Erich Mühsam - made his ironic bid for authorial immortality by announcing his discovery that immortality in fact exists--specifically in the person of the Rich Aunt. Through 25 case studies, arranged alphabetically, Mühsam argues his case: the Rich Aunt is able to live forever provided she has a nephew waiting for her demise and for his inheritance

 

Erich Mühsam, Psychology of the Rich Aunt:

Being an Inquiry, in Twenty-Five Parts, Into the

Question of Immortality, Trans. by Erik Butler,

Wakefield Press, 2018 [1905]

With Psychology of the Rich Aunt, German author Erich Mühsam made his ironic bid for authorial immortality by announcing his discovery that immortality in fact exists--specifically in the person of the Rich Aunt. Through 25 case studies, arranged alphabetically (from Aunt Amalia to Aunt Zerlinde), Mühsam argues his case: the Rich Aunt is able to live forever provided she has a nephew waiting for her demise and for his inheritance. The corollary revealed in these tales, of course, is that a Rich Aunt's eternal rest is directly tied to her nephew's deprivation of said inheritance. The pathways to an immortal's demise can thus be the result of anything from the vagrancies of sexual proclivities or the stock market to the unforeseen expenses of literary ambitions. The Rich Aunt emerges as the enduring fly in the ointment of Church, Family and State, the undoing of fate personified and the transformation of morality into mortality under the aegis of Capital.

Originally published in German in 1905, Psychology of the Rich Aunt is a caustically tongue-in-cheek portrayal of greed under capitalism in the bourgeois epoch.

Once upon a time, when families were larger and women’s lives were more circumscribed than now, the category of “Rich Aunt” arose. (Mühsam’s book was originally published in 1905.) Spinster or widow, these were women who—according to Erich Mühsam’s taxonomy—were assumed to by avaricious kin to possess enormous fortunes that would surely all be theirs one day. The psychology of the rich aunt depends equally upon the psychology of the (non-) deserving nephews and nieces, who often do what they can to speed up the mortality process in the wretched beast they would otherwise have nothing to do with, in order to pay off bills they have accumulated in anticipation of future riches. In other words, the 25 profiles of rich aunts, alphabetically arranged, serve as a catalog of schadenfreude for readers.

https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/2021/01/31/wakefield-press/

Erich Mühsam, Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings: A Political Reader, Trans. by Gabriel Kuhn, PM Press, 2011

Featuring a riveting collection of anarcho-communist poetry, essays, articles, and diary entries, this translation of Erich Mühsam’s legendary writings introduces the German revolutionary’s ideas to English speakers for the first time. Uniting a burning desire for individual liberation with radical, left-wing convictions and bohemian strains with syndicalist tendencies, this diverse body of work not only includes his main political pamphlet and one of the key texts in the history of German anarchism but also some of his best-known poems, unbending defenses of political prisoners, passionate calls for solidarity among the proletariat, recollections of the utopian community of Monte Verità, debates on the rights of homosexuals and women, and the role of intellectuals in the class struggle. Perfect for anarchists, activists, or those interested in German history, this expansive and enlightening compilation provides a deep understanding of this important historical figure.

 “It has been remarked before how the history of the German libertarian and anarchist movement has yet to be written, and so the project to begin translation of some of the key works of Mühsam—one of the great names of German anarchism, yet virtually unknown in the English-speaking world—is most welcome. The struggles of the German working class in the early 20th century are perhaps some of the most bitter and misunderstood in European history, and it is time they were paid more attention. This book is the right place to start.” —Richard Parry

“We need new ideas. How about studying the ideal for which Erich Mühsam lived, worked, and died?”—Augustin Souchy

Erich Mühsam (1878–1934), poet, bohemian, revolutionary, is one of Germany’s most renowned and influential anarchists. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, he challenged the conventions of bourgeois society at the turn of the century, engaged in heated debates on the rights of women and homosexuals, and traveled Europe in search of radical communes and artist colonies. He was a primary instigator of the ill-fated Bavarian Council Republic in 1919 and held the libertarian banner high during a Weimar Republic that came under increasing threat by right-wing forces. In 1933, four weeks after Hitler’s ascension to power, Mühsam was arrested in his Berlin home. He spent the last sixteen months of his life in detention and died in the Oranienburg Concentration Camp in July 1934.

Mühsam wrote poetry, plays, essays, articles, and diaries. His work unites a burning desire for individual liberation with anarcho-communist convictions, and bohemian strains with syndicalist tendencies. The body of his writings is immense, yet hardly any English translations have been available before now. This collection presents not only Liberating Society from the State: What Is Communist Anarchism?, Mühsam’s main political pamphlet and one of the key texts in the history of German anarchism, but also some of his best-known poems, unbending defenses of political prisoners, passionate calls for solidarity with the lumpenproletariat, recollections of the utopian community of Monte Verità, debates on the rights of homosexuals and women, excerpts from his journals, and essays contemplating German politics and anarchist theory as much as Jewish identity and the role of intellectuals in the class struggle.

An appendix documents the fate of Zenzl Mühsam, who, after her husband’s death, escaped to the Soviet Union where she spent twenty years in Gulag camps.