Egon Erwin Kisch is one of the best journalists in the German language. In 1925, also almost a hundred years ago, a volume of summarized reports was published. The title of the book became his nickname: « The Furious Reporter. »

« How much more wonderful it is in the flying boat than in the airplane! There is no engine in front of me blowing its exhaust fumes into my nose and eyes, no propeller obscuring the view. The pilot sits far behind me and the pressurized engine rattles above him. (…) We are flying low, only fourteen hundred meters. »

What Kisch describes here is flying in its original form. You feel with all your senses that you are in the air.

Towards the end of the First World War, Kisch accompanied the Austro-Hungarian Army's seaplane reconnaissance flight from Istria to Venice as a press officer. This report is also part of the work mentioned above.

Who was “the racing reporter”?

Egon Erwin Kisch, born on April 29, 1885 in Prague, began a career as a crime reporter for Prague newspapers after two aborted studies, and in the process got to know the underworld in great detail. In addition to crime stories, he regularly publishes sensitive but factual milieu studies of Prague's slums and socially marginalized groups.

As early as 1913, he made a name for himself by uncovering the military cover-up of Colonel Redl’s suicide.

During World War I, Kisch was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. After being injured on the Russian front, he came to Vienna as a press officer, where he increasingly became an opponent of the war and a declared communist.

In the press quarters to the communist

The position in the press department offers interesting opportunities: Above all, there was a lot of time for writing! Towards the end of the war, he had the opportunity to fly on the reconnaissance flight from Istria to Venice. Kisch processed this experience into the essay « Exploration flight over Venice“, which was published in 1925 in the aforementioned anthology together with other exciting texts. In the reports in this volume, he mingles with emigrants from France, visits the stoker of a giant steamer, describes a trip to the bottom of the sea, the death of a murderer and much more.

The texts are entertaining and sensitive at the same time, but also neutral, informative, sometimes a little imaginatively embellished and didactic. He almost always manages to find the right person to talk to.

The locations are constantly changing: Prague, Vienna, Paris, London, Istria… Kisch is present almost everywhere. He uses every available technical means to transmit data.

The nickname « the raging reporter » may sound a little superficial. Unjustly so! With his texts, which are of a high linguistic standard, Kisch has a firm place in Prague's German literature.

Later, other writers repeatedly claimed these nicknames, but none came even close to the quality of Kisch's reporting.

Two minutes in Venice

How does the flight to Venice continue?

The « Airplane » flies over the « blue-green boundlessness » the Adriatic. In the water « polyps are swaying. We know they are mines, but they don't care about us. (That) is a matter for close reconnaissance. » At the last minute, the Lido is closed, the San Nicolo Fort is closed. There, at the northern end of the Lido, is the airfield, which was used for military purposes from 1915 and is still in use for small aircraft. Venice's passenger airport (« Marco Polo ») is now on the mainland.

The seaplane carrying Kisch and his pilot is shot at, but not hit; fighter planes take off. Kisch quickly takes a few reconnaissance photos and a quick look to the west at the actual city: the gondolas on the Riva degli Schiavoni look like bristles, the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Church can be seen… memories of peaceful times. The stopover over Venice lasts barely more than two minutes, then it heads back to the southeast. After a total of just under two hours, the plane is back in Istria.

Jumped from the ship

In the 1920s, Kisch spent most of his time in Berlin and undertook numerous trips, including to the Soviet Union, the USA, Algeria and later China. He published his impressions in many newspapers and major books.

With the Nazi era, things got tight for Kisch in Germany. Being a Jew and an active Communist Party member, as well as a journalist, was a dangerous combination. After being arrested in 1933, he was expelled from Germany and travelled to Australia, where he was refused entry despite having a visa because of his political views. However, he jumped from the departing ship onto the quay in Melbourne, injuring himself in the process, but managed to force his stay after numerous expressions of sympathy from the Australian left. During the war, he lived in the USA and Mexico. He spent his last years in Prague with his wife Gisela Lyner, who had tirelessly corrected and improved his work, where he died in 1948. He had come to terms with the communist regime. Kisch had experienced a lot in his life and eagerly absorbed all the impressions. His statement in the foreword to “The Racing Reporter” (1925) is emblematic: ““And there is nothing more sensational in the world than the time in which one lives!”

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This article was written by: Mag. Wolfgang Ludwig