Karl Benno von Mechow
Karl Benno von Mechow (born July 24, 1897 in Bonn , † September 11, 1960 in Emmendingen ) was a German writer .
life and work
Mechow, who came from an old officer family, took part in the First World War as a volunteer . Afterwards, as a nationally minded author, he published some works in which he tended towards Landser romanticism and, above all, described the war as an adventure. He studied agriculture and lived as a farmer in Brannenburg in Bavaria . Later he also wrote novels about man's bond with nature, such as “The rural year” (1929) or “Vorsommer” (1933) and was highly valued as an author by the Scholl siblings . During the Third Reich , Mechow and Paul Alverdes published the national-conservative literary magazine Das Innere Reich from 1934 onwards , but ended the collaboration in 1938.
Karl Benno von Mechow was particularly closely connected with Ernst Wiechert , whose shepherd novella contains a dedication to Mechow. As Georg Britting reported, Mechow suffered from symptoms of a manic-depressive illness from the mid-1930s and was treated several times in psychiatric clinics.
From 1945 he lived as a freelance writer in Freiburg im Breisgau . As his mental illness worsened, Mechow hardly published any new works in the post-war period. He died in Emmendingen in 1960, but is buried in Freiburg. Among other things, he was a member of the Innviertel artists' guild .
reception
In the lexicon of world literature , Mechow is characterized as a sensitive, perfectly formed narrator of male behavior in the portrayal of internal or interpersonal conflicts , in whose work echoes of Fontane and especially Stifter can be found.
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Benno von Mechow in the catalog of the German National Library
- Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
- Obituary in SPIEGEL
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas F. Schneider, Hans Wagener (ed.): From Richthofen to Remarque: German-language prose for World War I. 1st edition. Editions Rodopi, 2003, ISBN 90-420-0955-1 , p. 346.
- ^ Leonore Krenzlin, Klaus Weigelt (ed.): Ernst Wiechert in conversation. Encounters and insights into his work . De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-020062-1 , p. 41.
- ↑ Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting (Ed.): Letters from Georg Britting to Georg Jung 1943 to 1963 . Höhenmoos 2005, ISBN 3-8335-9001-7 , p. 61.
- ^ Gero von Wilpert (Ed.): Lexicon of world literature. Volume 2: Authors LZ. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-59050-5 , p. 1001.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Mechow, Karl Benno from |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German author |
DATE OF BIRTH | July 24, 1897 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Bonn , North Rhine-Westphalia |
DATE OF DEATH | September 11, 1960 |
Place of death | Emmendingen , Baden-Wuerttemberg |