Erika Fuchs, née Petri (7 December 1906 in
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...
– 22 April 2005 in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
), was a German
translator
Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
. She is largely known in Germany due to her translations of American
Disney comics
Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.
The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on, starting with ...
, especially
Carl Barks
Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck ...
' stories about
Duckburg
The Donald Duck universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and many other characters. Life in the Donal ...
and its inhabitants.
Many of her creations (re)entered the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...
, and her followers today recognize her widely quoted translations as standing in the tradition of great German-language
light poetry
Light poetry or light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play including puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration. Typically, light ...
such as by
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
,
Wilhelm Busch
Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch (14 April 1832 – 9 January 1908) was a German humorist, poet, illustrator, and painter. He published wildly innovative illustrated tales that remain influential to this day.
Busch drew on the tropes of f ...
, and
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurt Tucholsky (; 9 January 1890 – 21 December 1935) was a German journalist, satirist, and writer. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser (after the historical figure), Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel.
Tucholsky was on ...
. Unlike the English originals, her translations included many hidden quotes and literary allusions. As Fuchs once said, "You can't be educated enough to translate comic books".
Life
Johanne Theodolinde Erika Petri was born on 7 December 1906 in Rostock into a well-to-do large family. She was one of six children and the eldest daughter of the electrical engenieer August Petri and his wife Auguste. Erika spent most of her childhood and youth in
Belgard, a small rural town in
Pomerania
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
, where her father became director of the newly built electric power plant in 1911. In 1922 Erika Petri was the first girl to be admitted to the boys' ''
Gymnasium'' (grammar school) in Belgard. She passed her ''
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...
'' exam there in 1926. She went on to study
art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
in
Lausanne
, neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), ...
, Munich and London and graduated with a doctorate in 1931. Her dissertation titled "" ("A contribution to the history of German
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
)" was marked
''magna cum laude''. It appeared in print only in 1935. In 1932 Erika Petri married the engineer, industrialist and inventor Günter Fuchs (1907-1984). From 1933 to 1984 the couple lived in Schwarzenbach an der Saale, a small industrial town in Upper Franconia. They had two sons, Thomas and Nikolaus.
After the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Erika Fuchs worked as a translator for the German edition of ''
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'', als well as for a German literary magazine published by Rowohlt Verlag since 1946 and titled 'Story'. In 1951, she became
chief editor
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
of Disney's newly founded German ''
Micky Maus
''Micky Maus'' is a German comics magazine containing Disney comics. It has been published since 1951 by Egmont Ehapa
The Egmont Ehapa Publishing Company (officially named Egmont Ehapa Verlag GmbH) was created in 1951 as a subdivision of the ...
'' magazine, where she worked until she retired in 1988.
After the death of her husband in 1984 Erika Fuchs moved to Munich. She died on 22 April 2005 in Munich.
Work
Many of her creations as translator of Carl Barks comics entered or reentered the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...
. The phrase "''Dem Ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör''" - "nothing is too hard for an engineer" but with the vowels (
umlauts) at the end of "Ingenieur" and "schwer" altered to make them rhyme amusingly was often attributed to Fuchs, as she had made it
Gyro Gearloose
Gyro Gearloose is a cartoon character created in 1952 by Carl Barks for Disney comics. An anthropomorphic chicken, he is part of the Donald Duck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, and anyone w ...
's German catchphrase. However, it was originally based on a song written by
Heinrich Seidel
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Seidel (25 June 1842, Perlin, Germany, Perlin, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Schwerin – 7 November 1906, Berlin) was a German engineer, poet and writer.
Life
Seidel was the son of a pastor and st ...
. A somewhat more clumsy version of the phrase was the first verse of "Seidels Ingenieurlied" ("The Engineer's Song") and had been used by fraternities at technical universities for the German equivalent of
The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer is a private ritual, authored by Rudyard Kipling, in which students about to graduate from an engineering program at a university in Canada are permitted to participate. Participation may also be permit ...
. Fuchs had heard it from her husband, who was an engineer himself.
A classical Fuchs is as well to be found in her translation of Barks's 1956 story "Three Un-Ducks" (
INDUCKS
The International Network of Disney Universe Comic Knowers and Sources[From Inducks lecture](_blank)
held at ...
story cod
W WDC 184-01, where
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist ( screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-ne ...
speak the oath "''Wir wollen sein ein einig Volk von Brüdern, in keiner Not uns waschen und Gefahr''" ("We Shall be a United People of Brethren, Never to Wash in Danger nor Distress"), thereby parodying
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...
's version of the
Rütlischwur from his 1804 play ''
William Tell
William Tell (german: Wilhelm Tell, ; french: Guillaume Tell; it, Guglielmo Tell; rm, Guglielm Tell) is a folk hero of Switzerland.
According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albr ...
'' in a suitable way.
She also used verbs shortened to their
stem
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
s not only to imitate sounds (
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
), such as ''schluck'', ''stöhn'', ''knarr'', ''klimper'' (gulp, groan, creak, chink/jingle), but also to represent soundless events: ''grübel'', ''staun'', ''zitter'' (ponder, goggle, tremble). The word for these soundwords in German is now an ''Erikativ'', a
tongue-in-cheek
The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner.
History
The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scott ...
word utilizing Fuchs's first name, made to resemble grammatical terms such as ''Infinitiv'' (
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
), ''Indikativ'' (
indicative mood
A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
), ''Akkusativ'' (
accusative case
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
), etc. ''Erikative'' are commonly used in
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s and chatrooms to describe what people are doing as they write, which has become the common German form of the Internet slang behavior known in English as
emoting. English examples: *ducks*, *runs away*, etc. The ''Erikativ'' is the German form of those (''*duck*'', ''*weglauf*'', respectively).
Honors and legacy
![Erika-Fuchs-Haus, Schwarzenbach an der Saale](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Erika-Fuchs-Haus%2C_Schwarzenbach_an_der_Saale.jpg)
In 2001 she was awarded the
Heimito von Doderer Prize
The Heimito von Doderer-Literaturpreis (Heimito von Doderer Literature Prize, short also: Heimito von Doderer Prize) was established in 1996 to commemorate the 100th birthday of Heimito von Doderer. It was created as a memorial to "one of the most ...
for Literature for her work on Duckburg. Until her death at 98, Erika Fuchs was an honorary member of the "
D.O.N.A.L.D." ("" or the "German Organization of Non-commercial Devotees of the true
Donaldism Donaldism is the fandom associated with Disney comics and cartoons. The name refers to Donald Duck and was first used by author Jon Gisle in his essay "Donaldismen" from 1971 and expanded in his book ''Donaldismen'' in 1973.
In some (especially Eur ...
"). Some members of this organisation ( and Andreas Platthaus) occasionally sprinkled Fuchsian tidbits amongst the headlines of the serious ''
FAZ'' newspaper, although these were often recognisable only by those in the know.
In 1991, painter
Gottfried Helnwein
Gottfried Helnwein (born 8 October 1948) is an Austrian-Irish visual artist. He has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media.
His work is ...
set a portrait of Fuchs among his work (''48 Most Important Women of the Century''). The work is now to be found at
Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lich ...
in Cologne.
A comic museum in her hometown of
Schwarzenbach an der Saale, named after Erika Fuchs, saw its opening on 1 August 2015.
References
*This article is based on a translation of the
corresponding article from the German Wikipedia, retrieved May 6, 2005, and corrected January 8, 2023.
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
*
D.O.N.A.L.D, in German
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Erika
1906 births
2005 deaths
English–German translators
People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
People from Rostock
20th-century German translators
Disney comics writers
Deutscher Fantasy Preis winners