How Heroes Are Made. Erich Kästner's "The Handstand on the Loreley"

Abstract

Erich Kästner's poem "Der Handstand auf der Loreley" is an intertextual reference to the well-known Romantic ballad "Loreley" by Heinrich Heine. There are also intertextual links to other works of German literature. Kästner wrote the poem shortly before the Nazis came to power in Germany, as he had recognized the signs of the times: the latent rearmament, but above all the propagandistically prepared, ever more explicitly expressed cult of the hero. The heroization of even the most banal things or people in everyday life was a part of National Socialist propaganda. Kästner wanted to expose this process with his text, but it was already too late.