Friedrich Michael

Friedrich Michael (born October 30, 1892 in Ilmenau , Thuringia, † June 22, 1986 in Wiesbaden ) was a German writer and publisher .

Life

Friedrich Michael was born on October 30, 1892, the only child of a doctor in Ilmenau , Thuringia . Already during his high school in Schleusingen his interest in the theater awoke, which was to accompany him throughout his life.

After graduating from high school in 1911, he went to study literature and theater studies in Freiburg , Munich , Marburg and finally in 1913 to Leipzig , where he received his doctorate in philosophy in 1918 under Georg Witkowski and Albert Köster . His dissertation , which he wrote during the war years , dealt with the beginnings of theater criticism in Germany and, as Michael noted in the foreword, attempted "for the first time to scientifically penetrate an area that research has only occasionally touched on".

The theater was also the subject of his next major work, a history of German theater (first in 1923), the "Little Michael" still in a Germanic is to find seminars of the universities - updated again over and now by Hans Daiber continuing Editions.

Through his doctoral supervisor Witkowski, Michael, meanwhile married, also came into contact with Anton Kippenberg , the director of the Leipziger Insel Verlag . For him he worked first as an editor of the magazine Das deutsche Buch , then as a freelancer for the publishing house and editor of editions of numerous classics such as Heinrich Heine , Friedrich Hölderlin and Heinrich von Kleist . In addition, he published several short stories in the feature pages of various daily newspapers and in 1929 his first literary work: a satire entitled Assassination. Chronicle of an obsession . With this work, Michael wrote later, he played with fire - “it should burn all too soon”. The following book, the novel The Well Recommended Woman (1932) soon found itself on the list of literature undesirable by the National Socialists , which also meant the end of Michael’s editorial work.

Kippenberg offered him a permanent job as a lecturer and his assistant at Insel Verlag, which Michael would lead years later, after Kippenberg's death in 1950, for a decade.

Since Michael was not subject to a writing ban, Michael could continue to work as a writer in addition to his publishing work. Among other things, he wrote poems and the two novels Escape to Madras (1934) and Silvia and the suitors (1941). Michael also worked on several stage pieces during those years, including the well-known comedy The Blue Straw Hat (first performance in February 1942, film adaptation in 1949 ). For a long time, this piece was considered Friedrich Michael's dramatic debut work; It was not until many years later that it became known through Michael's estate and letters from Erich Kästner that Michael was already working on theater plays in the mid-1920s and that joint theater projects between the two authors were planned, which, however, were probably never realized.

In the post-war years Michael was sent to Wiesbaden in order to set up a West German branch of Insel Verlag in view of the threatened division of Germany. Friedrich Michael died here on June 22, 1986.

Works

At the suggestion and with the collaboration of Volker Michels , an 18-volume edition of Friedrich Michael's collected writings was published from 1983 , the seventh and, for the time being, last volume of which was published in 1993:

• As serious as it is cheerful. Reflections, memories, epistles and glosses . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1983
• The reader as an explorer. A publisher's reflections, essays and memories . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1983
• The well recommended woman. Novel . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1984
• Escape to Madras. Novel . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1984
• Silvia and the suitors. Novel . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1984
• Renew old experience. Stories, causeries, poems . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1985
• The blue straw hat. The comedies and other pieces . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1993

In addition, among other things, appeared:

• The beginnings of theater criticism in Germany . Haessel , Leipzig 1918 (also: Leipzig, Univ., Diss., 1918)
• [Chapter 1:] The Middle Ages and its end . In: The German Drama , in connection with Julius Bab , Albert Ludwig, Friedrich Michael, Max J. Wolff and others. Rudolf Wolkan ed. v. Robert F. Arnold, CH Beck, Munich 1925, pp. 1–106
• with Hans Daiber: History of the German Theater . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1990 (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch; 1665)
• Diary January to June 1945 . in: Leipzig in ruins. The year 1945 in letters, diaries and photographs, ed. v. Mark Lehmstedt , Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2004, pp. 53-81

estate

Part of Friedrich Michael's estate is now in the manuscript department of the German Literature Archive in Marbach . In a total of 22 boxes there are poetry, prose and correspondence, but also autobiographical writings such as the diaries 1927–1977 and documents such as certificates, contracts and a copy of Georg Witkowski 's manuscript of memoirs .

literature

• Alexander Hildebrand:  Michael, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 424 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Alexander Hildebrand: Leipzig Gewandhaus years and Wiesbaden additional hours. Friedrich Michael: Books and Stage , in: Ders .: Authors, Authors. Subject: Wiesbaden , 2., ext. Ed., Wiesbaden: HG Seyfried 1979, pp. 76-82 [Bibliogr. Pp. 123-126].
• Bertold Hack: publisher u. [...] Poet on this , in: Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel 42 (1986), No. 52, pp. 1839–1842.
• Volker Michels: Epilogue . in: Friedrich Michael: Renew old experience. Stories, Causeries, Poems , Thorbecke Sigmaringen 1985, pp. 331–337.
• Georg Patzer: Article Michael, Friedrich , in: Literaturlexikon , ed. v. Walther Killy [vol. 13-14 ed. v. Volker Meid], 14 vols. + 1 register vol., Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1988–1993, vol. 8 (1990), p. 152.
• Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Cologne: Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2008; ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 . (To Michael, page 147)

swell

1. ↑ List of personal papers in the German Literature Archive in Marbach

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Michael in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Friedrich Michael  in the German Digital Library