Erich Muhsam was born in Berlin in 1878 into a fairly well-to-do Jewish family. Soon after his family moved to Luebeck in north Germany where his father worked as a pharmacist (in fact the pharmacy is still there).
He hated the school where he was sent, which was known for its authoritarian discipline and its unsparing use of corporal punishment. Erich was often a victim of "the unspeakable flailings which were supposed to beat out of me all my innate feelings" because his rebellious nature often clashed with the school regime. In 1896 he wrote an anonymous piece for the socialist paper Luebecker Volsboten denouncing one of the school's most brutal teachers. This caused a scandal and Erich was expelled for taking part in socialist activities.
Erich had wanted to be a writer and poet from an early age and he left Luebeck to pursue this aim in Berlin in 1900. He got involved in a group called Neue Gemeinschaft (New Society) which combined socialist ideology with experiments in communal living. Here he met Gustav Landauer who introduced him to anarchist communist ideas. Muehsam contributed to Kampf, the anarchist paper of his friend Senna Hoy, who later died in terrible conditions in a Russian prison.
In 1904 Erich went to Ascona in Italian Switzerland to live in the artists' colony of Monte Verita (the writer Herman Hesse, the dance theorist Laban, the psychotherapist Otto Gross and many Daddaists and Expressionists lived there at one time or other).
He began writing plays there, the first of which, The Con Men, mixed new political theory with traditional dramatic forms. He also continued contributing to many anarchist papers, which drew the attention of the German authorities. He was considered one of the most dangerous anarchist agitators.
He moved to Munich in 1908 and took part in the cabaret movement. He did not care much for writing cabaret songs, but he achieved much notice because of them.
In 1911 he founded the paper Kain which advocated anarchist communism. He castigated and ridiculed the German state, fighting capital punishment and theatre censorship, and prophetically analysing international affairs. The World War that he had predicted led to the suspension of Kain.
At first Erich publicly supported the war, but by the end of 1914 was persuaded that he had been wrong, saying that, "I will probably have to bear the sin of betraying my ideals for the rest of my life". He threw himself into anti-war activity taking part in various actions. He supported the strikes that were beginning to break out. As these became more widespread and began to take on a revolutionary nature, Erich was among those arrested and imprisoned in April 1918, and then freed in November.
With the fall of the Kaiser and King Ludwig of Bavaria, Munich burst into revolt. Muehsam and Landauer as well as Ret Marut (later known as the novelist B. Traven) were among those agitating for the setting up of Workers Councils which led on to the founding of the Bavarian Council Republic. This lasted only a week. The Social Democrats, terrified by the thought of revolution, allied with the right. The Freikorps, a reactionary militia organised by the socialist minister Noske and composed of right wing military and students, crushed the Council Republic. Landauer died under the blows of rifle butts and boots.
Muehsam escaped but was later captured and sent to prison for 15 years. In prison, Erich continued with his writing, composing many poems and the play Judas. Released in the amnesty of 1924, he returned to a Munich in the grip of apathy. He joined the Anarchist Communist Federation of Germany (FKAD). He restarted Kain but this failed after a few issues. He then brought out Fanal (The Torch) where he attacked both the Communists and the far right. His openly revolutionary tone and his attempts to stop the rise of the right made him a hate figure among conservatives and Nazis.
He used satire to ridicule the Nazis with short stories and poems. This came to the personal attention of Hitler and Goebbels, arousing their anger. He agitated for the freeing of the revolutionary Max Hoelz and wrote a play, Staatsraeson (For reasons of State) in defence of Sacco and Vanzetti), in 1928.
In 1930 he completed his last play Alle Wetter (All Hang) which called for mass revolution as the only way to stop the seizure of power by the radical Right.
A few hours after Van der Lubbe had set fire to the Reichstag in February 1933, Muehsam was arrested and then spent the last 17 months of his life in the concentration camps of Sonnenburg, Brandenburg and Oranienburg. His teeth were smashed in with rifle butts, his scalp was branded with a swastika from a red-hot iron and he was hospitalised. He was forced to dig his own grave for a mock execution, and his body became a mass of bruises and wounds. His tormentors tried to force him to sing the Nazi song the Horst Wessel Lied. He refused to give in and sang the International. " Thanks to his will power he resisted all attempts to humiliate him" (Augustin Souchy).
Despite these tortures Erich remained intransigent to the end. Finally he was tortured and murdered on the night of 9th July 1934. After beatings, a Stormtrooper leader administered a lethal injection and then a suicide by hanging was faked.
Never in my life have I learnt
To submit to anyone
Here I am locked up,
Far from my home,
My wife, my workshop.
And even if they kill me,
If I must die,
To give up is to lie!
...
But if the chains broke
Then I would breathe in sunshine
At the top of my lungs- Tyranny!
And I would cry to the people: be free!
Forget to submit yourselves!
To give up is to lie!
From Muhsam's poem The Prisoner
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Anarchist Federation Biography of German Anarchist Erich Muhsam from AF publication Organise in 2006
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Mühsam, Erich: His life, his work, his martyrdom - Augustin Souchy
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If you're the sous chef, you have final say. Tell him that, if he keeps it up bring it up to the chef. Also he's being objectively wrong and making bad food. Nip that bullshit at the bud. If he's a prick about it then you don't need that at your job and it's best if he's gone sooner than later for everyone. He can either do shit right or go try to find a kitchen where you don't have to follow instructions from your chef.
Nah I'm not the sous chef, I'm just the dinner cook basically and he's the lunch guy. I'd mention it to the sous chef but I feel like he'd snap at me or something over time management, idk.
Like last week the head chef was helping me get the vegan dish ready even though I didn't really need help with it that time (i just needed to chop basil and parsley to add to a bunch of ziti to bake and I had plenty of time) and he used frozen spinach, and I asked the sous chef "Why'd he use the frozen spinach instead of fresh" and he like snapped at me about how "he's just trying to get it out on time" like damn dude I just wanted to know if there was like some culinary reason to use the frozen product. I still don't understand the choice there because the frozen spinach needed to be thawed in the steam oven so like... it took more time than just dumping some fresh spinach in would have?? But with the tone he had I didn't want to be perceived as arguing about it
So yeah Im reluctant to go to him to criticize the things other people are doing when they're doing things to prep for my shift since I feel like there's this perception that I'm not pulling my weight or something (which might just be in my head since nobody has said anything and the only reason I feel like I'm chronically behind is I'm basically cooking every night like it's the busiest day of the week for the rest of the year, I don't have any slow days to try to get ahead until this festival is over) but idk :/
Your sous chef seems like a prick. Seems like what they do want at the place is for people to do a very half assed job fast but also doing a worse job slower in the attempt. It sounds like a shit show and they've gotten super used to it being a shit show so that's their comfort zone. The spinach thing is a scenario I've seen soooooo often, people doing something worse and less efficient because a surprising amount of people absolutely panic when in a hurry even if it happens every day and don't make smarter plans to adjust. It's amazing the ways you'll see people get in their own way in kitchens and about half will be humble when it's pointed out and the other half (usually the older crowd) will dig the fuck in and will flip the fuck out when asked to explain their logic. I'm more than willing to admit someone might know something I don't, but they should be able to explain themselves and generally no one who gets mad when asked to explain what they're up to has a good plan and they get mad, cause they know it too and don't wanna admit it. It'd a rough scene to be in.
P.s. thanks for always trying to encourage me i appreciate you
No problem, I've read what you're up to and have memories of similar experiences. You're totally better than where you work. You should see if you can get your chef papers there if you're planning to stick around. At least here the hours you've already worked count toward your apprenticeship hours, I didn't even have to do one. It's like a month of food and the rest is managerial stuff but the easiest kind. You learn how to do food costing in the year the textbook was published and get to see how expensive food got cause they're usually over 20 years old. There are often grant programs for culinary courses as well. Might be worth looking at
Honestly he's alright most of the time so idk if he was just really stressed out then or if I just misinterpreted his tone or what. Idk. Everybody has a lot more work to do right now, not just me, and I'm very self conscious over the fact that I pretty much never have time to prep anything for anyone else despite requiring so much assistance (although maybe i shouldn't be since i'm frequently alone for 3+ hours at the end of the day, but the earlier shifts always have at least one, sometimes two cooks who put out breakfast stick around helping with lunch).
The sous chef is also a comrade which is cool even if he's very lib pilled about China. I really like the guy most of the time
I wish I had a better feel/measure for how much work I'm getting done. I feel like I'm actively engaged in getting something ready or planning out my next actions like pretty much every minute of the day with no downtime so I feel like i can't really do more than I'm doing. But then I'm getting help from the new guy I complained about, who somehow is having the time to get all his shit out AND help me prep despite having the same workload, and it's hard to not feel like I'm failing somehow. But like aside from me feeling like I was snapped at over the spinach thing nobody's really been like "hey you need to be getting more done" so it might just be in my head
There might be some inefficiencies in thebplan or you could be executing things a bit slow, they may have a point there, I have no idea, I don't work with you, but unless you're really babying the food and not prepping multiple things at once or whatever, but from the vibe I'm getting important corners are being cut (it is good to know when a corner can be, every new guy that cuts olives needs to be taught to.do a half assed job and not make neat little rings cause it's gonna be on a pizza anyway and those rings fall apart in the oven and give you crispy olive bits so a half assed rough chop is the better move for example) and the stuff you described with carrots and potatoes will both take longer and give a worse result, oil speeds up cooking by distributing hear more evenly, that's why we use it and also people love eating oil and it ain't my job to make healthy food, it's up to the customer to choose a healthier option than our restaurant, it's perfectly fine to throw oil and salt at all of your problems. Roasting veggies without oil is absurd.