Kurt Tucholsky is one of Weimar Germany's most celebrated literary figures, loved by his many readers and hated by the Nazis. The poet, journalist, and satirist who was at the center of the tumultuous political and cultural world of 1920s Berlin still emerges as an astonishingly contemporary figure. But he was more than just an angry truth-teller; he was also one of the funniest satirical writers of his era, depicting everyday lives during the rise of modernity. The iconic translation of Harry Zohn, a literary figure from Vienna himself, presented Tucholsky to an American audience for the first time. Long out of print, Zohn's book is now being republished in a new edition

Berlinica Publishing LLC offers English-language books from Berlin, German; fiction, non-fiction, travel guides, history about the Wall and the Third Reich, Jewish life, art, architecture and photography, as well as travel guides and cookbook. It also offers documentaries and feature films on DVD, as well as music CDs. Berlinica caters to history buffs, Americans of German heritage, travelers, and artists and young people who love the cutting-edge city in the heart of Europe. Berlinica cooperates with Berlin-based publishing houses.

Berlinica's current and upcoming titles include "Our West Berlin," by various authors, also five translated books by famed Weimar author Kurt Tucholsky as well as Harold Poor's landmark biography of Tucholsky, two translated plays by Ernst Toller, and two American travel stories by Alfred Kerr and Roda Roda, soon to be followed by Egon Erwin Kisch's "Paradise America".

In the non-fiction department, we have "Rocking the Wall," the Bruce-Springsteen-book and "Burning Beethoven," about German Americans in World War I, both by Erik Kirschbaum, also "Mark Twain in Berlin," by Andreas Austilat, "Berlin 1945: World War II: Photos of the Aftermath," by Michael Brettin, and "The Berlin Wall Today," a full-color guide to the remnants of the Wall, by Michael Cramer, "Berlin in the Cold War," about post-World War II history,

Kurt Tucholsky was a brilliant satirist, poet, storyteller, lyricist, pacifist, and Democrat; a fighter, lady's man, reporter, and early warner against the Nazis who hated and loathed him and drove him out of Germany after his books were burned in 1933. His contemporary Erich Kaestner called him a "small, fat Berliner," who "wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter." The New York Times hailed him as "one of the most brilliant writers of republican Germany. He was a poet as well as a critic and was so versatile that he used five or six pen names. As Peter Panter he was an outstanding essayist who at one time wrote topical sketches in the Vossische Zeitung, which ceased to appear under the Nazi regime; as Theobald Tiger he wrote satirical poems that were frequently interpreted by popular actors in vaudeville and cabarets, and as Ignatz Wrobel he contributed regularly to the Weltbühne, an independent weekly that was one of the first publications prohibited by the Hitler government." Tucholsky, who occupied the center stage in the tumultuous political and cultural world of 1920s Berlin, still emerges as an astonishingly contemporary figure. As an angry truth-teller, he pierced the hypocrisy and corruption around him with acute honesty. Imagine a writer with the acid voice of Christopher Hitchens and the satirical whimsy of Jon Stewart, combined with the iconoclasm of Bill Maher. That's Tucholsky in a nutshell. Like Hitchens, Tucholsky wrote a mixture of literary essays, social observations, and political commentary. His irony made the line between his "serious writing" and his "entertainments" almost invisible. The fashionable outsider watched the political "center" disappear, and, in the end, he found himself catapulted out of society altogether. His career was sandwiched between the two most deadly events of his century: the bloodbath of World War I and the scourge of Nazism. Just as the first war launched Hemingway's lifelong career as a wounded tough guy with a soft spot for guns and broads, Tucholsky discovered the reflexes of an escape artist. He was equally elusive as a writer. In today's world, a journalist isn't supposed to write plays, and a playwright isn't welcomed as a novelist. But in 1920s Berlin, Tucholsky was dealing with postwar realities that required shouting from the rooftops, and any rooftop would do.