Karl Kraus (Jitschin, Bohemia, 1874 - Vienna, 1936) is one of the fundamental pieces of the giant puzzle that is the Viennese culture in the early twentieth century. His work is unclassifiable within established genres: writer of aphorisms, acute literary and journalistic critic, a playwright irrepresentable work ("The Last Days of Humanity") and outstanding late poet.
From "Die Fackel (Torch)", satiric diary was editor and practically only autordurante thirty-seven years, Kraus fired darts from his criticism of corrupt practices in all sectors of the Viennese public life. He became chief judge of the Habsburg empire, instituted the court language as the only body capable of stopping the cheerful apocalyptic whirlwind that lead to the First World War.
Its readers and those attending his lectures found many of the most significant names of the past century. Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Benjamin and Elias Canetti, to cite just a few examples, succumbed to the charm of this small, spare figure. His faith in the word space as a generator of thought and linguistic requirement of rigor in the media of mass communication are the keys to a work whose validity remains intact.