WHO SAID: "ONE DEATH IS A CATASTROPHE. A HUNDRED THOUSAND DEATHS IS A STATISTIC"?
Often attributed to Stalin, this quotation was actually popularized by a famous German: Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935), a writer, critic and journalist, a satirical and committed spirit, with an immense culture, a great observer of society and defender of democracy, at the time of the Weimar Republic. Funnier: this sentence is supposed to embody French humour.
Under the pseudonym Peter Panter, Tucholsky published an article on French humour (Französischer Witz) in the Vossische Zeitung newspaper on 23 August 1925, in which he recounts a number of jokes and witty words that the French are believed to have in store in literature, in the press, in living rooms or even in the street.
The characteristic of French humour," he wrote, "is its lightness, delicacy and elegance. He gives various examples, such as:
- " The language of diplomats is French and the definition of their profession is: 'a diplomat is a man who knows a woman's date of birth and has forgotten her age' ".
- " The stationmaster to a passenger who hastily walks through a small railway station: "Are you looking for the restaurant? No, on the contrary, says the passenger. "
- " It's the hotel de l'Ourcq. - Which hotel? - L'Ourcq! L'Ourcq! O for August, U for Eugene, R for Ernest, C for Serge and Q for you ... (in French, the letter Q is pronounced "Ku" which means "ass")
Referring to the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the Quai d'Orsay), Tucholsky evokes the words of a diplomat: "The war? I can't find it so horrible! The death of a human being: it's a catastrophe. One hundred thousand deaths: that's a statistic! "("Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!" ").
But Tucholsky did not invent this sentence, as Friedhelm Greis, author of a blog dedicated to Tucholsky (www.sudelblog.de), kindly pointed out to me (three years after the publication of this paper, which I am therefore updating). The sentence appears in a book also published in 1925: J.-W. BIENSTOCK and CURnonsky, T.S.V.P. Petites histoires de tous et de personnes, coll. " Joyeusetés et Facéties ", Paris, Les Éditions G. Crès et Cie, 1925, pp. 6-7. We read that, "one evening, in a social salon", a veteran tells in moving terms the death of one of his friends while a woman mourns her husband who died in battle. Then, a well-known diplomat from the Quai d'Orsay, who until then had not taken part in the conversation, said with a quiet smugness: “War? it is not so terrible! The death of a man is indeed appalling, but one hundred thousand deaths is a statistic”.
The two authors of "T.S.V.P." are themselves colourful characters: J.-Wladimir Bienstock (1868-1933) is a French-Russian Jewish writer and translator who converted to Catholicism. Curnonsky or CUR is the pseudonym of Maurice Edmond Sailland (1872-1956), a French novelist, also nicknamed the "Prince of Gastronomes/Gourmets".
As the quintessence of the French satirical spirit, in the eyes of a Francophile German who loved good words, the phrase ended up, by a detour that history has the secret, in the mouth of Stalin!
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References:
- J.-W. BIENSTOCK et CURnonsky, T.S.V.P. Petites histoires de tous et de personnes, coll. « Joyeusetés et Facéties », Paris, Les Éditions G. Crès et Cie, 1925, pp. 6-7.
- Kurt Tucholski, "Französischer Witz": Vossische Zeitung, 23.08.1925 (under the pseudonym Peter Panter), quoted in his Complete Works in 4 volumes: Kurt Tucholsky: Gesammelte Werke in zehn Bänden. Band 4, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1975, p.189-191
