Erika Lichte

Erika Lichte (born August 31, 1900 in Frenswegen near Nordhorn ; † October 10, 1947 in Neustadt in Holstein ) was a poet from the county of Bentheim .

biography

youth

Her place of birth in the former Frenswegen monastery

Erika Lichte was born in the building of the former Augustinian monastery in Frenswegen , where she spent her youth together with her brother Hubert. The family lived there because their father Georg Carl Ernst Lichte was a princely district forester . The family was of the Evangelical Reformed faith .

After attending elementary school and the rector's school in Nordhorn , Lichte switched to a lyceum in Osnabrück , where she passed her Abitur. Her brother Hubert died as a lieutenant in the First World War in Courland on February 3, 1917 . After her mother's death, in addition to attending school, she ran her parents' household and took care of her sick father.

Lichte was a member of the Wandervogel movement , where she found her spiritual home and became a functionary and leader of the Grafschaft Bentheim .

Viennese time

At the age of 25, at Easter 1925, Erika Lichte went to Vienna to study music and art history at the University of Vienna . Through her landlady, who was the mother of an actress, she got to know the local art scene. It is not known whether she finished her studies; She left Vienna after only a year, but returned several times for visits, for example in 1936, 1938 and 1942.

Marriage to Pastor Niemann

Erika had already met Johannes Friederich Niemann, a theology student, in 1923 when he came to Frenswegen as a migratory bird student and stayed with relatives in the local restaurant. In 1926 they got engaged; in November 1926 the wedding took place in Stöcken near Hanover. The marriage remained childless.

From September 1927 to April 1936 the couple lived in the rectory in Husum near Nienburg . After taking up a new pastor's position, they moved to Altenkrempe near Neustadt in Holstein . In 1939 and 1941 Niemann was drafted into the army. In 1943 he returned after a lower leg amputation and took over his pastor's office again.

During the time of her husband's absence, Erika Lichte made numerous trips, including to Vienna, Beltgerhaken and Hamburg. Two spa stays in Karlsbad in 1941 and 1943 were necessary because of her poor health.

Erika Lichte died on October 19, 1947 in the hospital in Neustadt / Holstein. On October 23, 1947, she was buried in the family grave next to her parents in Groß-Witfeizen near Lüchow.

plant

At the age of fourteen Erika Lichte began to record what she experienced and felt in poems and stories. The contrast between the abandoned Frenswegen monastery and the vast, largely uncultivated heathland of the Frenswegen farmers can be found in their works . The motifs of the poetry of her childhood and youth can be found in her later work, even if pushed back by new experiences. In addition to poems about Vienna and St. Stephen's Cathedral, Erika Lichte dealt with the meaning of life and religion. Her Marian poems are considered the highlights of her work.

In 1922 her first and only volume of poetry, Melodies of Life, was published . Some of her works are included in the anthology Die Bäke, new songs and ballads from the Weser-Ems-Landen .

After the end of the war, Erika Lichte planned to publish a second volume of poetry, which was no longer realized because after the death of Erika Lichte the painter also died before his book illustrations were finished. Her poetic estate with many letters, diaries and manuscripts is in the possession of the Heimatverein Grafschaft Bentheim .

literature

• Gerolf Küpers: Erika Lichte , Verlag Heimatverein der Grafschaft Bentheim, 2001. ISBN 3-922428-57-6 .
• Home seal of the Grafschaft Bentheim from the Heimatverein des Grafschaft Bentheim, 1981
• Photo by Erika Lichte from the book by Gerolf Küpers: Erika Lichte , Verlag Heimatverein der Grafschaft Bentheim, 2001. ISBN 3-922428-57-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Erika Lichte in the catalog of the German National Library