Customer Reviews (3)

Destiny Desired
Pastor Busch was relatively unknown outside of Europe, but over the years since his death in 1966 his reputation has grown. This book is loaded with descriptive analogies and stories that reveal the great walk of this Christan from the trenches of France to the Gestapo prisons of Nazi Germany to the struggle with post war secularism. The personal salvation story of Pastor Busch is even more compelling than the history he experienced.

The ace of analogy, strongman of scripture and master of metaphor...this was Wilhelm Busch- Pastor Busch wrote with simplicity and power. This book is packed with compelling images and vivid stories.

We are given a picture of salvation...when Pastor Busch was on the Western Front he had to hide behind a cannon shield, realizing that if he held his hand out it would be cut off by withering allied rifle fire. Jesus is our salvation as well.

While attending a conference in Munich, Pastor Busch walked through the English Garden and noticed a small log endlessly turning in the stream. The log becomes an interesting analogy for our eternal security in Christ and our protection from the destructive power of sin since it was never swept away or sank. I have often found similar spiritual analogies in nature as described by Pastor Busch especially after long prayers or bouts with sin.

After a night of prayer our old apartment and a day of prayer and Bible reading at a park in Mannheim after my wife left me. I remember going to a small petting zoo in the park frequented by both of us. We had named the lambs KoKo, Chocolate and the baby Bitter Chocolate for their respective shades of brown. I asked the lambs about my situation and at that moment the baby came to me and sniffed my pants then lay down at my feet next to the fence and fell asleep as if to tell me everything would be OK. It was as if God sent that little lamb to rest near me to convey peace.

In the trenches of France, Wilhelm Busch faced the opposite of peace...the spectre of death during the First World War and gave his life to Jesus to begin a lifetime of service; his last sermon in communist East Germany, where he died three days later in 1966, is the last chapter of the book.

Isn't it ironic that the gospel preached by Pastor Busch lives in a world that has largely forgotten failed communism?

How to Know God Exists

A classic text
This is a wonderful book that can be used as an evangelical tool to get our non-christian friends to be provoked into thinking about where they stand in relation to their position with the living God. Its very suitable to be read by young people too since Wilhelm Busch also had a youth ministry and was all to familiar with the issues concerning this age group.
Busch had a wonderful vibrant real and living faith and in his writings shows how he applies this in his everyday working life as a Pastor in the lives of normal working-class people - the coal miners and their families of Essen, Germany - during the post-war years, the 1950's and the 1960's. Its a very easy, down-to-earth read without sacrificing any of the profound ideas he's trying to describe. Although written over 40 years ago it still speaks to us on relevant issues today.
I would call this is a modern day classic even though paradoxically the book has sold many millions of copies and has been translated into nearly every language on the planet and has changed the lives of many people, yet its hardly known in English speaking countries.

Youth Pastor, Preacher and Writer - Wilhelm Busch from Essen
"Jesus Our Destiny" is the most well known of his works.It is based on a compilation of his radio speeches. A common theme in his speeches is the centrality of Jesus to Christian doctrine.The focus of the book is to convince those who doubt Christianity of the reasonableness of Christian faith and the need of a faith in Jesus Christ that leads to a changed life.
The original German edition is within the grasp of a person who has completed only 2 years of high school German.He uses common German expressions because he speaks to Germans of all levels of education.
Wilhelm Busch also has a personal testimony of his own life's experiences that lead him to a personal relation with Jesus.He also became well known for his refusal to adapt his preaching to the convenience of the Nazi party.He continued to preach God's Word as contained in the Bible in spite of Gestapo's threats which lead to lengthy jail confinement where he continued to preach to the jailers in spite of being confined from contact with other prisoners.
This book has been translated into many languages.
This book is usefull as a tool for evangelization. Unfortunately, this book is not as well known in North America as it merits.
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Product Description
Die Serie "Meisterwerke der Literatur" beinhaltet die Klassiker der deutschen und weltweiten Literatur in einer einzigartigen Sammlung für Ihren eBook Reader. Lesen Sie die besten Werke großer Schriftsteller,Poeten, Autoren und Philosophen auf Ihrem Kindle Reader. Digital überarbeitet und in allerbester Qualität und bei den allermeisten Titeln inklusive eines interaktiven Inhaltsverzeichnisses für einfache Orientierung.

Dies ist die komplett illustrierte und für Kindle-Lesegeräte optimierte Version dieses Klassikers.

Das Werk wurde am 4. April 1865 erstveröffentlicht und zählt damit zum Frühwerk von Wilhelm Busch. Viele Reime dieser Bildergeschichte wie „Aber wehe, wehe, wehe! / Wenn ich auf das Ende sehe!“, „Dieses war der erste Streich, doch der zweite folgt sogleich“ und „Gott sei Dank! Nun ist's vorbei / Mit der Übeltäterei!“ sind zu festen Redewendungen im deutschen Sprachgebrauch geworden. (aus wikipedia.de) ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

My dad's favorite book as a child
This was my dad's favorite book as a child.(To Dan, who made the comment about the Germans, my dad was a little Jewish boy in Nazi Germany and he spent 4 years in Nazi concentration camp, and this was still his favorite book that he always talked about as an adult.)

Kids love horror stories.Kids love to watch gory movies.This book is the mid 19th century version of comic book horror.It's very mild in comparison to the slasher flicks most kids have seen by the age of 8.It's just very politically incorrect compared with modern PC kiddie books.Still, the original Brother's Grimm stories were much gorier.

This particular version appears to have the English translation along with the original German.

Insightful
This book gave me insight into German culture. It is no wonder
there was a Holocaust with children's books like these. Max and Moritz are adventurous children and they are caught. Being caught isn't enough. They are ground in a flour mill for punishment. Not even that suits the miller. he feeds their remains to the ducks. It instantly reminded me of concentration camp victims being cremated and then turned into soap. This story will forever give nightmares.

A German Classic
Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) is known as the author of "Max and Moritz," but the scope of his works is much broader. He is not an author of children's books in the first place. He wrote many stories of satire and slapstick humor not primarily aimed at children, illustrated by his own drawings - for which he is justly famous. Some people even regard him as the father of the modern comic strip. Had he worked in our time, his equals would be the likes ofF. K. Waechter, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, and Ronald Searle.

Although the two cannot be compared, Busch's "Max and Moritz" ranks in Germany on the same level as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in the English speaking world. Wherever an Englishman would quote Lewis Carroll's "Alice", a German is likely to quote Busch.

Children won't catch Busch's gentle satire in "Max and Moritz." The whole concept of satire is not familiar to them, of course. But while the little ones breathlessly follow the naughty pranks, Dad smiles at the fun Busch makes of the adults in "Max and Moritz." Widow Tibbets is a good example. While professing tender feelings for her chicks, she is in reality rather practical minded. So when Max and Moritz manage to kill her chickens - and the rooster, for that matter - she grieves, but not too deeply:

When the worthy Widow Tibbets
(Whom the cut below exhibits)
Had recovered, on the morrow,
From the dreadful shock of sorrow,
She (as soon as grief would let her
Think) began to think 'twere better
Just to take the dead, the dear ones
(Who in life were walking here once),
And in a still noonday hour
Them, well roasted, to devour.

In fact, Walter Arndt's translation in this edition is very good and captures precisely Busch's style.

Let me add a word of warning to trusting parents. Busch shares the mischievous streak in Max and Moritz, and while his two young protagonists play rather violent tricks on the townspeople - a taylor almost drowns and a teacher gets his face burned from an exploding pipe - Busch himself plays the most violent trick on Max and Moritz. In their last prank they cut open the grain sacks of a farmer who finds the two boys in their hiding place, drags them to a mill and has them ground to pieces, which - Gary Larson would have loved that part - are being eaten by two of the Miller's ducks:

"In with 'em!" Each wretched flopper
Headlong goes into the hopper.
As the farmer turns his back, he
Hears the mill go "creaky! cracky!"
Here you see the bits post mortem,
Just as Fate was pleased to sort 'em.
Master Miller's ducks with speed
Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.

The good and upright people of the village are so relieved. Good riddance to Max and Moritz, they think. But of course they put that more politically correct:

Through the place in short there went
One wide murmur of content:
"God be praised! the town is free
From this great rascality!"

In short: this is great stuff for the kids if you manage to explain the fine points. As a starting point I recommend to brand the pranks of Max and Moritz as "very naughty" and take it from there. Once the kids begin to understand that the grinder is an even worse (adult) version of the two boys' malicious pranks you have won half the battle.

Required reading for all spoiled children!
A great classic book of "nursery ryhmes" for spoiled children to show them what happens to those that are nasty.

Max and Moritz play evil pranks on animals and people and in the end are thrown into a mill and ground up into feed and eaten up by ducks.

Nowadays, parents allow their kids to run around and scream, spill and break things and NEVER are the kids punished, the parents just smile and say:"Kids will be kids."

I wasn't that way when I was a kid. Because my parents TOLD me that was wrong and not to do it. Since parents today are not capable of teaching their kids, I supose these books are the only hope for saving our society.

I bought several of this book and others that are recommended by Amazon.com of similar nature to give to the tiny terrorists that run around yelling and screaming and destroying things around the neighborhood.

Since they probably don't know how to read and never read a book before, at least them showing the book to their parents should be a good wake up call to the parents that it is time to start TEACHING their kids not to do certain things that are evil.



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Product Description
A new translation by Andy Gaus of these classic popular satirical Wilhelm Busch cartoons, with original illustrations, in black and white, throughout. This volume includes Max & Moritz a Bad-Boy Story in Seven Tricks; Ice Peter, A Funny Picture Story; Diogenes and the Bad Boys of Corinth; four poems from Critique of the Heart; and a biographical note on Wilhelm Busch. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Icky fun
This book is a stitch! Small children will scratch their heads but adults will enjoy the irony. The illustrations stay with you.

A German Classic
Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) is known as the author of "Max and Moritz," but the scope of his works is much broader. He is not an author of children's books in the first place. He wrote many stories of satire and slapstick humor not primarily aimed at children, illustrated by his own drawings - for which he is justly famous. Some people even regard him as the father of the modern comic strip. Had he worked in our time, his equals would be the likes ofF. K. Waechter, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, and Ronald Searle.

Although the two cannot be compared, Busch's "Max and Moritz" ranks in Germany on the same level as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in the English speaking world. Wherever an Englishman would quote Lewis Carroll's "Alice", a German is likely to quote Busch.

Children won't catch Busch's gentle satire in "Max and Moritz." The whole concept of satire is not familiar to them, of course. But while the little ones breathlessly follow the naughty pranks, Dad smiles at the fun Busch makes of the adults in "Max and Moritz." Widow Tibbets is a good example. While professing tender feelings for her chicks, she's really rather practical minded. So when Max and Moritz manage to kill her chickens - and the rooster, for that matter - she grieves, but not too deeply:

When the worthy Widow Tibbets
(Whom the cut below exhibits)
Had recovered, on the morrow,
From the dreadful shock of sorrow,
She (as soon as grief would let her
Think) began to think 'twere better
Just to take the dead, the dear ones
(Who in life were walking here once),
And in a still noonday hour
Them, well roasted, to devour.

Finally, a word of warning to trusting parents. Busch shares the mischievous streak in Max and Moritz, and while his two young protagonists play rather violent tricks on the townspeople - a taylor almost drowns and a teacher gets his face burned from an exploding pipe - Busch himself plays the most violent trick on Max and Moritz. In their last prank they cut open the grain sacks of a farmer who finds the two boys in their hiding place, drags them to a mill and has them ground to pieces, which - Gary Larson would have loved that part - are being eaten by two of the Miller's geese:

"In with 'em!" Each wretched flopper
Headlong goes into the hopper.
As the farmer turns his back, he
Hears the mill go "creaky! cracky!"
Here you see the bits post mortem,
Just as Fate was pleased to sort 'em.
Master Miller's ducks with speed
Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.

The good and upright people of the village are so relieved. Good riddance to Max and Moritz, they think. But of course they put that more politically correct:

Through the place in short there went
One wide murmur of content:
"God be praised! the town is free
From this great rascality!"

In short: this is great stuff for the kids if you manage to explain the fine points. As a starting point I recommend to brand the pranks of Max and Moritz as "very naughty" and take it from there.

[this review refers to the Dover Publications edition translated by Walter Arndt, ISBN 0486201813]
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Product Description
This Book Is In German. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawings and humorous poems satirize human hypocrisy, pride, and pretentiousness, and tell stories about thwarted ambitions and desires. ... Read more