Pierre Bertaux

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pierre Bertaux (born October 8, 1907 in Lyon , † August 14, 1986 in Saint-Cloud , Département Hauts-de-Seine ) was a French Germanist , politician and secret service specialist in the Resistance. He was an officer of the Legion of Honor , bearer of the Croix de guerre and Compagnon de la Liberation .

Life

Pierre Bertaux was the son of the Germanist Félix Bertaux . His great-uncle Felix Piquet was also a Germanist. Through his father, who had made great contributions to the implementation of Gerhart Hauptmann's work in France and was friends with many German writers in exile, Pierre became acquainted with German culture and literature at an early age. He first visited Lycées in Rouen and Mainz , later the Lycées Janson-de-Sailly and Louis-le-Grand in Paris . After switching to the École normal supérieure (ENS) in 1926, his schoolmates included u. a. Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron . Bertaux then studied in Paris and Berlin . From 1927 to 1928 he was the first French student at Berlin University after the First World War and lecturer at the Romance Studies Institute under Eduard Wechssler . In Berlin, Bertaux met Brigitte Bermann-Fischer, Samuel Fischer's daughter , and Golo Mann , with whom he had long-standing friendships. With his dissertation “ Hölderlin . Essai de biographie intérieure ”, Bertaux received his doctorate in 1936 as the youngest Docteur ès lettres in France.

In 1932 Bertaux was an electoral assistant for the socialist MP Pierre Viénot , who campaigned for the Comité Franco-Allemand d'Information et de Documentation (also known as the Mayrisch Committee ) and a Franco-German rapprochement in the late 1920s . 1934-35 Bertaux worked on behalf of Georges Mandel for French radio as head of émissions parlées (broadcasting director for word-of-mouth broadcasts). From 1936–37 he was office manager at Viénot, who meanwhile developed independence statutes for the French mandate areas Lebanon and Syria as Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs . In the following two years Bertaux took on teaching positions in German at the universities of Rennes and Toulouse

From 1939 to 1940 Bertaux was a member of the French army, first as a translator, then at the Ministry of Information as an organizer of German-language programs. After the French defeat in 1940 , he was one of the leading figures of the Resistance in the unoccupied zone of southern France . In 1941 he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment by a military tribunal of the Vichy regime in Toulon . After his release he went underground and during the Liberation of 1944 became a commissioner ("Commissaire") in Toulouse . From 1946 to 1947 he was cabinet director for public works and transport, from 1947 to 1948 prefect in the Rhône department . After further administrative activities, he was appointed director of the Sûreté nationale in 1949. He lost this post when he testified in court in 1951 that he could rely on a word of honor from the gangster Leca (the thief who stole the jewels of the Begum ). As a consultant to S. Fischer Verlag , he played a key role in its decision to publish paperback books in the future . From 1953 to 1955, Pierre Bertaux sat in the Senate as Senator for French Sudan , now Mali .

In 1958, Bertaux continued his university career and taught German at the University of Lille until 1965 . Together with Ilse Grubrich-Simitis , he advised S. Fischer-Verlag in the early 1960s on the development of the paperback series Welt im Werden , which then dealt with groundbreaking new topics such as evolutionary biology , cybernetics , automation and the like. a. busy. From 1965 to 1981 he was a professor at the Sorbonne . In 1968 he founded the "Institut d'allemand d'Asnières" (today Département Études Germaniques of the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 ), which he led as director and which served him as a laboratory for new forms of German studies: the written and oral language of instruction was German German-language daily newspapers and mass media should serve as teaching materials. All students should get to know German culture ( civilization allemande ) in real life for a year at a German university and half a year in a German company . The aim of the training was "young Europeans". Bertaux was also strongly committed to a German-French student exchange. In 1970 Bertaux was awarded the Goethe Medal in Germany and in 1975 the Heinrich Heine Prize of the City of Düsseldorf . Bertaux died on August 14, 1986 at the age of 78 in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine. His son Daniel Bertaux is a renowned sociologist , his son Jean-Loup Bertaux is a well-known astronomer , and his son Michel is a lawyer.

As one of the most important French Germanists of the 20th century, Bertaux gave Hölderlin research new impulses, even if his theses related to the Jacobinism of the Swabian poet and the statement that Hölderlin was not insane but a "noble simulator", remained controversial to this day. Bertaux was also considered an excellent Goethe expert. In many ways his thinking went beyond the usual framework of the academic subject of German studies in France as well as in Germany.

Works (selection)

In French:

  • Hölderlin, Essai de biographie intérieure , Paris, Hachette, 1936
  • La mutation humaine , 1964
  • La libération de Toulouse et de sa région , éd. Hachette, 1973
  • Hölderlin ou le temps d'un poète , Paris, Gallimard, 1983
  • Mémoires interrompus par Pierre Bertaux, Hansgerd Schulte, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2000 ISBN 2910212149
  • Un normalies à Berlin. Lettres franco-allemandes (1927–1933) . Edited by Hans Manfred Bock . PIA, Asnières 2001 (Publications de l'Institut d'Allemand 29). ISBN 2-910212-16-5 (partly with German translation)

In German:

  • Mutation of humanity: future and meaning in life . Scherz, Munich 1963 (also under the title Mutation of Mankind: Diagnoses and Prognoses in S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1963)
  • Africa. From prehistory to the present (Fischer Weltgeschichte, vol. 32). S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1966
  • Holderlin and the French Revolution . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1969 (New edition: Aufbau, Berlin 1990. ISBN 978-3351017057 )
  • How I became a Germanist . In Siegfried Unseld (ed.): How, why and to what end did I become a literary historian? A collection of essays on the occasion of Robert Minder's 70th birthday , pp. 27–38. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1972
  • Friedrich Holderlin . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1978 ISBN 3-518-02148-6 (new edition: Insel, Frankfurt / M. 2000 ISBN 978-3458343523 )
  • A French student in Berlin . In: Sinn und Form 35 (1983), H. 2, pp. 314-327
  • I play really nice games with you! To Goethe's play instinct . Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1986. ISBN 978-3458145042

literature

  • Brigitte B. Fischer, About the editor . In: Friedrich Hölderlin: Poetry, writings, letters. Selected and edited by Pierre Bertaux (Fischer Bücherei 184). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1957
  • Ingrid Riedel (ed.), Hölderlin without myth (Kleine Vandenhoeck series 356/357/358). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973. ISBN 3-525-33323-4
  • Hansgerd Schulte (Ed.), Games and Preludes. Game elements in literature, science and philosophy. A collection of essays on the occasion of Pierre Bertaux's 70th birthday . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1978. ISBN 3-518-06985-3
  • Chryssoula Kambas, La famille Bertaux. In: Michel Espagne and Michael Werner (eds.), Histoire des études germaniques en France (1900–1970) (French). CNRS Editions, Paris 1994, pp. 205-222. ISBN 2-271-05054-5
  • Gaby Sonnabend, Pierre Viénot (1897–1944): an intellectual in politics (Paris historical studies 69). Oldenbourg, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-486-57563-5
  • Rita Pokorny, love as a method. On the 100th birthday of Pierre Bertaux . In: Sinn und Form 59 (2007), H. 6, pp. 847-854

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pierre Bertaux: Un normalien à Berlin. Lettres franco-allemandes (1927–1933) . Edited by Hans Manfred Bock . PIA, Asnières 2001 (Publications de l'Institut d'Allemand 29). ISBN 2-910212-16-5
  2. ↑ Golo Mann: Memories and Thoughts. Part 2: Years of apprenticeship in France . S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1999. ISBN 3-10-047911-4 . Pierre Bertaux: A French student in Berlin . In: Sinn und Form 35 (1983), H. 2, p. 322
  3. ^ A b biography of Pierre Bertaux (French) on the homepage of the Ordre de la Liberation
  4. ↑ Saturday 2005, pp. 348–356
  5. ↑ Theodore H. White: Embers in the ashes. Europe in our time . S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1954, p. 131; Henri Noguères / M. Degliame-Fouché / J.-L. Vigier: Histoire de la Résistance en France de 1940 à 1945. 1. La première année. June 1940 - June 1941 . Laffont, Paris 1967, pp. 338 and 358
  6. ↑ the so-called "Germanist Program ", since 1985 Program d´Études Allemandes (PEA) , on Bertaux's efforts see p. Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus : Academic Mobility between Germany and France (1925–1992) . In: DAAD-Forum 16, pp. 131-132. German Academic Exchange Service, Bonn 1994. ISBN 3-87192-511-X
  7. ↑ fr. Wikipedia Daniel Bertaux
  8. ↑ fr. Wikipedia Jean-Loup Bertaux

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bertaux, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French German studies specialist
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyon
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1986
Place of death Saint-Cloud