Why You Should Read (or Reread) Emil and the Detectives
In 1929, a German writer named Erich Kästner published a book for children titled Emil und die Detektive. An English translation was published in 1931, Emil and the Detectives. In 1934, all of Kästner’s books, except Emil, were publicly burned by the Nazis and his writings were banned. Kästner stood nearby, watching his books go up in flames. Emil was burned a year later.
Today, the book gives us a window into Berlin in the 1920’s. The Weimar Republic was still in precarious power, before the hideous shadows of the Third Reich and the Holocaust fell across Europe.
None of that gets a mention. This is a world of children.
It makes sense in this 1929 publication that a band of kids should represent the underdogs in society, at risk from the forces of absolute power.
Here’s a snippet of text from the 1931 translation by Margaret Goldsmith.
“I don't understand that at all," little Tuesday declared. "How can I steal what already belongs to me? What's mine, is mine, even if it's in a stranger’s pocket!”
“These things are difficult to understand," the professor expounded. "Morally you might be in the right. But the law will find you guilty all the same. Even some grown-ups don't really understand these things, but they are a fact.”
You may be right, but the law will condemn you anyway. Emil and the Detectives positions itself squarely on the side of ordinary people and against oppression meted out by the powerful. When a suspicious looking man, Herr Grundeis, steals the money that Emil Tischbein’s mother has given him, young Emil doesn’t go to the police. Instead he dashes off to find the thief. In the process, the boy sleuth gathers up a motley band of friends, including the unforgettable Pony Hütchen and of course the endearing Little Tuesday without whose faithful vigilance the plan could not possibly unfold. Naturally, the kids are victorious in the end.
Along the way, we are transported to the city as it was. Look at the endpapers, so rich, so busy:
There is nothing in the book to suggest the terror to come in the years that followed its writing. Knowing the author’s books were burned makes rereading this one now a poignant experience. Because the children are so determined to pursue justice and fairness—and because they succeed.
What does all this mean now? Today, we still ban and burn books. And we have shadows of totalitarianism hovering dangerously over countries of the world that we thought were safe from all that. Who would ever have dreamed that there would be people hatching a 21st century “masterplan” in Germany, aimed, this time, at migrants? The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast explores its implications. It ends by quoting Erich Kästner, who saw the original prototype of this nightmare unfold in his lifetime:
You cannot wait until the fight for freedom is called treason. You cannot wait until the snowball has turned into an avalanche. You have to crush the rolling snowball. Nobody can stop the avalanche and it only rests when it has buried everything beneath it.
Emil forges a powerful community, friends linked to friends, all around the city. They don’t hang around waiting to get help. They strategize. They organize. Swift of foot and wit alike, they prevail. Is there another way?
