Alexander Moritz Frey

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The paving boxes , memorial to the book burning on Bonn's market square

Alexander Moritz August Theodor Frey (born March 29, 1881 in Munich , † January 24, 1957 in Zurich ) was a German writer. He is considered an important representative of German literary fantasy . He wrote and published primarily as AM Frey. He also used the pseudonym Alexander Funk.

life and work

Frey grew up in Munich and Mannheim . He studied law in Heidelberg and Freiburg i. Br. , But did not graduate. From 1907 he lived in Munich, where he was friends with Thomas Mann and began to write. In 1913 he published his volume of short stories, Dunkle Gänge , which was highly acclaimed by critics , followed in 1914 by his first novel Solneman the Invisible .

In 1915 Frey was drafted into military service and served as a medical sergeant on the Western Front (First World War) . He repeatedly processed his personal experiences in the war in his works, and they shaped his basic pacifist attitude.

On March 15, 1933, his friend Alfred Neumann took him across the border to Austria in the trunk of his car after the SA had ravaged his apartment on the same day and an arrest warrant had been issued against him. He initially settled in Salzburg (first living on Mönchsberg , then on Getreidegasse ). His impressions of Salzburg flowed into the novel Hell and Heaven . In 1933 he received the novella award from the Amsterdam émigré magazine Die Sammlung . From 1936 onwards there were serious collisions with the Austrian Aliens Police , which was more and more influenced by the German Reich , so that Frey had to flee further to Switzerland in 1938 , where an officially decreed writing ban was initially imposed on him. He lived in Basel and temporarily also in Zurich, wrote for the magazines Maß und Wert , Merkur and Atlantis , and finally also for National-Zeitung (Basel), Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich). He was denied naturalization in Switzerland until shortly before his death on the grounds that he was not “ assimilated ” enough . He died impoverished and largely forgotten as a result of a stroke in Basel.

Frey and Hitler

During the First World War , Frey got to know Corporal Adolf Hitler , who served in the same regiment , who tried to win him over to his ideas and to use Frey's literary talent for himself. In his memoirs, Frey describes how, disgusted by Hitler's demeanor, he kept his distance. Even after the war, Hitler asked directly whether Frey, as an old comrade in arms, did not want to participate in the new movement. Frey kept refusing. This difficult relationship was a major reason for Frey's emigration . During the book burning in Germany in 1933 , works by Frey were also burned.

In Frey's anti-war novel Die Pflasterkästen , which clearly contains autobiographical features, Hitler obviously does not appear.

Works (selection)

Dark corridors, original edition, Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1913
  • Dark corridors. Twelve stories from night and shadow . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1913
  • Solneman the Invisible (novel). With 14 woodcuts by Otto Nückel . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1914 (new edition by Elsinor Verlag, Coesfeld 2010)
  • Kastan and the prostitutes (novel). Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1918
  • The murderer without the deed and other stories. Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1918
  • Haunted everyday life. Eleven stories of dreams and hustle and bustle . With twelve woodcuts by Otto Nückel . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1920 (new edition by Blitz-Verlag, Windeck 2004)
  • Jumps. Thirteen grotesques. Wagner, Stuttgart 1922
  • The scary evening. Wolff, Munich 1923
  • Fantastic orgy . Chronos-Verlag, Ludwigsburg 1924
  • Robinsonade to twelve. Novel. Drei Masken Verlag, Munich 1925 (new edition by Elsinor Verlag, Coesfeld 2014)
  • Phantoms. Strange stories. Haus Lhotzky Verlag, Munich 1925
  • Much ado about love. Drei Masken-Verlag, Munich 1926
  • Outsider. Twelve strange stories. Drei Masken-Verlag, Munich 1927
  • Lights and laughter. Stories. Häntzschel, Göttingen 1928
  • The Curious One (story) 1928. in Beyond the Dreams (ed. Robert N. Bloch). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990
  • The plaster boxes. A field medical novel . Kiepenheuer, Berlin 1929 (new edition by Elsinor Verlag, Coesfeld 2011)
  • Man (story). Querido, Amsterdam 1940
  • Birl, the bold cat . A fairy tale. Burg-Verlag, Basel 1945
  • Hell and Heaven (novel). Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich 1945 (new edition in the Gutenberg Book Guild, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-7632-3489-6 )
  • Hotel Aquarium (Roman). Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich 1946
  • Small menagerie. (Introduction by Thomas Mann ). Limes, Verlag, Wiesbaden 1955
  • Demonized theater (novel). Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1957

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Frey, Alexander Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frey, Alexander Moritz August Theodor (full name); Funk, Alexander (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1957
Place of death Zurich