Alfred Günther

Alfred Günther around 1926 on a photograph by Genja Jonas

Alfred Otto Hugo Günther (born March 5, 1885 in Dresden , † December 17, 1969 in Stuttgart - Degerloch ) was a German writer and journalist.

Life

Alfred Günther was born in Dresden as the son of a train driver. He grew up in Löbau and started an apprenticeship in a machine factory in Löbau after finishing school. Günther had to break off his studies at the state colleges in Chemnitz after one semester because his father died and he could no longer afford the costs of studying.

Günther moved to Dresden in 1905 and began to be literary. In 1908 his first work, the volume of poetry Phönix , appeared in print. Like Phönix , his follow-up work Von Gott und Frauen can also be assigned to the poetry of Expressionism . Günther also worked as a journalist and worked at the instigation of Julius Ferdinand Wollf from 1913 to 1929 as a features editor (abbreviation “ag”) for the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten . He was mainly active as a literary critic and was committed "to the establishment of Expressionism in the Dresden public". In the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten, Günther's own poems also appeared, who was friends with numerous poets and painters of Expressionism in Dresden, including Conrad Felixmüller , Oskar Kokoschka and Walter Hasenclever . He worked for various expressionist magazines, including the magazine Menschen and the Neue Schaubühne . In 1919 he co-founded the Dresden Workers' Art Association alongside Will Grohmann , Lasar Segall and others , which was supposed to bring expressionists and workers closer together. Günther was also a member of other literary associations in the city of Dresden, such as the Literary Society around 1917 .

Günther's first marriage was divorced in 1923 after eleven years, with two sons. In April 1925 he married the Jewish photographer Genja Jonas , who became known primarily as a child photographer and as the photographer of Gret Palucca . From 1929 to 1933 Günther was editor-in-chief of Reclams Universum in Leipzig and then worked as a freelance writer and journalist. During the time of National Socialism , Günther was classified as " Jewish versippt " and in 1936 excluded from the Reich Chamber of Literature. He was banned from writing and publishing. Genja Jonas hired her husband to work in her photo studio; after her death from cancer in May 1938, Günther took over the studio. He sold it to the photographer Charlotte Rudolph in September 1938 . After a renewed application, he was accepted back into the Reichsschrifttumskammer in 1939.

Günther moved to Stuttgart around 1940, where he was editor at Rowohlt Verlag from 1941 to 1943 . After the end of the Second World War , Günther worked until 1955 as chief editor of the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart. He supervised z. B. Paul Celan's collection of poems Poppy and Memory (1952). He was also active as a literary translator from English and French. Günther died in Stuttgart in 1969.

Fritz Maskos created a bust of Alfred Günther around 1925, which is owned by the Dresden City Gallery and is part of the permanent exhibition in the Dresden Landhaus . Both Lasar Segall and Otto Dix (1919) created portraits of Alfred Günther.

Publications

In addition to numerous articles in magazines (including Reclams Universum ) and newspapers (Dresden Latest News, Leipzig Latest News , feature section of the DNB), Alfred Günther published the following books:

• Phoenix. Hand drawings . - Volume of poetry, EW Bonsels, Munich 1908 (volume of poetry)
• Of God and women. Poems . EW Bonsels, Munich 1912
• Incantation and dream. Poems . Emil Richter, Dresden 1920
• Paganini in Lucca Bachmair, Munich 1929 (story)
• Captain Fabian. Acting . Simrock, Berlin 1934 (play based on Heinrich von Kleist's Die Marquise von O .... )
• Philipp Maenz. acting . Ahn & Sinmrock, Berlin 1935
• The young Shakespeare. 7 unknown years . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1947
• William Shakespeare . Volume 1 & 2. Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1965
• Phoenix two. Seals from the Dresden years . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1965

literature

• Günther, Alfred. In: Paul Raabe : The authors and books of literary expressionism. Metzler, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 978-3476007568 , p. 178.
• Günther, Alfred . In: Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden. Centers for the literary avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, ISBN 3-935712-20-0 , p. 470.
• Alexander Atanassow: Genja Jonas. A Dresden photographer . Kunstblatt, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-9815797-0-3 , pp. 13-14, 195.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Atanassow: Genja Jonas. A Dresden photographer . Kunstblatt, Dresden 2013, p. 13.
2. ↑ Lt. Alfred Günther in: Merian , 1967. In: Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, p. 158, FN 209.
3. ↑ Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, p. 89.
4. ↑ Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, p. 470.
5. ↑ Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, pp. 389-390.
6. ↑ Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, p. 56.
7. ↑ Frank Almai: Expressionism in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, pp. 186, 188.
8. ↑ See questionnaire for members of the Reich Association of German Writers EV, December 5, 1933; Questionnaire for processing the application for membership in the Reichsschrifttumskammer, January 30, 1939. In: BArch (formerly BDC) RFF, Günther, Alfred, March 5, 1885.
9. ↑ Alexander Atanassow: Genja Jonas. A Dresden photographer . Kunstblatt, Dresden 2013, p. 21.
10. ^ BArch (formerly BDC) RFF, Günther, Alfred, March 5, 1885.
11. ↑ Günther, Alfred . In: Paul Raabe: The authors and books of literary expressionism . Metzler, Stuttgart 1992, p. 178.
12. ↑ Reprint of the works u. a. in Alfred Günther: Phoenix Two . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1965.
13. ↑ See overview in Frank Almai: Expressionismus in Dresden . Thelem, Dresden 2005, pp. 349-352, 389-390.