Wit and wisdom of Germany’s anti-noise philosopher revealed to new readers

Theodor Lessing's newly collected early writings shine light on writer who later prophesied climate change

In a nation of great thinkers who preferred the clean air of ivory towers over the hubbub of the streets, Theodor Lessing stood out for digging his knuckles into the dust.

The great brawler of early 20th-century German philosophy picked fights with those he dismissed as self-hating" fellow Jewish intellectuals, challenged the towering man-of-letters Thomas Mann to a duel, and skewered the holy cows of the Nazis, who brutally murdered him shortly after seizing power in 1933.