Plot

The publisher's preface – formatted as an obituary and excluded from all English translations until 2018 – tells that Josefine left the manuscript to her physician before her death from complications after a surgery. Josefine Mutzenbacher was not her real name. The protagonist is said to have been born on 20 February 1852 in Vienna and died on 17 December 1904 at a sanatorium.^[17]

The plot device employed in Josephine Mutzenbacher is that of first-person narrative, structured in the format of a memoir. The story is told from the point of view of an accomplished aging 50-year-old Viennese courtesan who is looking back upon the sexual escapades she enjoyed during her unbridled youth in Vienna. Contrary to the title, almost the entirety of the book takes place when Josephine is between the ages of 5–13 years old, before she actually becomes a licensed prostitute in the brothels of Vienna. The book begins when she is five years old and ends when she is thirteen years old and starts her career as an unlicensed prostitute with a friend, to support her unemployed father.

Although the German-language text makes use of witty nicknames – for instance, the curate's genital is called "a hammer of mercy" – for human anatomy and sexual behavior, its content is entirely pornographic. The actual progression of events amounts to little more than a graphic, unapologetic description of the reckless sexuality exhibited by the heroine, all before reaching her 14th year. The style bears more than a passing resemblance to the Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom in its unabashed "laundry list" cataloging of all manner of taboo sexual antics from children's sexual play, incest and rape to child prostitution, group sex, sado-masochism, lesbianism, and fellatio. In some constellations, Josefine appears as the active seducer, and sex is usually depicted as an uncomplicated, satisfactory experience.^[18]

Illustrations

The original Austrian publication was unillustrated, but a later pirated edition from 1922 contained black-and-white drawings, entirely pornographic as the text. These illustrations were bound in the archival copy of the first edition at the Austrian National Library,^[19] and have been reproduced at least in the hardcover edition of the 2018 English translation^[20] and in a 2019 Finnish translation,^[21] erroneously dated to 1906. Another illustrated German-language edition was published in the late 1960s in Liechtenstein with images by Jean Veenenbos (1932–2005).

Other illustrations have been created as well. The first English translation of 1931 was quickly pirated in New York and illustrated by Mahlon Blaine (1894–1969). The 1973 translation, Oh! Oh! Josephine, is illustrated with photographic stills from "the continental movie" of 1970, Josephine Mutzenbacher a.k.a. Naughty Knickers by Kurt Nachmann.

Also a Danish translation of 1967 contains illustrations. An incomplete Swedish translation from 1983 contains random photographs of prostitutes with scathing comments.^[15]

Interpretations

The novel Josefine Mutzenbacher has given rise to a multitude of interpretations. It has been listed both as child pornography and labeled as an apposite depiction of the milieu and manners of its time in Vienna, a travesty or a parody or a persiflage of a coming-of-age story or a novel of development,^[22] and mentioned as a rare case of a picaresque novel with a female protagonist.^[23] It has also been praised for its criticism of the bourgeois society.^[24]

The relation of the novel to the Freudian theory of sexuality has been subject to debate. The Swedish translator C.-M. Edenborg sees Josefine Mutzenbacher as an indictment of Freud's bourgeois psychology,^[25] whereas the Austrian psychoanalyst Désirée Prosquill thinks that not only are there marked thematic correspondences between Josefine Mutzenbacher (1906) and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) but Mutzenbacher also anticipates some issues concerning infantile sexuality that Freud added to his theory only later.^[26]

Banned in Austria, 1913–1971

The distribution of the novel Josefine Mutzenbacher was forbidden in Austria from 1913 on when it was taken into the list Catalogus Librorum in Austria Prohibitorum because of its obscenity.^[27]

In 1931, a bookseller called Josef Kunz was convicted in Vienna for a public act of obscenity because he had published a new edition of the novel, and the copies of the book were confiscated.^[28] In 1971, however, the Supreme Court of Austria decided that there is no longer reason to punish a publisher for distributing the novel because there are artistic tendencies in the work. Still in 1988, there was another legal process to ban the novel because of obscenity, but this time, too, the Supreme Court judged in favour of the publisher.^[29]

The Mutzenbacher Decision

The Mutzenbacher Decision (Case BVerfGE 83,130^[30]) was a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) on 27 November 1990 concerning whether or not the novel Josefine Mutzenbacher should be placed on a list of youth-restricted media. However, the significance of the case came to eclipse Josefine Mutzenbacher as an individual work, because it set a precedent as to which has a larger weight in German Law: Freedom of Expression or The Protection of Youth.

The final decision was made in 1992 at the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), putting the work once again on the list of "Media harming the youth" (Jungendgefährdenden Medien) forcing the right of Freedom of Expression (Under Article 5 III Fundamental rights) to step back.

The copyright process of the heirs

In 1976 the heirs of Felix Salten – more precisely, his granddaughter Lea Wyler – demanded the German publishing company Rogner & Bernhard to stop distributing the novel Josefine Mutzenbacher and to pay royalties. In response, the company asked for "decisive evidence" for Salten's authorship. The heirs could not provide such evidence.^[40]

Ten years later, in June 1986, the heirs instituted an action at the Munich Landgericht court against Rogner & Bernhard, claiming that Salten's authorship could be proven, although they only provided circumstantial evidence.^[41] The court, however, did not examine the question of authorship because, according to the old German Copyright Act, the anonymously published novel had become Public Domain in 1957 and the copyright could no longer be reinstituted; that is, Salten's heirs should have declared the authorship before the end of 1956. So, the case was ruled in favour of the publishing company in May 1988.^[42]

The heirs appealed to Munich Oberlandesgericht court but lost there in July 1989 and, subsequently, also lost at the Federal Court of Justice in early 1990.^[43]

Literature

Film

The three titles directed by Kurt Nachmann are sexploitation films. In Auch Fummeln will gelernt sein, the male lead ("Peter Planer") plays a sexually dysfunctional army officer who is about to be married. Christine Schuberth reprises her role as a prostitute indistinguishable from the Josephine of the first two films, although in this one she is called Pepi. She correctly diagnoses the soldier's problem as his addiction to pornography and voyeuristic fantasy. The film ends with the soldier and his fiancée tumbling into bed as a copy of Salten's novel is consumed by flames.

The two series directed by Hans Billian and Gunter Otto are pornographic films. The first of them, Billian's Josefine Mutzenbacher wie sie wirklich war, 1. Teil, is routinely cited as one of the best films to emerge from pornography's so-called golden age, thanks to Billian's inventive direction and the unselfconscious charm of Patricia Rhomberg.^[53][54][55] Gunter Otto served as producer on the first film, but he and Billian then parted ways, with each directing his own series of sequels. Billian's Das Haus der geheimen Lüste (1979) is an unrelated pornographic feature in nineteenth-century costume that has been reissued as a Josephine Mutzenbacher film. The last two Gunter Otto films are set in modern times and do not seriously pretend to inhabit the Mutzenbacher universe.

For Mutzenbacher, Ruth Beckermann filmed a hundred men reading from and reacting to Salten's novel in what was supposedly a casting call for a new movie adaptation. She uses their responses to build a picture of male sexual attitudes, particularly attitudes to female sexuality. The documentary won the Encounters Award at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival.^[56][57]

Theater and cabaret

The Viennese a cappella quartet called 4she^[58] regularly performs a cabaret musical theatre production based on Josephine Mutzenbacher called "The 7 Songs of Josefine Mutzenbacher" ("Die 7 Lieder der Josefine Mutzenbacher"). The show is a raunchy, humorous parody of the novel, set in a brothel, that runs approximately 75 minutes.^{[4][59][60][61][62][63][64]}

In 2002 the German actor Jürgen Tarrach and the jazz group CB-funk performed a live rendition of the texts of Josephine Mutzenbacher and Shakespeare set to modern music composed by Bernd Weißig and arranged by the Pianist Detlef Bielke of the Günther-Fischer-Quintett at the Kalkscheune [de] in Berlin.^[65][66][67]

In January 2005, Austrian actress Ulrike Beimpold gave several comedy cabaret live performances of the text of Josephine Mutzenbacher at the Auersperg15-Theater in Vienna, Austria.^[68]

In an event organized by the Jazzclub Regensburg, Werner Steinmassl held a live musical reading of Josephine Mutzenbacher, accompanied by Andreas Rüsing, at the Leeren Beutel Concert Hall in Ratisbon, Bavaria, Germany called "Werner Steinmassl reads Josefine Mutzenbacher" on 3 September 2005.^[69][70]

Audio adaptations

Both the original Josephine Mutzenbacher and the two "sequels" are available as spoken word audio CDs read by Austrian actress Ulrike Beimpold:

• Josefine Mutzenbacher oder Die Geschichte einer Wienerischen Dirne von ihr selbst erzählt. Random House Audio 2006. ISBN 3-86604-253-1.
• Josefine Mutzenbacher und ihre 365 Liebhaber. Audio CD. Götz Fritsch. Der Audio Verlag 2006. ISBN 3-89813-484-9.

In 1997 Helmut Qualtinger released "Fifi Mutzenbacher", a parody on audio CD:

• Fifi Mutzenbacher (Eine Porno-Parodie). Helmut Qualtinger (reader). Audio CD. Preiser Records (Naxos) 1997.

Exhibits

The Jewish Museum of Vienna displayed an exhibit at the Palais Eskeles called "Felix Salten: From Josephine Mutzenbacher to Bambi" where the life and work of Felix Salten was on display, which ran from December 2006 to March 2007. Austrian State Parliament Delegate Elisabeth Vitouch appeared for the opening of the exhibit at Jewish Museum Vienna and declared: "Everyone knows Bambi and Josefine Mutzenbacher even today, but the author Felix Salten is today to a large extent forgotten".^[13][71][72]

Academia

Josephine Mutzenbacher has been included in several university courses and symposiums.^[73]

• Pornography: Writing of Prostitutes COL 289 SP – Weissman, Hope Wesleyan University
• Der Sex-Akt in der Literatur. Zur Geschichte u. Repräsentation des Sex-Aktes im Spannungsfeld von "hoher Literatur, Trivialliteratur u. Pornographie" 641500 Study section, Comparative Literature Science – Babka, Anna Universität Innsbruck
• Sexuality, Eroticism, and Gender in Austrian Literature and Culture Annual Conference of the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association International Symposium University of Alberta 13–15 April 2007
• Literatur und Sexualität um 1900 SS 2001 510.273 – Rabelhofer, Bettina Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz