Red Hot Pokers is an imagined interaction between the dictator Adolf Hitler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tanya Ury and Rolf Steiner read arbitrarily chosen extracts from “Mein Kampf“ 1924 in English, and “Remarks on Colour“ 1950, written in England.

During the Third Reich every German family was provided with a copy of “Mein Kampf” by the state; it is now illegal in Germany to sell, own or read out in public from this book. For this performance Tanya Ury obtained her German copy, printed in Croatia from Slovenia.1

The contrast between the two texts, the former, powerful political propaganda, the latter, a flowery philosophy of language, is vast - it becomes so apparent that language games have no power against tyranny; the resulting performance, whether played in the English or German language (in German with Kristof Szabo, 16.12.2007, Kunstbunker Tumulka, Munich), is nevertheless delightfully absurd, although the abstraction of “Mein Kampf“ quoted in English is most compelling.

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Hitler and Wittgenstein both attended the same school as 14 year-olds in Austrian Linz. They were also born within 6 days of each other, the former 20.4.1889 the latter 26.4.1889.

In Ury’s performance Adolf Hitler substitutes Karl Popper, contender for the philosopher’s crown, in a notorious poker game of words with Wittgenstein that took place during a Moral Science Club Seminar 1946, in Cambridge, England. It was the only time that the two emigrant Austrian Jews were to meet.

Wittgenstein seeking to illustrate a point seized the poker, hot from the fire and appeared to threaten Popper with it. While wishing to demonstrate their supremacy in the field of philosophy, Wittgenstein and Popper will nonetheless have reminded each other, of philosophy’s failure in the face of Hitler’s brute power. Was this the true cause of their conflict?

“Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word ‘Jew’, with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions. This filled me with a mild distaste, and I could not rid myself of an unpleasant feeling that always came over me whenever religious quarrels occurred in my presence.
At that time I did not think anything else of the question.
There were few Jews in Linz. In the course of the centuries their outward appearance had become Europeanized and had taken on a human look; in fact, I even took them for Germans. The absurdity of this idea did not dawn on me because I saw no distinguishing feature but the strange religion. The fact that they had, as I believed, been persecuted on this account sometimes almost turned my distaste at unfavourable remarks about them into horror.
Thus far I did not so much as suspect the existence of an organized opposition to the Jews.
Then I came to Vienna.” Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf first published in German in 1925, Mariner Books edition, US 1999, p 51-52

The Poker Game 2003, a further performance by Tanya Ury, in which Ury takes on the roles of both Hitler and Wittgenstein, develops the theme of Red Hot Pokers.

Tanya Ury

The performance Red Hot Pokers was first presented at Tanya Ury’s exhibition „Jacob’s Ladder“ in the Hochbunker Cologne-Ehrenfeld, Germany, 2002.

The starting point for this performance was a duel of words that took place between the philosophers Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, both Jews of Austrian origin. During this argument in Cambridge, 1946, Wittgenstein snatched up a poker to illustrate his point. Popper felt himself threatened.

Tanya Ury alienates the conversation that really occurred by employing biographical references to Ludwig Wittgenstein and Adolf Hitler. Both were born 1889, within the same six days, in Austrian Linz. They attended the same school - were possibly even in the same class. Tanya Ury draws on the idea of “the unholy twins” – she alienates the philosophers’ debate by creating an interaction using quotations from Adolf Hitlers “Mein Kampf“ that is still banned in Germany, and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Colour”.

With the arbitrary choice of text passages that in no way relate to each other, a surreal testimony comes about: brutal political dominance is faced with the abstract philosophy of language.

Anette Frankenberger, curator, Kunstbunker Tumulka, Munich