Bidspirit auction | The Little Cohen in Your

The Little Cohen in Your Pocket – Antisemitic Pocket Booklet – A Collection of Jokes Mocking Jews. Germany, [1914] - Der kleine Cohn in der Westentasche. Ausgewählte jüdische Anekdoten und Witze in bunter Reihenfolge – The Little Cohn in Your Pocket. Selected Jewish Anecdotes and Jokes in a Varied Collection, by R. Büttig. Verlag von G. Danner, Mühlhausen i. Thür. [Mühlhausen in Thuringia], Germany, [1914] – First Edition. Pocket edition. Rare.  A pocket booklet containing a collection of anecdotes and jokes about Jews in German. The title Der kleine Cohn (“Little Cohn”) is based on a well-known popular song in Germany from 1902, composed by Julius Einödshofer, which became a catchphrase and an antisemitic, mocking archetype of the Jew in German society at the time. Throughout the booklet are jokes ridiculing Jews and portraying them as greedy, dirty, avaricious, and deceitful. The jokes make use of common Jewish names such as Isaac, Samuel, Silberstein, Wolf, Levy, and, of course, “Little Cohn.” Among them are jokes such as: “Two Jewish business partners meet in the street: ‘I heard your place burned down – your entire stock was destroyed!’ ‘Shhh! It hasn’t burned down yet – perhaps next week.’” Another mocks Jewish stinginess: “‘I can’t give you anything, ’ a wealthy Jew told a beggar, ‘because I already have my brother on my back, and he cannot find work at present.’ ‘But, ’ said the beggar, ‘your brother tells me that you don’t give him anything either!’ ‘Well, ’ said the Jew, ‘if I don’t give my own brother anything, would I give something to a beggar?’” Another ridicules Jewish hygiene: “Little Cohn received a suit from his father. After only two days, the suit was completely torn. Old Cohn then gave his son the following moral lecture: ‘Look what a fool you are! Your grandfather wore this suit for 15 years, I wore mine for an incredible 27 years, and you wear it for only two days and it is already ruined!...’” And many more. The book was published as part of a series of small pocket books issued by the publisher G. Danner in Mühlhausen, Thuringia. The book presents German-Jewish humor through stereotypes that were widespread in German popular culture around the turn of the 20th century. The figure of “Little Cohn” (Der kleine Cohn) appeared in jokes, songs, illustrated postcards, caricatures, and popular entertainment, and served as a ridiculed Jewish character identified by the supposedly typical Jewish surname “Cohn.” “Little Cohn” was generally portrayed as a short, ridiculous, cunning, or cowardly Jew, and at times with exaggerated physical features drawn from the antisemitic iconography of the period. The popularity of the character contributed to the normalization of antisemitic imagery within everyday German humor and popular culture, decades before the Nazis came to power. Rare. Only three records in the WorldCat global library catalog. 64, [2] pages. 12 cm. Good–very good condition.