It is not surprising that mass entertainment literature for children, whether
sensational and adventure-based or sentimental and kitschy—the work of such authors
as Gustav Nieritz (1795–1879), Franz Hoffmann (1814–1882), Sophie Wörishofer (1838–
1890) and Karl May (1842–1912)—succumbed, towards the end of the century, to the
fascination of nationalism, chauvinism, colonialism and militarism. Here we see
children’s literature as a major medium of ideological mobilisation. But at the same time
fresh literary and educational demands were brought to bear on children’s literature.
Richard (1863–1920) and Paula Dehmel (1862–1918) with their collection Fitzebutze
(1900, illustrated by Ernst Kreidolf) renewed German children’s poetry. Here we find a
child’s impulsive, uncensored lyrical self-expression. In Paula Dehmel’s Singinens
Geschichten [Singine’s Stories] (1903, book publication 1921) modern first-person
narration by a child appears: the child is made the centre of perception and -value-
judgement, and no adult interference occurs. The Dehmels’ works bring back
consistently anti-authoritar-ian children’s literature. Around the turn of the century the
children’s verses of Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914), only collected and published
posthumously (Klein Irmchen [Little Irma] (1921), were written; his nonsense poems
(Galgenlieder [Gallows Songs] (1905)), however, do not come under consideration as
children’s literature until the 1960s. In fairy tale, Otto Julius Bierbaum’s (1865– 1920)
free adaptation of Pinocchio, Zäpfel Kerns Abenteuer [Adventures of Zäpfel Kern] (1905)
and Gerdt von Bassewitz’s (1878–1923) Peterchens Mondfahrt [Peterkin’s Trip to the
Moon] (1911–1915) stand out. The turn of the century is also noted for a new growth of
the picture book, under heavy English influence (Caldecott, Greenaway, Crane). As well
as Ernst Kreidolf (1863–1956) artists like Carl Hofer (1878–1955), Karl F.E.von Freyhold
(1879–1944) or the Austrians Heinrich Lefler (1863–1919) and Joseph Urban (1872–
1933) should be mentioned.
While Social-Democratic children’s literature starts with fairy tales (Lorenz Berg: König
Mammon und die Freiheit [King Mammon and Freedom] (1878)), teachers committed to
reforming movements in education wrote sketches and stories of the city, aimed at
children beginning school. These on the one hand hold firmly to the child’s experiential
perspective and thus to the principle of starting from the child, but on the other hand go
beyond the child’s world and focus attention on the city, the industrial world of work
and the social problems of industrial society. This trend, partly naturalistic and partly
impressionistically tinged, started with Ilse Frappan’s (1852–1908) Hamburger Bilder für
Kinder [Hamburg Pictures for Children] (1899), Fritz Gansberg’s (1871–1950) Streifzüge
durch die Welt der Großstadtkinder [Exploring the World of the City Children (1904) and
Heinrich Scharrelmann’s (1871–1940) Ein kleiner Junge [A Little Boy] (1908), and
culminates in Carl Dantz’s (1884–1967) penetrating portrait of the circumstances of a
working-class boy, Peter Stoll (1925). Parallel with this arose the tradition of city novels
for children, generally with a plot consisting of a detective or crime novel; this includes
Wolf Durian’s (1892–1969) Kai aus der Kiste [Kai from the Crate] (1927), Erich Kästner’s
(1899–1974) Emil und die Detektive [Emil and the Detectives] (1928) and Pünktchen und
Anton [Dot and Anton] (1931), and Wilhelm Matthießen’s (1891–1965) Das rote U [The
Red U] (1932). Proletarian children’s literature had a voice here too with Alex Wedding’s
(1905–1966) Ede und Unku (1931), which, however, also clings to fairy tale conventions.
Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883–1951) wrote Proletarische Märchen [Proletarian Fairy Tales]
732 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE