Egon Erwin Kisch, the Raging Reporter: A Bio-Anthology

A Deed of Collective Optimism

ADeed ofCollective Optimi~m "A German performance in Mexico, eight hundred spectators in the auditorium, twenty'-six performers and singers onstage, to say nothing ofthe stage painters, costume designers, and technical personnel ... It was not only H display of the intellectually interested and not just a brilliant new performance by the Heine Club, which created a center for the spirit that had been forbidden in Germany. Above all it was a deed of collective optimism by all those who refused to permit Hitler to rob them of their pleasure in culture. Even if the undertaking had met with no success, it would still have been a success. But as a performance it was also an outward success ..." That's what I wrote about a theater evening at the Heine Club. The same can be said for the overall achievement of the Heine Club: a deed of collective optimism, a success. In case there is a small grain of truth in the observation attributed to Goebbels that the German emigres had unleashed the hatred of the world against the Third Reich, the Heine Club should take credit for having been an atom of this grain. On a distant and small section of the front, it fulfilled its duty, despite all the hardships and considerable misunderstanding and malice in the camp of the emigres themselves. Egon Erwin Kisch, "Eine Tat des kollektiven Optirnismus," Mein LebenfUr die Zeitung 19261947 : lournalistische Texte 2(Berlin and Weimar: Autbau-Verlag, 1983),523. H3 ...