useless unless paired

     Would you rather be intelligent or brave? You might lean toward intelligence —knowledge is power, after all— or gravitate towards bravery —fortune favours the bold—, but what if the most honest answer was actually "neither, unless they go together"?

     History is full of reckless leaders who launched disastrous invasions, ignored expert warnings, chased glory at any cost, and left empires in ruins and millions dead. There are also many examples of highly intelligent people who missed opportunities and delayed critical actions through "paralysis by analysis" —endless overthinking and indecision. As the German author Erich Kästner put it, "courage without intelligence doesn't amount to anything, and intelligence without courage is no good either."  

     For many people outside Germany, his name probably doesn't ring a bell, But maybe you've heard of the film Emil and the Detectives? Surely everyone knows The Parent Trap though. Both are based on children's books he wrote. Other works of his have also been adapted into films, including The Flying Classroom, the book in which he made that statement about the uselessness of courage without intelligence and vice versa.

     The plot of the novel is quite straightforward: five friends at a boys' boarding school in 1930s Germany are preparing an original play (The Flying Classroom) they'll perform before the Christmas holidays. However, rehearsals are disrupted when boys from a longstanding rival school take captive one of their classmates —the son of their German teacher— and refuse to release him or return the dictation exercise books he was carrying home for grading. With Christmas break looming and serious trouble brewing if the exercise books aren't recovered, they must quickly devise a plan to set things right.

     That alone makes it attractive to young readers: the fast-paced scenes, fights, snowball battles... But the novel also has several thought-provoking, interwoven character-driven threads that appeal to both young and adult readers. These involve the five protagonists —Johnny, Martin, Uli, Matz and Sebastian—, as well as the school's housemaster, Dr Bökh, and the mysterious, friendly man the boys call "No-Smoking". 

        Johnny's thread stands out because it opens the book, takes us through its pages with the character's quiet observations, and closes it in the afterword. In the foreword, where Johnny is introduced, we learn that he didn't have an easy start in life. His American mother and German father separated, and his father put him on a ship to Germany when he was only four years old, asking the captain to take care of him until they arrived in Hamburg, where his grandparents would be waiting for him... except things didn't go as expected.

      Johnny is portrayed as the sensitive, imaginative, and somewhat melancholic member of the group. He's full of dreams, like that of becoming a great writer one day, and has a quiet optimism despite his painful past. What happened to him turned him reflective and introspective, and his sensitivity makes him sympathetic toward the struggles of others.

        He is the author of the play the boys rehearse throughout the book, and his storyline, like those of Martin and Uli, highlights one of the key themes in the novel: that the problems that make children suffer —whether they are material hardships, feelings of displacement, or simply insecurities— deserve to be acknowledged, and not dismissed as minor.

       It's precisely in the foreword where Kästner expresses frustration with other children's book authors who portray childhood as overly idyllic. He questions how adults can completely forget their own youth to the point of no longer understanding how unhappy children can sometimes be. He also links the need for children to learn to stand up to life's blows early on, to that of developing courage and intelligence side by side:

It makes no difference whether you're crying over a broken doll or maybe, later, because you have lost a friend. It's never a question of what makes you sad, but how much you grieve for it. Children's tears are no smaller than the tears shed by grown-ups, and often weigh more heavily.

[...] Learn to look misfortune in the eye. [...] You must learn to be tough and develop a thick skin! You must be able to stand up to blows. [...] Otherwise you'll feel froggy the first time life slaps you down. Because life wears a large size of boxing glove!

If you stand up to the first blows of fate, you're well on the way to winning. Because in spite of the blows you have received, you'll have the presence of mind to activate two very important qualities: courage and intelligence. But remember what I tell you: courage without intelligence doesn't amount to anything, and intelligence without courage is no good either.

     Many times forewords are boring and unnecessary, but this is one of those you shouldn't skip, especially because forewords are essential to Kästner's books. In his childhood memoir, When I Was a Boy, he makes this humorous defence of them:

My friends have, for a long time, laughed at me because none of my books ever appears without a preface. Indeed, some of them have actually been published with two and even three prefaces. In this respect I am quite tireless. And even if it is a bad habit I shall never be able to overcome it; first of all, because there's nothing harder to overcome than a bad habit, and second, because I don't consider it a bad habit at all. A preface to a book is just as important and attractive as a garden in front of a house. I don't like to have visitors falling into the house as the door opens. It isn't good for the visitors, nor for the house, nor even for the door.

       The same humour and charm fill the foreword of The Flying Classroom, which sets the tone for the whole book: clear, conversational, with short sentences, lots of dialogue, and a narrator who speaks straight to the reader. Kästner sets out to write "a Christmas story", but, as he notes, in the scorching heat of the summer one can't very well "sit down and write [things like] 'It was bitterly cold, snowflakes were falling from the sky and when Dr Eisenmayer looked out of the window both his earlobes froze' ". So he creates an enchanting setting in the countryside of Upper Bavaria, where every day in a meadow, among firs and flowers, he sits on a little wooden bench in front of a wobbly table. There, gazing up for inspiration at the snowy peaks of the mountains, he starts to write the story, with the company of a peacock butterfly, a mysterious black and white cat and a brown calf called Eduard.

       Going back to the threads interwoven into the main plot, there's also the story of brainy Martin, seen as a leader by his classmates, who captains the "rescue" mission. He comes from a poor family and feels the weight of his parents’ sacrifices to send him to the boarding school. A certain worry makes him sadder and sadder as Christmas approaches, but it's too embarrassing for him and he doesn't dare tell anyone or ask for help.

      The stories of the main adults in the book, Dr Bökh and "No-Smoking", show how bonds can weather time, personal hardships, and life's unexpected turns. They also reinforce the novel's message that childhood experiences shape who we become and that true connection can heal old wounds.

      "No-Smoking" is a man in his thirties who has given up on the pursuit of success and status and has chosen a simpler path. The boys give him the moniker "No-Smoking" because of the faded "Nichtraucher" (no-smoking compartment) sign on the abandoned railway carriage that he has turned into his home near the school. He tells them that he gives piano lessons, but it's rumoured that he plays the piano in bars for a little money and a hot supper.

       He offers the five friends wise, laid-back advice, and even helps mediate the escalating feud with the boys from the rival school. Our protagonists suspect he didn't always lead that uprooted, almost bohemian existence, that something tragic must have happened to him in the past. They also sense an unspoken link between him and their teacher and housemaster.

       Dr Bökh, on the other hand, is a trusted adult figure to whom the boys can confide their troubles and fears. Unlike strict, distant traditional teachers, he's well-liked and respected by the boys because he treats them seriously and acts justly, showing understanding and fostering trust and empathy rather than fear.

      Fear is the one thing Uli, another of the main characters, struggles with. Small and timid, he's anxious about overcoming his lack of self-confidence and courage because he's often teased and pranked on by other pupils. When his inseparable companion Matz, tough yet good-natured, suggests he do something "terrific" that will make the other boys respect him, it turns out to be not such good advice.     

     Actually, what happens illustrates the message that courage without wisdom is useless, and how the folly of acting boldly without thoughtful judgement can potentially have grave consequences. There's an interesting discussion about it in the aftermath, between Sebastian and another student. Sebastian is an intriguing character. Intelligent and too cynical for his age, he distances himself emotionally through sarcasm and represents the opposite to Uli: wisdom without courage. (The excerpt below has been edited —roman text— to avoid spoilers.)

No one in the study rooms was talking of anything else. And they all agreed: Uli was an amazing fellow, and they would never have thought him capable of such a daredevil plan. Sebastian was the only one to disagree. 'That was nothing to do with being bold,' he said dismissively. 'When Uli did what he did, he was no more courageous than before. It was despair that made him do it.'

'Ah, but the courage of despair came into it,' cried a boy. 'A great many cowards would never do that, however desperate they were.'

Sebastian nodded benevolently.

'Fair enough. But the difference between them and Uli isn't anything to do with courage. The difference is that Uli can feel more ashamed than they do. His lack of courage bothered him more than it bothered anyone else.' Sebastian thought for a little while. 'What I'm going to say isn't really any of your business. But have you ever stopped to wonder whether I, for instance, am brave? No, you've never noticed anything! So I'll tell you now that as it happens I'm unusually cowardly. However, I don't let it show. I'm not all that bothered about my lack of courage. I'm not ashamed of it. I know that we all have our flaws and weaknesses. It's just a matter of not letting other people notice them.'

'I prefer it when people can still feel ashamed,' said the other boy.

'Me too,' replied Sebastian quietly.

He was unusually talkative today. That was probably something to do with what had happened. Normally Sebastian only said sarcastic things that put the other boys off. [...]

       So, as Sebastian remarks, Uli's flaw isn't his lack of bravery in itself, but an acute, painful sensitivity to his own timidity. That shame pushes him to do something reckless, which is overcompensation and not balanced bravery.

      The other boy's retort —"I prefer it when people can still feel ashamed"— contrasts Sebastian's cool acceptance and concealment of his own cowardice with a more vulnerable, human approach to personal flaws.

       Feeling shame about a weakness can be painful, but it's also a sign of conscience, self-awareness, and potential for change, because it can serve as a motivator for self-improvement. Meanwhile, Sebastian's attitude comes across as pragmatic, but also emotionally detached, and may even be seen as a bit arrogant.

      The other boy subtly critiques this: he prefers people who haven't become so armoured or resigned that they lose the ability to feel ashamed. A lack of shame about one's shortcomings might indicate moral complacency or a loss of inner drive to be better. When Sebastian quietly agrees, he's recognizing the value in Uli's heartfelt striving, despite his outward cynicism.

       It's a complicated balance, isn't it? But each of us should try and walk that path. Because, as Kästner says in the book, "Only when the brave have become intelligent, and the intelligent have become brave, will we really be sure of something that we often, but mistakenly, feel is an established fact: the progress of mankind."

Notes:

1. Emil und die Detektive and Das doppelte Lottchen are the titles of the books on which the Disney films Emil and the Detectives (1964) and The Parent Trap (one from 1961 and a remake with Lindsay Lohan from 1998) are based. These are the most popular, but there are several other version. 

2. It's fortunate that it was Kästner who adapted The Flying Classroom (Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer) into the screenplay for the 1954 film version. It probably ensured the final result was closest to his vision. He also played himself, as the author, and did voice-over narration. It's available for online viewing in German with subtitles at the Internet Archive website.

3. The original title of When I Was a Boy is Als Ich ein kleiner Junge war.

4. All the books mentioned in this post can also be found online at the Internet Archive website.