The Deutsche Welle tries to explain why Donald Duck, ‘modern Sisyphus,’ still Germany’s darling at 75
In their earliest days in Europe, comic books were looked down upon as lacking intellectual rigor and were thought to be bad for children. So when it first started publishing Donald Duck, the German publisher Ehapa asked Fuchs to make her translations more erudite.
And erudite she was. The German Donald quotes Goethe and Schiller, Hoelderlin and Wagner. He uses frequent alliterations and has coined phrases that have since worked their way into the language on the street. Moreover, Fuchs often gave the stories a more political tone than they’d originally had.
I can only imagine a cartoon duck quoting Goethe.
The deed is everything, the glory is naught.
Perhaps the following quote is more likely. Imagine Donald’s voice as he says:
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt
increases.
The article explains several of the elements that Germans find appealing in their version of the Duck character. First, perseverance:
Gerhard Severin is the acting president of the Donaldists. For him, Donald Duck represents a “modern Sisyphus, who always keeps trying. Despite constant setbacks he starts over again, and shows us that you should never give up.”
Second, a hot temper is said to be something Germans admire. Third, although I might be going out on a limb here, Donald has no pants. Maybe it would be more accurate to say Donald’s pants are down. Get it? Down. Either way, I bet this is also a factor that resonates with the German perspective on life.