my own favourite is Plisch und Plum, the story of a family and the two naughty dogs they rescued form drowning. For me the appeal lies not so much in the misdemeanours of the two mongrels as in the gentle characterisation of the two parents. The father, Vater Fittig, tries very hard to be strict with his sons, only to find himself undermined by Mama Fittig, pleading with her indignant husband to let the boys have their fun…..

The German Projekt Gutenberg has most of Busch's works online. as also the works of 350 authors, not just German ones, on this site, and the number is growing continuously.

And, just to finish appropriately, the final picture in Wilhelm Busch’s short episode entitled Der Virtuos -