The Laughter Over the Rubble - When Western Satire Loses Its Own Soul

It begins with a sentence that sounds like it comes from a foreign civilization: "Russia destroys strategically important kindergarten in Kharkiv." The text - an alleged satire by the German magazine Der Postillon - bears all the hallmarks of the cold wit we in the West have long cultivated: irony, distance, the safe pose of moral superiority. It wants to shock, but it reveals something else - alienation.

"The Russian military successfully destroyed a strategically important kindergarten in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv with a drone strike on Wednesday." "No more circle times, block building, and crafts will go out toward Russia from this kindergarten." Images taken after the shelling show severe destruction of the building. It is currently unclear whether individual toys remain operational. "Let this be a warning to all Ukrainians between the ages of 2 and 6." You can find this garbage under:

https://www.der-postillon.com/2025/10/strategisch-wichtiger-kindergarten.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawNoij9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrzyVXYp6mgjf2DCK9OWo2H3Y9ARaV99MdOVHsK41798uuoejk32iIEA8Gox_aem_Axp54ybDqUymXR6DKFS9OQ

These are not jokes. This is the sound of a society that has forgotten compassion. A culture that imports war into its arts section only to dissect it between irony and convenience. Because behind this miserable satire lies an automatism of stupidity that can now be felt everywhere - in comment sections, late-night shows, memes, and chat groups: the need to make the incomprehensible likable through mockery. The joke becomes armor, the laughter a wall. And while the punchline drifts through the timelines, real bodies lie beneath concrete slabs in Kharkiv.

One of the commentators wrote: "Sarcasm is the humor that remains when tears choke your throat." But the truth is harsher. Sarcasm has long become the convenient mask of a society that no longer wants to feel anything. Under the post, strangers argued about irony, about Netanyahu, about October 7 - all in a stream of digital noise that heals nothing, understands nothing. They say you can laugh about war, say the defenders of satire. But that is wrong. You can laugh about power, about lies, about tyrants - never about the rubble they leave behind. A destroyed kindergarten in the real world is not a symbol, not a figure of speech, not a literary prop. It is what it is: burned skin, melted plastic toys, the shrill silence after an explosion.

The piece could have exposed Putin's cynicism - it could have shown how propaganda devours its own language. Instead, it chose the more comfortable form of contempt: the parody of other people's pain. It is not satire, it is self-satisfaction. The attempt to appear morally clever without being morally involved fell completely into the Volga.

Anyone who has ever been to Kharkiv knows how wrong this tone is. We remember the smell of burned furniture, the damp basements where lessons take place, the voices of children holding their breath when the sirens wail. When you have seen that, you know: war is not material. It is not a mask for irony. And perhaps that is the real tragedy - that we in the West believe it is brave to laugh about war, while the brave are already there, where no one laughs anymore.

We invite the authors of such texts to accompany us next time. Come with us to Kharkiv, to Sloviansk, to Zaporizhzhia. See what happens when "strategically important kindergartens" are not just words. Smell how the dust tastes when it settles on children's clothes. Then write your satire again.

Maybe you will laugh differently then. Or not at all.

„"Kharkiv, October 22, 2025 – A kindergarten in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was hit in a Russian drone strike. According to authorities, 48 children were in the building at the time of impact and were able to reach a shelter in time. One adult was killed, several children were injured. The facility in the northern district was completely in flames when rescue workers arrived. The attack is considered one of the heaviest on civilian infrastructure this month."

And you actually find that worthy of satire, you couch comrades from Der Postillon? Pathetic.