Since 1884, when Thomas Theodor Heine, the seventeen-year-old son of a respectable Jewish manufacturer from Leipzig, sent several caricatures to the controversial magazine called Leipziger Pikanten Blättern, published by the infamous Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, his life was predetermined. The publication led to his immediate expulsion from school, and the boy was forced to leave his home.
In the very left picture, Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom, and Horatio Kitchener are trampling the Boers in the newly established concentration camps (1901). In the central picture, the world industrial crisis is destroying the factories and trampling the workers in Germany (1901). The right picture is devoted the German justice, which was blind to the bankers and officers, but punished ordinary soldiers severely (1903)
The left picture depicts the hell and demons who are relaxing after staging the devastating earthquake in Messina (1908). In the central picture, the plague epidemic in Northeast China (Mongolia and Manchuria) is oozing pus and giving birth to the rats that people are unsuccessfully trying to escape from (1911). In the right picture, the European civilization is leading the war and cholera to Tripolitania (1911)
After studying art in Dusseldorf and Munich, the young Heine worked in newspapers as a caricaturist until he cofounded the satirical weekly magazine Simplicissimus in 1895. The magazine publishing sharp satire quickly became very popular in Germany; however, arrests and penalty payments were the flip side of the popularity. But all the scandals only increased sales until the magazine was not threatened with closure.
Heine's caricatures, gloomy, full of ugly and attractive chimeras, and worth being compared with the masterpieces of Goya and Bosch, were a significant part of Simplicissimus' success. There was no lack of ideas in the first decades of the 20th century. Wars, epidemics, famines, and economic crises struck not only Germany, but the whole world. Nowadays, when humanity is thrown into a panic by COVID-19, it is worth remembering that the older generations overcame much more horrific time.
In the left picture, cholera is devouring its victims during an epidemic in the Balkans (1912). In the central picture, Woodrow Wilson, the president of the United States, the French president Raymond Poincaré, and the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George are leading Germany to the guillotine by introducing the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919). In the right picture called Kiss of peace, there is an allegory conveying the same idea (1919)
In the left picture, tank-shaped Charles Nollet, a French general and a chairman of the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control, is destroying the German industry (1921). In the middle, the witches are dancing around the German economy, which is inflated and about to burst (1922). The right caricature depicts the Versailles vampire sucking the life out of Germany (1922)
As for Thomas Theodor Heine himself, his life had been tied to Simplicissimus for almost 40 years. And if during World War I the magazine had to stay loyal to the authorities, the situation changed in the early 30s. It was not possible to get on with Nazis, and Heine, who was a Jew, was first forced to emigrate to Czechoslovakia, and then to Norway; and when the Wehrmacht came there, he fled to Sweden. In Sweden, the artist died at the age of 81 in January 1948.
In the left picture, the burghers are unsuccessfully trying to escape from the tenacious tentacles of the banker (1923). In the middle, the disgusting toad sitting on the pile of skeletons is illustrating famine in the industrial Ruhr (1923). In the right picture, the flu epidemic in Germany is snatching the Germans that are carelessly having fun from the crowd (1929)
