Sarah OrtmeyerInternationalismus

The way in which the stories of a certain Mr Duck from Entenhausen have spread across the world may well count as an international phenomenon. Today it seems beyond dispute – and Andreas Platthaus’s informative blog post on FAZnet of 8 April 2010 confirms as much – that the nephews of this brilliant figure from the comic series owe their names to the German translator Erika Fuchs. It was she who in 1951 rejected the idea of adopting the Danish money-box names Rip, Rap and Rup – as happened, for example, in Iceland, where our nephews are called Ripp, Rapp and Rupp – as names for the smallest members of the Duck family. According to Andreas Platthaus, Erika Fuchs stuck to the truth, to Tick, Trick and Track, for, as Platthaus goes on, “the German comics have a monopoly on the truth, after all.” Perhaps that too is a trait of internationalism: Germans are always right. Yet there is also another world, or rather many other worlds, and Sarah Ortmeyer makes this simple truth very humorously clear in her brilliant book; a small selection: Knatte, Fnatte, Tjatte (Sweden), Kwik, Kwek, Kwak (the Netherlands), Bulik, Dulik, Kulik (Czech Republic).

Exhibition:
Kunstverein Heilbronn, 27/3–30/5/2010