In the literary train compartment with Erich Kästner

This year’s cultural evening of the “perspective mauthausen” on the occasion of the anniversary of the Mühlviertel manhunt was dedicated to someone who wrote with pen and typewriter against the sluggishness of hearts in the Weimar Republic: Erich Kästner. Born in Dresden, he not only wrote successful children’s books, but also critical essays and poems on current affairs.

The actor Charly Rabanser and the band Zelinzki set some of these poems to music. In between, Rabanser led the audience through Erich Kästner’s biography as an aged train passenger in dialogue with a fictitious boy. From a carefree childhood in Dresden, to school days that were abruptly interrupted by the First World War, to eyewitnesses to the burgeoning fascism, which learned from the impending catastrophe that it was necessary to crush a snowball quickly before it turned into an avalanche that crushed everything . The standing ovations of the audience in the Donausaal Mauthausen quite rightly rewarded the instructive train journey through history. (live)