Sense of humor not required in dealing with German authorities...but it sure helps
This is a "Berlin Story" 'pitch': I’m asking readers for assistance…
BERLIN (13. March, 2024) — I’ve been contacted by German tax officials who tell me that my research and writing of the past several years — work on my manuscripts and these “Berlin Stories” — is not legitimate as a “real” German business until it generates more income than it costs.
In their eyes (as I enter my “retirement years”), my longtime professional work, including more than a decade of research on these subjects, has become more of a “hobby” (Liebhaberei) than livlihood (Lebensunterhalt).
The lack of paid-work publishing since I stopped working for newspapers and magazines (American and German, in 2017) is now forcing the hand of Berlin government authorities. Consequently, the good folks at the Finanzamt will no longer allow me to write-off my work-related editorial expenses of writing “Topper’s Bauhaus book” — including the money I’ve paid for stacks of literature, professional German translating and editing, professional (human-worker!) transcriptions of old, hand-written letters, etc….
Now, recognizing the flaws/challenges in today’s deeply transmogrified US and German publishing industries, I’ve been publishing pieces of hard-worked book(s) here, on this evolving “Berlin Stories.” (…It’s something of a collage, really….)
Also worth mentioning is the clear relevance of my last column, on the history of politicized hostility against today’s governing German Green/Red coalition — linked here for those who missed it. (It was only sent to “paid subsbribers.” My bad.)
Otherwise, Berliner friends tell me not to take the Finanzamt’s decision personally. True to its name and mission, their reasoning is purely financial: “Your English-language readers overseas are simply not paying you enough,” they tell me. OK, well…. True, that.
How different from 1989, when I first came to Berlin. Back then, I sold enough ‘hard-copy’ to newspapers and magazines — all to inform Americans about the ‘Fall of the Wall’ — enough income so as to pay for my entire three-month stay here. (More about those exciting times — with images like the one above — in future “Berlin Stories.”….)
It’s tempting, of course, to become sour with the German tax office. But 1) I’d been warned this was coming; and 2) they may be trying to tell me something…. Maybe I’ve become too comfortable as I’ve quietly haunted all these Berlin archives, libraries and other collections, reading and writing all these years — working for free & paying for everything. (Is this the “new normal”? Decades ago, in the United States, I published other people’s books. As I tell German authorities, the “financials” on that work also have changed, over time….)
I’m encouraged to see the “positive side,” however. Truly: I’ve been living and working under the remarkable (economic and physical) protection of Germany’s strong social-welfare state, with its beautiful universities and public libraries — largely tuition-free not only to EU citizens, but also to millions of refugees, sent to Germany/EU by wars and environmental disasters not entirely of our making…. :-/
When I think about it, our German/EU institutions today are exactly those that had been envisioned by my subjects — the struggling, creative, ‘radical-left,’ Utopian German-speaking artists and writers of the 20th century.
Further, as refugees themselves, they had deep effects on subsequent life in the United States and other countries. They came there as “intellectual refugees” and worked and lived in NYC and L.A. and other places. My reading constantly reminds me that we all have benefited from their then-’radical’ ideas — from their advocacy of strong public-schooling, for example; from their great students, our teachers; from their demanding more open governments and public institutions that do more for Everyone, for The People. We’ve gained from their public advocacy for once-adequate social “safety nets,” for civil rights, affordable housing, and health care. And, of course — perhaps most obviously — that generation of creative/refugee Europeans (East and West) contributed to a generation of great “pointed” American theater, film, and television….
The world of my youth, growing up in late-20th-century America, was a world that had been more-or-less envisioned — “only dreamed-of” — by those who helped in very big ways to make it: the practical/radical German-speaking Utopians I describe in “Berlin Stories” and in my still-unpublished “Bauhaus” manuscript. (Working Title: “The Will to Style: Student ‘Radicals’ of the Weimar Bauhaus, 1919-25.”)
To be more pointed about this: “Berlin Stories” includes independent chapters of my unsold “Will to Style” manuscript, specifically the posts on Johannes Itten, Friedrich Nietzsche, and (my personal favorite) Else Lasker-Schüler. Oh, yeah: There was also the popular “Christmas in Weimar” piece, last December…..
So, taking deep breaths and talking to my closest advisors — mostly bookish bartenders and other pals — I’ve thought the matter through: Regarding the Finanzamt, I’m going to “just follow orders,” as the Americans say — give up the little perennial tax break — while forging a new, more ambitious effort. The Finanzamt judgement suggests, for example, that I’ve invested too little effort into selling my serious, informative, historically relevant — but also very entertaining — manuscript. [Did I mention it? “The Will to Style: Student ‘Radicals’ at the Weimar Bauhaus, 1919-25” And, BTW, I’ve also written TV/film treatments for the book….]
So, mindful of the German necessity for wider distribution and sales in the English-speaking world, I’m asking you — my first readers — for help. I need your spiritual/intellectual e-support alongside greater “financial input.” I invite current (and future) readers to: 1) “Like” “Share” and “Comment” and 2) to become paid subscribers, even if you’re just “subscribing” for a single month, for only US$8. I also encourage readers, if they can, to click the “Founding Member” option, allowing them to give more. (You can also choose an amount less than the “recommended” amount.)
In addition to becoming paying subscribers, I also welcome input from ANYONE who can help me to “boost” this (free and paid) work I’ve been publishing — mostly but not exclusively in English — since June 2023. If you have something to offer on this score, please feel free to use the open-to-the-public comment area below, to which I will respond. Alternatively, feel free to write me a private e-mail — toppersherwood(at)gmail(dot)com — and make your suggestion(s) there. (Title it “Berlin Stories” so it stands out, please.)
As ever, I will be especially grateful for any of my professional friends/colleagues who can link me up with good, high-integrity partners — agent or editor/publishers — in the United States.
Oh, yeah: Our friends at the German Finanzamt will be grateful to you too.
Thanks for thinking about it.
- Topper
PS: I recognize that most of my “natural” readers — especially a lot of younger ones — probably lack cash to be paid subscribers. If that’s the case, and you really-really want/need access to everything here and cannot afford it, you are certainly not alone. I recommend that you write me a nice e-mail — tell me one of your stories, and ensure me you’re not a troll — and I’ll probably be able to put you on the list. Thanks. -ts