Helen Hessel

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Helen Hessel , née Helen Grund , (born April 30, 1886 in Berlin , † June 15, 1982 in Paris , France ) was a German fashion journalist. She was married to the writer Franz Hessel from 1913 to 1921 and again from 1922 ; her sons were Ulrich and Stéphane Hessel .

Life

Childhood and youth

Helen Grund was born in Berlin in 1886 as the fifth and last child of Franz-Wilhelm Carl Grund and his wife Julie Anna Butte. She had two brothers and two sisters. The Grunds were a wealthy family who, however, suffered several blows of fate. Helen's eldest brother Otto Grund was admitted to a mental hospital at an early age, where he soon died. Her sister Ilse reason and her brother Fritz reason, both committed in their 20's suicide . The mother died in 1915 in a Swiss psychiatric clinic , where she had lived since 1898/1899 due to a nervous disease.

Helen Grund's youth were shaped by trips to London and Paris. There she learned to speak both languages, English and French, almost fluently. This can also be seen in the diary she kept. Here the writing language changes between German, English and French. She decided to study painting. During her studies, she met George Mosson in 1905, with whom she had a seven-year liaison.

education

As was customary for daughters of middle-class families in Berlin, Helen Grund attended the Charlottenschule, a municipal secondary school for girls. She then enrolled at the women's academy of the Berlin Artists' Association , where she learned from Käthe Kollwitz and others. Their artistic work was characterized by a socially critical commitment. Through her relationship with the professor George Mosson, Grund quickly succeeded in gaining a foothold in the artist milieu. In 1912 she moved to Paris with her Berlin friends Fanny Remak and Augusta von Zitzewitz to deepen her studies. Reason did this with Maurice Denis . In 1919, in the course of her life crisis, she ended her career as an artist and worked for a few months as a farmer in Poland and Silesia, among other places.

Family life

When Helen Grund was studying in Paris in 1912, she met the German poet and writer Franz Hessel there. The two married in June 1913. In their eyes, the marriage was a pragmatic bond that guaranteed that the wife would be cared for forever. Hessel soon became pregnant and gave birth to their first son Ulrich in Switzerland in 1914. The birth was difficult and the child had to be picked up with forceps , which had serious consequences for the newborn. Ulrich Hessel remained partially paralyzed on the left side . Franz Hessel went to war a few days after the birth of his son. The second son, Stefan Hessel, was born in July 1917. He called himself Stéphane in the further course of his life. After the end of the war in 1918, Franz Hessel returned from the front.

In addition to her marriage to Franz Hessel, Helen Hessel had a relationship with his best friend Henri-Pierre Roché for thirteen years . He wrote the novel "Jules et Jim" (published in 1953, made into a film in 1962) about the triangular relationship between the people involved. In 1921 Helen and Franz Hessel divorced so that Hessel and Roché could live together. Helen and Franz Hessel remarried in the summer of 1922, although the affair between Roché and Hessel continued. The family moved to Paris in 1925 before Franz Hessel returned to Berlin at the beginning of National Socialism . He was of Jewish origin and after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in 1935 , Helen Hessel urged to leave Germany, which her husband refused. When Hessel was terminated due to her marriage to a Jew, she divorced again so that she could continue her work as a journalist. In 1938, Hessel single-handedly obtained the documents needed to bring her husband to Paris without a valid passport and to save him from National Socialism. After France was occupied by the German armies, Franz and Ulrich Hessel were arrested and spent a few months in a concentration camp . In order not to be imprisoned himself, Hessel stood naked in front of the French officials, asking him to take them with him. In the face of a scandal, the officer gave up. After the release of his husband and son, Franz Hessel died in 1941. Helen and Franz Hessel were divorced, but lived together as a couple until his death.

Retirement

After the death of her husband and the memories left by the war, Hessel fell into depression and tried to commit suicide. Finally, in the summer of 1947, she moved to New York to live with her son Stéphane , who made a career there as a UN official, and then lived in various places in the United States. There she worked as a housemaid in California , where she also had an accident when her car collided with a freight train. So she broke her leg several times, which is why she finally returned to France in 1950. Helen Hessel then lived in Paris in a shared apartment with Anna-Maria Uhde, Wilhelm Uhde's sister . She kept in close contact with her family. Even in old age, Hessel still traveled a lot within Europe. Helen Hessel died in the summer of 1982 at the age of 96. She was buried in the grave of Wilhelm and Anne Marie Uhde in the Montparnasse cemetery.

Journalistic work

Fashion journalism

From 1922 to 1925, Hessel wrote short stories, novellas and articles that were published at regular intervals in Das Tage-Buch . In April 1925, Hessel spent some time in Paris and wrote reports for the Frankfurter Zeitung from there . Until 1937, Hessel wrote as a fashion correspondent from Paris for the Frankfurter Zeitung and its women's supplement Für die Frau . In 1932, Hessel took over the fashion category of Monde illustré , which made her more famous. She also took over the layout there , allowing her to live out her artistic talent. Hessel's descriptions were heavily inspired by the Parisian fashion houses - they saw fashion and jewelry as cultural symbols that not only decorate life, but also express it. Hessel made fashion a serious topic and reported not only about fashion but also about life in Paris and culture. She lived a very emancipated life, which was also reflected in her writings and fashion reports. She valued elegant fashion and saw it as an opportunity to manipulate and beguile men. Her views were hostile in National Socialist Germany and Hessel was attacked as a fashion correspondent.

Work during and after National Socialism

As the spouse of a Jew, she received no more orders after 1933 and was dismissed by the Frankfurter Zeitung. However, she was able to continue to write articles for the renowned women's newspaper Die Dame . In order to be able to continue working as a journalist , she divorced Franz Hessel a second time in 1936. Hessel took a firm stand against the Nazis. She returned to Berlin in 1938 and witnessed the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938, about which she wrote in her report on Berlin in November 1938 . After the German army invaded France, she lived underground. After the Second World War she wrote the play Blut. Drama in five acts . In this, Hessel reflected on her experiences with the war and the persecution of her Jewish family members.

Back in France, she wrote a speech on the 10th anniversary of Franz Hessel's death, which was broadcast as part of a radio broadcast in 1951. From 1959 she excelled as a translator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita into the German language. The publisher made extensive changes to the publication. Hessel continued to work as a translator and translated, among other things, the travelogue "Noa Noa" by Paul Gauguin into German. Hessel completed her last works at the age of 75.

diary

Hessel wrote a diary that also contains the love triangle between her, her husband Franz Hessel and his friend Henri-Pierre Roché. The manuscript is written alternately in German, English and French. The language sometimes changes after a sentence, half-sentence, phrase or even just one word. This was shaped by Hessel's trips to England in her youth and her life in Paris. Your writing style is characterized by speed and volatility. More than a diary, it is more of a letter journal, in which she also collected the letters that she exchanged with her lover. The journal acts as a counterpart to Roché's Carnets. Furthermore, Hessel did not write everything down immediately, but often spent months reflecting on what he had experienced.

Movie

The novel that Roché wrote about his relationship with Hessel and the deep friendship with her husband was used by François Truffaut as a template for the 1955 film Jules and Jim . After Roché's death in 1959, Roché's widow Denise Truffaut gave access to all documents, letters, notes and diaries. The female lead was played by Jeanne Moreau . The film was released in 1962. Hessel watched the film repeatedly and she liked it very much.

Works

  • Helene Grund: The Leopoldstadt "Punch and Judy Theater" 1781 to 1831. Vienna 1921 ( dissertation at the University of Vienna ).
  • Journal d'Helen Hessel: lettres à Henri-Pierre Roché 1920–1921 . Ed. Karin Grund, Blandine Masson, Antoine Raybund and André Dimanche. André Dimanche, Marseille 1991
  • Articles, aphorisms and reports for Das Tagebuch (1922–1925), the Frankfurter Zeitung (1925–1937) and Le Monde illustré (1932–1938).
  • "Vom Wesen der Mode" , lecture of November 17, 1934, published under the name Helen Grund in the spring of 1935.
  • “Berlin in November 1938” , in: Manfred Flügge (Ed.): Last homecoming to Paris. Franz Hessel and his family in exile . Das Arsenal, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-921810-43-4 .
  • “Manifeste pour les femmes allemandes” , unpublished text in French, 1939.
  • “C'était un brave. A speech on the 10th anniversary of Franz Hessel's death ” in: Manfred Flügge (Ed.): Last homecoming to Paris. Franz Hessel and his family in exile. Das Arsenal, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-921810-43-4 .
  • Blood , unpublished drama in five acts, 1947.

literature

  • Manfred Flügge: Cracked love. The real story of " Jules and Jim ". Structure, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-351-02228-X
  • Manfred Flügge (Ed.): Last homecoming to Paris. Franz Hessel and his family in exile. Das Arsenal, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-921810-43-4 .
  • Manfred Flügge: German CVs in Paris . The Arsenal, Berlin 1992
  • Mila Ganeva, In the Waiting Room of Literature. Helen Grund and the Practice of Travel and Fashion Writing, in: Women in German Yearbook, 19 (2003), pp. 117-140
  • Birgit Haustedt: Elective affinities. In: Dies .: The wild years in Berlin. A gossip and cultural history of women. Ebersbach, Dortmund 1999, ISBN 3-931782-59-X . Pp. 80-115
  • Franz Hessel: Parisian romance. Papers of a missing person . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985
  • Franz Hessel: On the mistakes of lovers . Igel, Paderborn 1994
  • Franz Hessel: Secret Berlin . Lilienfeld, Düsseldorf 2011
  • Franz Hessel: Old man . Novel fragment. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1987
  • Blandine Masson; Jacques Taroni; Radio-France: Feuilleton en 8 episodes: Jules, Jim et Kathe: journaux, lettres, roman, film . France culture, 1990
  • Marie-Françoise Peteuil: Helen Hessel. The woman who loved Jules and Jim. A biography . (Original title: Helen Hessel, la femme qui aima Jules et Jim , 2011, translated by Patricia Klobusiczky). Schöffling, Frankfurt am Main 2013 ISBN 978-3-89561-263-3
  • Henri-Pierre Roché: Jules et Jim . Construction Publishing House, Berlin 2010.
  • Henri-Pierre Roché: Carnets. Les Années Jules et Jim 1920-21 . André Dimanche, Marseille 1990.
  • Charlotte Wolff: Inner world and outer world. Autobiography of a consciousness . Rogner & Bernhard , Munich 1971
  • Charlotte Wolff: Moments change us more than time . Autobiography . Kranichsteiner Literaturverlag, Pfungstadt 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 19, 31, 34
  2. ↑ Peteuil 2013: p. 47 f.
  3. ↑ Michael Opitz / Jörg Plath: Enjoy what you don't have: the flaneur Franz Hessel . P. 192. ISBN 3-8260-1128-7 . Digitized .
  4. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 47 f., 50 ff., 105 f.
  5. ↑ Feldvoss 2012: Free love for three. Online at http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/frei-liebe-zu-dritt.871.de.html?dram:article_id=127588 .
  6. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 57f., 73ff.
  7. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 83f., 89
  8. ↑ Peteuil 2013: p. 94ff.
  9. ↑ Focus Online 2013: Biography of a devil woman: Helen Hessel. Online edition .
  10. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 147ff., 151ff., 164ff.
  11. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 286f.
  12. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 311, 313f.
  13. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 333f., 335.
  14. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 344ff., 352.
  15. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 355, 384f., 390.
  16. ↑ Manfred Flügge (Ed., Afterword): Last homecoming to Paris. FH and his people in exile Texts by FH, Helen, Stéphane and Ulrich Hessel, Alfred Polgar , Wilhelm Speyer . Arsenal, Berlin 1989; ISBN 3-921-81043-4 . P. 158, 160f.
  17. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 263, 281
  18. ↑ Helen Grund: Gemstones through the ages. Retold to the goldsmith Emil Lettré. In: Frankfurter Zeitung. Supplement “For the Woman” (August 29, 1926). P. 9.
  19. ↑ Peteuil 2013: p. 283
  20. ↑ Ulrike Schmitzler (design): OE1 Radio-Kolleg. Journalism pioneers: Helen Hessel. 2014.
  21. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 291, 296f.
  22. ↑ Peteuil 2013: p. 332f.
  23. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 355f.
  24. ↑ Peteuil 2013: p. 367ff., 370
  25. ↑ Peteuil 2013: pp. 9f., 138
  26. ↑ Peteuil 2013: 371, 374ff.
  27. ↑ Review: I am a poor animal if you don't love me , Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 20, 2013, p. 17
personal data
SURNAME Hessel, Helen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reason, Helen (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German fashion journalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1982
Place of death Paris , France