Kasimir Edschmid

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Kasimir Edschmid (born October 5, 1890 in Darmstadt ; † August 31, 1966 in Vulpera , Engadin ; actually Eduard Schmid ) was a German writer who can initially be assigned to Expressionism . After the Second World War he held high literary posts.

Kasimir Edschmid's grave in the “Old Cemetery” in Darmstadt

life and work

After attending the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt, Kasimir Edschmid studied Romance studies in Munich , Paris , Giessen and Strasbourg . Above all, this brought him valuable contacts to bohemianism and the prelude to a series of poems, stories and treatises or manifestos of the new expressionist style.

Facts, moral sermons, character drawings were now considered "junk" that had to give way to flowery fancies. When the Darmstadt Secession was launched in 1919 , Edschmid was still in charge. However, the " Golden Twenties " saw him as a defector to the previously reviled realism . If you follow Kurt Tucholsky's world stage cast , realism did not necessarily wait for Edschmid. Edschmid scored a notable hit in 1928 with Sport um Gagaly - a prototype of the so-called sports novel .

Edschmid and National Socialism

Extensive trips to the Mediterranean, Africa and South America helped him to produce extensive publications, which arouse interest in other countries and customs, but at least in places testify to the nationalist and racist prejudices of their author. Nevertheless, in 1933 works by Edschmid also ended up on the stake of the National Socialist book burning ; This was followed by a ban on speaking and broadcasting, and in some cases also on writing. Unlike his partner Erna Pinner, he stayed in the country and kept himself afloat with “tolerably unsuspicious publications in the Third Reich”, making him one of those who chose the path of so-called inner emigration .

After 1945

In 1945 Edschmid returned to Darmstadt from Upper Bavaria. A quote from Edschmid, "We don't want to talk about it anymore", also characterizes the opinion of many Germans after the war and enabled Edschmid to once again make a little career as a literary functionary in the young Federal Republic. He was a co-founder of the Darmstadt Secession and in 1949 General Secretary of the PEN Center of the FRG, in 1960 its Honorary President. In addition, the “writer functionary” held numerous other offices, so that he could afford a car and a house with a domestic worker on the famous Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt . Presumably in 1966 he and 1,200 other “intellectuals” signed a petition against the threatened passing of the emergency laws .

Kasimir Edschmid died of heart failure on August 31, 1966 in the Hotel Waldhaus Vulpera . An obituary says: "Kasimir Edschmid died in a place that he loved very much: Vulpera in the Engadin". Kasimir Edschmid was buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt (grave site: IG 110).

“We don't want to talk about it anymore” - Kasimir Edschmid and Erna Pinner

In 1916 the young Edschmid met the Frankfurt artist Erna Pinner. "You are a kind of Romeo and Juliet of the Weimar period." Pinner accompanied him on his numerous trips, illustrated his books and designed stage costumes for his plays. In 1935 she emigrated to England. Edschmid himself stayed in Italy for a long time from 1933. In 1941 he married Elisabeth von Harnier, who was 20 years his junior. Together with their two small children, the couple retired to a mountain farm in Ruhpolding . Erna Pinner, on the other hand, got involved with friends like Anna Mahler in refugee aid and built up a laborious but ultimately extremely successful career as a scientific draftsman and author.

After the war, Edschmid resumed contact with Pinner by letter. The old cordiality, however, no longer appeared. Edschmid was also careful to avoid sensitive political issues. The book We don't want to talk about it anymore ... Erna Pinner and Kasimir Edschmid: A story in letters (Munich 1999) was created from this correspondence . The main title reflects a remark by Edschmid that referred to the time of National Socialism. The role of Kasimir Edschmid's daughter-in-law Ulrike Edschmid as author or editor of this volume is controversial. On the other hand, Edschmid seems to go on the offensive with his autobiographical novel Das gute Recht from 1946. Here he describes the war years of an artist family in a remote mountain village. However, Karen Fuchs mentions that Pinner was alienated by this portrayal. “In a guerrilla war with some staunch National Socialists who are forcibly quartered in the house, the couple demonstrate upright moral convictions. The novel reads like a clumsy justification, and not just from today's perspective. "

Honors

Works

  • Verses. Hymns. Chants. 1911.
  • Photos. Lyric projections. 1913.
  • The six mouths. Novellas. 1915.
  • The frenzied life. Novellas. 1915.
  • Timur. Novellas. 1916.
  • The Karlsreis. Narrative. 1918.
  • The princess. Narrative. 1918.
  • Stand stroked by lights. Poems. 1919.
  • About expressionism in literature and the new poetry. 1919.
  • The agate balls. Novel. 1920.
  • The double-headed nymph. Essays on literature and the present. 1920.
  • In memoriam Lisl Steinrück. 1920.
  • Kean. Play. 1921.
  • The doll book. 1921.
  • Women. Novellas. 1922.
  • Hamsun. Flaubert. Talk. 1922.
  • The Amazon. Narrative. 1922.
  • The book decameron. A ten-night tour of European society and literature. 1922.
  • The angels with the whimsy. 1923.
  • On the natural history of the antelopes. 1923.
  • Bullis and Pekingese. Animal sketches. 1925.
  • The Russians Zoo. Animal sketches. 1926.
  • Basques. Bulls. Arabs. 1927.
  • The ghostly adventures of Hofrat Brüstlein. Novel. Vienna 1927.
  • The big travel book: From Stockholm to Corsica, from Monte Carlo to Assisi. 1927.
  • Luxury dogs. Animal sketches. 1927.
  • The new woman. Stories. 1927.
  • Sports around Gagaly. Novel. Zurich 1928.
  • Animals. Girls and antelope hunt on the Nile. 1928.
  • Africa: naked and dressed. 1929; 1951 heavily edited and reissued.
  • Story of the Swahili girls and the black warriors. 1929.
  • Lord Byron. Novel of a passion. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1929.
  • Jones and the bulls. in: New German narrators vol. 1. Max Brod et al. Paul Franke, Berlin o. J. 1930.
  • Exotic animal stories. 1930.
  • Hello World. 16 stories. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1930.
  • Fine people or the great ones of this earth. Novel. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1931.
  • Splendor and misery of South America. 1931.
  • Indians. 1931.
  • German fate. 1932.
  • The magic and grandeur of the Mediterranean. 1932.
  • In the mirror of the Rhine. West German trips. 1933.
  • The southern kingdom. Roman of the German trains. Historicizing novel. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Berlin / Vienna / Leipzig 1933.
  • West German trips. Travel pictures. Frankfurt am Main 1933
  • Italy. Laurel. Sorrow and fame. 1935. (First part of a five-part text.)
  • The Panama drama. 1936.
    • Lesseps - The Drama of Panama. 1947.
  • The angel of love. Novel of a passion. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1937.
  • Italy. Gardens. Men and fortunes. 1937. (Italian writing part II.)
  • Erika. Narrative. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1938.
  • Italy. Islands. Romans and Caesars. 1939. (Italian writing Part III.)
  • Italy. Shepherds. Heroes and millennia. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1941. (Italian script, part IV.)
  • The good right. autobiographical novel. Kurt Desch, 1946.
  • Italian chants. Darmstadt 1947.
  • Colorful earth. Travel directions. 1948.
  • In the Diamond Valley. Four stories. 1948.
  • Treasure hunter. Stories. 1948.
  • Italy. Seafaring. Palm trees and immortality. 1948. (Italian part V.)
  • The magic thread. Novel of an industry. Kurt Desch, 1949.
  • If it's roses. they will bloom. Novel about Georg Büchner . 1950. New edition in 1966 under the title Georg Büchner. a German revolution. Filming in 1981.
  • The belly dance. Exotic novels. Kurt Desch, 1952.
  • The southern kingdom. 1953.
  • The captain and the ford. Narrative. 1953.
  • The Marshal and Grace. Novel about Simón Bolívar . 1954.
  • Early manifestos. Epochs of Expressionism. 1957.
  • Three houses by the sea. Novel. Kurt Desch, 1958.
  • Three crowns for Rico. A Staufer novel. Bertelsmann, 1958.
  • Storms and silence on the Mediterranean. A panorama. Ullstein, 1959.
  • Diary 1958–1960. 1960.
  • Lively expressionism. Arguments. Shape. Memories. 1961.
  • Portraits and memorial stones. 1962.
  • Letters from the Expressionists. 1964.
  • The early narratives. 1965.
  • Whiskey for Algeria? 1965.
  • Italy. Landscape. History. Culture. 1968.

literature

  • Lutz Weltmann (Ed.): Kasimir Edschmid. The way, the world, the work. Stuttgart 1955.
  • Zenta Maurina : Years of Liberation. Swedish Diaries 1951–1958 (entry from August 2, 1952, p. 41 f.), Memmingen 1965.
  • Ursula Guenther-Brammer: Kasimir Edschmid. Bibliography. Darmstadt 1970.
  • Kasimir Edschmid in memory. Speeches. Darmstadt 1971.
  • Ulrike Edschmid : We don't want to talk about it anymore. Munich 1999, ISBN 3-630-87027-9 .
  • Hermann Schlösser : Kasimir Edschmid. Expressionist, traveler, novelist. A work biography. Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89528-612-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edschmid speaks four types of French, one of which is almost correct, but his German is poor, the colleague claims - see: Kaspar Hauser [ie Kurt Tucholsky]: Dienstzeugnisse. From: Die Weltbühne , March 3, 1925, No. 9, p. 329, accessed on January 5, 2018.
  2. ↑ Carsten Tergast: From Expressionism to the FRG - Kasimir Edschmids problematic career. In the ZVAB blog, August 11, 2008, accessed on January 5, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c Viola Hardam: Entre nous - A love in letters from Erna Pinner and Kasimir Edschmid. literaturkritik.de , February 1, 2000, accessed January 5, 2018.
  4. ↑ http://blog.zvab.com/2008/08/11/vom-expressionismus-in-die-brd-kasimir-edschmids-problematischer-werdegang/ , last accessed on May 5, 2020
  5. ↑ a b Karen Fuchs: The past is different: Erna Pinner and Kasimir Edschmid - the literary dream couple of the twenties. In: Die Welt , April 24, 1999, accessed January 5, 2018.
  6. ^ Günter Albrecht, Kurt Böttcher, Herbert Greiner-Mai , Paul Günter Krohn (eds.): Lexicon of German-speaking writers from the beginning to the present. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1972. In Edschmid's “books about foreign countries and peoples written from the point of view of a cosmopolitan”, the GDR lexicon can not find anything objectionable.
  7. ↑ Graves of honor in the old cemetery. - Kasimir Edschmid (1890-1966) 1 G 110. Website of the City of Darmstadt, accessed on January 5, 2018.
  8. ↑ Quoted by Jochen P. Ziegelmann on the private website about the book project Hotel Waldhaus Vulpera. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  9. ↑ About the canal builder Ferdinand de Lesseps . Originally written in 1935 and first printed as a special edition in 1936.
  10. ^ Website of the book , accessed on January 5, 2018 from Aisthesis Verlag
personal data
SURNAME Edschmid, Kasimir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmid, Eduard (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1966
Place of death Vulpera