Albert Drach

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Memorial plaque for the German and Austrian refugees in Sanary-sur-Mer , including Albert Drach
Albert Drach

Albert Drach (born December 17, 1902 in Vienna , † March 27, 1995 in Mödling ) was an Austrian Jewish writer and lawyer .

Life

Family and early years

On his father's side, Albert Drach came from large Sephardic farmers in Bukovina . His father Wilhelm Drach (1859–1935) studied mathematics and philosophy in Czernowitz and Vienna . Wilhelm stayed in Vienna, initially working as a high school professor, but later switched to banking and became a member of the board of directors of Länderbank . With his first wife, the Catholic Amalie Pyrker, he had a daughter Alma (1895–1961), who was raised Catholic . After the death of his wife Jenny Wilhelm Drach married Father (1875-1939), from a Viennese Ashkenazi came middle-class merchant family. Their son Albert was brought up Jewish , even if the family did not follow strictly religious views; the father was politically German-national .

Albert Drach grew up in Vienna and attended the Academic Gymnasium from 1913 to 1921 . When he saw a body of water while on a family vacation in Lunz am See, he decided to become immortal as a writer. His, according to his own memory, the first verse: "There is a house on a wall / banished to a rock ..." should be the beginning of a career as a writer, which only made waves in later years. In 1917 poems appeared in the Wiener Journal , his father financed the printing of the book of poems " Kinder der Träume " (1919).

In 1917 the father bought the Marienhof in Mödling and the family moved there, while Albert stayed in Vienna. He made friends with Anton Wildgans , who supported his literary ambitions. After graduating from high school , Drach studied law and received his doctorate in February 1926 . He submitted one of his previously unpublished dramas, " Satan Game of the Divine Marquis ", for the 1928 Kleist Prize . In addition to his writing activities, Drach ran a law firm in Mödling, but was supported financially by his father. When his father died in 1935, he had to live from his legal work.

After the Anschluss on March 13, 1938 and the subsequent ban on Jewish lawyers from practicing law in Austria , Drach initially refused to emigrate. He even fought against the provisional administrator of his house by legal means. As he was exposed to reprisals in Mödling, both general anti-Semitic and professional from previous opponents, he moved to Vienna. His sister Alma, married to the Polish industrialist Alexander Gartenberg since 1918, convinced him on October 25th to leave Vienna for Yugoslavia . His mother stayed behind in Mödling.

emigration

After a month's stay in Split , Drach went to Paris . Here he was supported by his uncle Rodolphe Lebel and financially by his sister. By order of the authorities, he had to stay in Nice from February 26, 1939 , where he lived relatively carefree until the declaration of war on September 3. It was here that a first version of the later so-called Great Protocol against Zwetschkenbaum was created . He did not frequent literary emigrant circles. The singer Joseph Schmidt was one of his friends and acquaintances . After the outbreak of war, Drach, like all adult male Germans, had to go to an internment camp , in his case the sports stadium in Antibes , now the Center de rassemblement Fort-Carré . Dismissed after a few days, he returned to Nice. In October he was interned again, this time in Les Milles near Aix-en-Provence , but was soon released again due to illness. Back in Nice, he met his sister who had fled Poland with her husband and was on her way to emigrate. On October 28th, his mother died in Vienna after a biliary operation.

In May 1940 Drach was interned again, again in Les Milles. Here he met Walter Hasenclever, among others . The camp was later described by the internees Lion Feuchtwanger , Alfred Kantorowicz and the psychoanalyst Fritz Wengraf . Drach described his experiences in Unsentimental Journey . During the collapse of France, the camp was evacuated and Drach was taken on a train via Bayonne on the Atlantic coast to Nîmes , where he was interned at Camp Saint-Nicolas . Drach fled from this camp and lived in Nice without French papers until September 1942. After the statute of the Jews came into force , Drach was arrested on September 8, 1942 and taken to the Rivesaltes assembly camp. Here he managed to pass himself off as an " Aryan ", among other things by having the abbreviation IKG after his date of birth, abbreviation for Israelite religious community , translated on his home certificate as "in Catholic faith". With documents from his sister, he also passed her Catholic mother off as his own. As a result, he was not a Jew under French law and was released. He lived in Nice again until German troops occupied the city in September 1943.

Drach hid in the village of Valdeblore , a small town in the sea ​​Alps near the Italian border. Thanks to the help of the community, he survived until the arrival of the US Army . He then worked in Nice as a translator for the American military and carried out his naturalization in France. In October 1947 he visited Vienna and Mödling again for the first time.

Back in Austria

Drachs grave at the Mödlinger Friedhof

He started working as a lawyer again in Vienna. The legal battle for his house in Mödling lasted until 1955. Furniture and library were lost. In June 1948 he moved to Mödling and opened his law firm in October. He also gave lectures on the radio, but was still unable to publish. His manuscript " The great protocol against Zwetschkenbaum " was rejected by 16 publishers until 1962. In 1951 he met his future wife Gerty Rauch, in 1952 son Wilhelm was born, and shortly after the wedding in 1954 daughter Jenny.

After he had submitted his " Small Protocols " to the Langen Müller publishing house, the publishing house decided to publish an eight-volume complete edition. The first volume was published in 1964 " The great protocol against Zwetschkenbaum ", which was a literary and bookselling success. The autobiographical novel " Unsentimental Journey " from 1966 had a rather disturbing effect on the critics. The world premiere of " Das Kasperlspiel vom Meister Siebentot " in 1967 at the Landestheater Darmstadt was a success. In 1968 Drach switched to Claassen-Verlag, the novel "ZZ" that is the meanwhile , however, was a failure, the other volumes went unnoticed. Drach continued to work as a lawyer in Mödling until he had to close his law firm in 1984 due to extensive blindness.

In 1987, Drach's work was rediscovered by André Fischer and successfully advertised. The Hanser Verlag published the Unsentimental Journey again in 1988 , which has now met with a wide response. In 1989 the new edition of The large protocol against Zwetschkenbaum followed at Hanser , in 1990 of "ZZ" that is the interim period .

Albert Drach died on March 27, 1995 at the age of 92 in Mödling. He is buried at the Mödlinger Friedhof.

The Albert Drach Memorial is located in the house where he died, Hauptstrasse 44.

Awards and honors

Literary work

writing style

Albert Drach emphasized again and again that the writing style was much more important to him than the processed material itself. The background for his distant look, his sober protocol style with sympathetic coldness towards the antihero, is the intention to want to represent something unadulterated. Drach tried to make of things what was offered to him, with the consequence of an ironic writing style heightened to cynicism . The irony enabled him on the one hand to tell precisely and on the other hand to distance himself from what was written. It is precisely this ironic structure of the texts that opens up further dimensions of meaning in addition to what is actually reported. This forces the reader to think about what has been read in order to discover what the real message is.

The protocol style is derived from the style of official protocols, especially recognizable through the use of indirect speeches. In the early Drach reception, in the 1960s, this was often interpreted as a quirky office style in the style of Herzmanovsky-Orlandos (whose works, by the way, were published by the same publisher). Rather, the protocol style serves to increase the distance to the main characters, to make it more difficult for the reader to identify with them.

Novels

The great protocol against Zwetschkenbaum , written in 1939, published only in 1964, is the best-known work of Drach. The Talmudic student Schmul Leib Zwetschkenbaum is accused of stealing plums and ends up in the mills of justice. The novel is set at the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the beginning of the First Republic.

Investigation on girls tells how two rape victims are branded as murderers of their rapist, the latter only actually disappearing. The novel was filmed in 1998 under the direction of Peter Payer with Anna Thalbach , Elke Winkens , Otto Sander and Max Tidof (see: Investigation on girls ).

Autobiographical writings

“ZZ” is the mean time. A protocol deals with Drach's experiences between his father's death in 1935 and his departure from Austria in 1938, where his mother stayed behind. However, this is also the time of the Austrian corporate state between democracy and the Third Reich. The characters are not named by name, but are called father, mother, son, etc. The only exception is Adolf Hitler. The son, that is, Drach himself, is described as a not too likable womanizer.

Unsentimental journey. A report is not written in minutes. The protagonist, Drach's alter ego Pierre Kucku, tells in first person the experiences of the French emigration. The actual events are often heavily revised in literary terms.

The condolences follow on from Unsentimental Reise and describe the first trip to Vienna, the repeated return to Nice, the time up to the marriage.

Dramas

Research places Drachs' dramas in the vicinity of Jarry and Pirandello . The dramatic characters are not drawn psychologically, but appear as typological characters.

The satan play of the divine marquis is about the story of the marquis de Sade during the French Revolution.

The puppet game by master Siebentot is an anti-Hitler play in which the figure of Punch and Judy embodies evil.

reception

Albert Drach's literary work is characterized by an extreme lack of simultaneity, in literary production on the one hand and in publication and reception on the other. It is a reception story of being forgotten and rediscovered. The breakthrough came with the then 62-year-old with the publication of the Great Protocol against Zwetschkenbaum in 1964 by Langen-Müller. In general, however, Drach was known as a "cultivated, conservative kuk author" and his concerns were completely misunderstood. For example, his sober, cynical autobiographical report Unsentimental Journey in 1966 was barely registered and a failure, while this book is rated today as an outstanding text on the subject of exile. Although the reception of his work took place in spurts and under dubious circumstances during his lifetime, the Büchner Prize winner has not yet been completely forgotten.

Works

First editions

  • Children of Dreams , Amalthea, Zurich / Leipzig / Vienna 1919
  • Collected works (until 1966: Langen-Müller, Munich / Vienna)
    • Vol. 1. The great protocol against Zwetschkenbaum , 1964
    • Vol. 2. The game from Master Siebentot and other disguises , 1965
    • Vol. 3. The Little Protocols and the Goggle Book , 1965
    • Vol. 4. The Juxtaposition Example and Inner Panels , 1966
    • Vol. 5. Unsentimental Journey. A report , 1966
    • Vol. 6. ZZ this is the meantime , 1968 (from here: Claassen, Hamburg / Düsseldorf)
    • Vol. 7. God's death an accident , 1972
    • Vol. 8. Investigation on girls , 1971
  • In the matter of de Sade , Claassen, Düsseldorf 1974
  • Yes and no , Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1992
  • The condolences. After sharing a diary , Droschl, Graz / Vienna 1993
  • Irony of luck. Small protocols and stories , Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1994
  • "O Catilina" , Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1995

Work edition

Albert Drach. Works in ten volumes . Edited by Ingrid Cella, Bernhard Fetz , Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler and Eva Schobel. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2002ff.

  • Vol. 1: Investigation on girls. Criminal record . Edited by Ingrid Cella. 2002, ISBN 978-3-552-05211-6 .
  • Vol. 2: ZZ this is the meantime. A protocol . Edited and with an afterword by Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler with the collaboration of Eva Schobel. 2003, ISBN 978-3-552-05230-7 .
  • Vol. 3: Unsentimental journey. A report . Edited by Bernhard Fetz and Eva Schobel. 2005, ISBN 978-3-552-05265-9 .
  • Vol. 4: Condolences. After sharing a diary . Edited by Bernhard Fetz and Eva Schobel. 2006, ISBN 978-3-552-05266-6 .
  • Vol. 5: The great protocol against Zwetschkenbaum . Edited by Eva Schobel and Bernhard Fetz, afterword by André Fischer. 2008, ISBN 978-3-552-05226-0 .
  • Vol. 7 / I: The Goggle Book . Edited by Gerhard Hubmann and Eva Schobel, afterword by Eva Schobel. 2011, ISBN 978-3-552-05548-3 .
  • Vol. 7 / II: Official act against an immortal. The little logs . Edited by Ingrid Cella, Gerhard Hubmann and Eva Schobel. 2013, ISBN 978-3-552-05267-3 .
  • Vol. 7 / III: The stories . Edited by Ingrid Cella, Alexandra Millner and Eva Schobel. 2014, ISBN 978-3-552-05666-4 .
  • Vol. 9: O Catilina / Kudrun . Edited by Gerhard Fuchs. 2018, ISBN 978-3-552-05268-0 .
  • Vol. 10: Poems . Edited by Reinhard Schulte. 2009, ISBN 978-3-552-05271-0 .

supporting documents

The article is mainly based on the following documents:

  • Eva Schobel: Albert Drach. An angry sage . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg u. a. 2002, ISBN 3-7017-1314-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Drach Society: Biography - Albert Drach Society. In: www.albert-drach.at. Retrieved September 9, 2016 .
  2. ↑ See André Fischer: “Cynicism is an application of irony.” On Albert Drach's humor. In: Albert Drach. Edited by Gerhard Fuchs and Günther A. Höfler. Graz, Vienna: Droschl 1995. (= Dossier. The series of books on Austrian authors. 8.) pp. 31–50.
  3. ↑ Burkhard Müller: No tear for the father . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 22, 2003 (quoted from perlentaucher.de ).
  4. ↑ Cf. Eva Schobel: Albert Drach - A Lifelong Attempt to Survive. In: Albert Drach. Edited by Gerhard Fuchs and Günther A. Höfler. Graz, Vienna: Droschl 1995. (= Dossier. The book series about Austrian authors. 8.) pp. 358–364.

further reading

  • Hans Heinrich: Memory of Albert Drach. WM-Literatur-Verlag, Weilheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-9809600-2-1
  • Mary Cosgrove: Grotesque ambivalence. Melancholy and mourning in the prose work of Albert Drach. Tübingen: Niemeyer 2004. (= Conditio Judaica; 49) ISBN 3-484-65149-0
  • Albert Drach , ed. v. Gerhard Fuchs u. Günther A. Höfler. Graz et al: Droschl 1995. (= Dossier; 8) ISBN 3-85420-406-X
  • In the matter of Albert Drach. Seven contributions to the work , ed. v. Bernhard Fetz. Vienna: Universitätsverl. 1995. ISBN 3-85114-209-8
  • André Fischer: Staged naivete. On the aesthetic simulation of history with Günter Grass, Albert Drach and Walter Kempowski. Munich: Fink 1992. (= Theory and History of Literature and Fine Arts; 85; Series C, NF; 9) ISBN 3-7705-2754-2
  • Anne Fuchs: A space of anxiety. Dislocation and abjection in modern German-Jewish literature. Amsterdam u. a .: Rodopi 1999. (= Amsterdam publications on language and literature; 138) ISBN 90-420-0797-4
  • Alexandra Millner: Spiegelwelten - Weltenspiegel. On the mirror motif from Elfriede Jelinek, Adolf Muschg, Thomas Bernhard, Albert Drach. Vienna: Braumüller 2004. (= Viennese works on literature; 19) ISBN 3-7003-1484-1
  • Herbert Scheschy: Albert Drach and the history of literature. A discourse about "wrong morals" and "wrong" literature. Frankfurt am Main-Bern-Bruxelles-New York-Oxford- Warszawa -Wien: Peter Lang 2017. ISBN 978-3-631-67520-5
  • Matthias Settele: The protocol style of Albert Drach. Law, justice, language, literature . Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1992. (= Europäische Hochschulschriften; Series 1, German Language and Literature; 1343) ISBN 3-631-44911-9
  • Jürgen Egyptien: Albert Drach. In: Andreas B. Kilcher (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature. Jewish authors in the German language from the Enlightenment to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01682-X , pp. 123-125.
  • Ernestine Schlant: Albert Drach. In: Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 85: Austrian Fictions Writers After 1914. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book, Detroit 1989, ISBN 0-8103-4563-3 , pp. 138-147, (English).
  • Eva Schobel: Albert Drach. An angry sage. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg-Vienna-Frankfurt / Main 2002, ISBN 3-7017-1314-6 . (extensive biography)

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Drach, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1995
Place of death Mödling