Satire as Protest  Essay on the Satirist’s Townhouse

It was the fall of 2009 when I first found myself sitting on the upper of two balconies at the home of satirist Hans Zippert. I was in a close friendship with his daughter at the time. Together with his wife Carla, he quizzed me about my life and how I was doing. I was thorougly embarrassed and had breakfast. It became instantly clear to me: there is no one in the world before whom you should be more ashamed of your personal circumstances than a professional satirist.

Mid-breakfast, Zippert handed his daughter a copy of his latest book, titled What Does This Zippert Actually Do All Day? A question, I gathered, that everyone in the household had asked themselves at some point. I borrowed the book after breakfast, curious—but it didn't really clear anything up. It offered no real clue as to what this Zippert spent his days doing. Even my own observations around the house never gave me a solid answer.

Zippert had once served as editor-in-chief of the legendary satire magazine Titanic from 1990 to 1995, and since 1999 had penned nearly ten thousand columns for Die WELT. Because of his sworn oath of overproductivity to the Springer publishing house, there were no real hideaways left in the house during daylight hours. He occupied the top floor—writing, watching, patrolling. Most days, though, he finished his column before lunch, after which he’d crank up his record player to full volume or make tea for his wife.

During those years, as I came and went from that semi-detached house, I met many of his fellow satirists—and started noticing patterns. Here’s what I observed:

1. The satirist is usually male and often keeps a full head of hair deep into old age—if he makes it that far.
2. When photographed, he instinctively pulls a face like Bart Simpson being strangled by Homer.
3. He almost always wears loud shirts with cheerful patterns. He looks like a walking caricature of himself.
4. He’s typically straight and almost never single. There’s nearly always a strikingly attractive woman nearby, laughing loudly and generously at his jokes.
5. He sees through the absurdities of the world and becomes particularly unpopular in serious times—precisely when he’s needed most (though nobody wants to admit it). And of course, no one really knows what he actually does all day.
6. He would never spill any behind-the-scenes secrets, even if his book titles claim he might.
7. His odd face behind thick glasses tends to get him off the hook in court, usually with a smirk. (Exception: this does not work if the judges are named Saïd and Chérif Kouachi. But it works flawlessly if the plaintiff is Christian Lindner.)

In short, the satirist is a colorful lunatic, steered and occasionally punished by a chaotic committee of invisible gods. He’s witty, sure, and he makes comedy. But not in the way people often assume. He’s not just naturally funny. The comedy of the satirist is painstakingly crafted. It follows a structure. It only works in concert with his texts, his drawings, his voice. You couldn’t apply these observations to someone who was just “born funny.”

A female satirist isn’t just guided by the gods—she is a goddess. A male satirist thinks he’s a god. But in bourgeois life, there’s a kind of fall from divinity. I witnessed this crash for years with Hans Zippert. He couldn’t shake his finely tuned sense of comedy in daily life; he was too often too funny for mundane tasks. In a so-called bourgeois life, one is punished for what one does too much of, whereas the laws of satire add a new principle: they punish the satirist for what he doesn't do. He’s not allowed to shut up—no matter what’s on his mind. And so he carries that compulsion into his personal life, turning the everyday lives of his family, his friends, even his banker into an ongoing comedy show—just as he turned himself into a comic character.

The price he must pay? Being misunderstood. The metaphorical wall he walks into daily. A wall built by the serious ones.

Yet the most radical move is to turn away from cynicism and make yourself the object of humor. A protest against everyday stiffness and self-seriousness. That’s what satirists do. They show serious people that they, too, could become funny. And that offer is met with fierce resistance.

Once I understood that, Zippert quickly became a mentor of sorts. He was the most effective agitator of the everyday I had ever met. And all his fellow satirists felt like part of a resistance cell. Their organs, the satirical magazines — the Titanics, the Onions, the Charlie Hebdos of the world — are the true instruments of subversive protest; for the serious-minded, they are the real Axis of Evil.

Unfortunately, some invisible force field always seemed to stop me from fully grasping the secret of how to professionally turn oneself and everyday life into comedy. I spent three years at one of satire’s secret outposts: on the edge of a forest, near the Oberursel sequoias and the old gold mine. And I knew: I would keep feeling ashamed of myself until I reached the ideal of self-comedic transformation. And humanity would keep feeling ashamed—until it finally learned to laugh and point at itself.

I remember that secret outpost fondly. It was a cheerful little house that I never returned to, but also never forgot.