Alfred Karrasch

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Alfred Karrasch , after 1945 under the pseudonym Alfred Amenda , (born April 24, 1893 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † March 6, 1973 in Mittenwald ) was a German writer and editor.

Life

After studying German, Karrasch started out as a journalist. Since 1922 at the publishing house of August Scherl , he worked for the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger , where he wrote court reports until 1932. On May 1st of this year he joined the NSDAP . With Hitler's “ seizure of power ” in 1933, the daily newspaper increasingly orientated itself towards National Socialist ideology, and Karrasch's articles also adapted to this development. Above all, under the heading “Imperial Capital”, he wrote about “Führer cult, national community and struggle” in the context of everyday experiences. In 1933, as a result of an internal dispute with Otto Paust , Karrasch was given a forced leave of absence (for some time). His employment as a reporter at Scherl-Verlag lasted until 1939.

Karrasch made his novel debut in 1932 with wink, colored pennants. A fisherman's story from the Curonian Spit - a novel that also had great success as a radio play and was filmed in 1937 by the director Jürgen von Alten ( Homesickness ). In 1933 his second novel Stein, gib Brot-! Was published by Cotta-Verlag . A chronicle of the struggle of our day. Although hints colorful pennants and crossed ideology NS already elements of, but in stone, give bread! "now clearly outweighs the militant National Socialist orientation".

With the bestseller party member Schmiedecke. A time Roman (1934) (in Berlin History Publishing) succeeded Karrasch then the final literary breakthrough: the first year alone 60,000 copies were sold, making the work in 1934 was second only to the best-selling books of the year. In addition, Karrasch received the Dietrich Eckart Prize of 5,000 RM together with Heinrich Anacker for this novel . Despite the controversy about the ideological content of the work - the criticism mainly referred to an alleged communist tendency of the text - the novel received mostly positive reviews. With his party comrade Schmiedecke , which can be seen as a propaganda text , Karrasch delivers an “astonishingly precise translation of the fascist ideology into the literary. Karrasch transplanted the social demagogy of Hitlerism with an unparalleled radicalism into fiction. "

As a playwright , Karrasch had great success with his radio plays .

From 1935 he devoted himself increasingly to entertainment literature . The humorous marriage novel Mr. Hans Kramer - at home! (1937), with his description of the everyday life of a Berlin family, was also intended as a novel of identification. Segments of the Nazi ideology emerge subliminally when reference is made to the combative togetherness or against each other in the family and the value of the community:

"There is no happiness at all, no satisfaction if it does not come from the we, from the miracle of the we, the community, the I for - the other!"

Based on his novel Die Sternengeige (1938), Georg Wilhelm Pabst filmed the crime film Der Fall Molander between 1944 and 1945 (the editing of this film was not yet finished when Prague was conquered by the Red Army. The whereabouts of the film material is unknown).

At the end of 1938, the family saga Die Undes - the rise and decline of an East Prussian clan - was also published by the Berliner Zeitgeschichte-Verlag , a work that is "completely racist, anti-Semitic and social Darwinist." The extremely positive response to this book helped Karrasch to establish his position as more respected To consolidate the author in the “Third Reich”. His literary successes enabled him to live an upscale lifestyle. From 1940 until his escape in early 1945, he is said to have lived in a villa in the East Prussian resort town of Rauschen.

For the propagandistic Christmas ring broadcast in 1940 by Großdeutscher Rundfunk , he wrote a report on the broadcasting process.

From the end of March 1946, Karrasch and his wife lived in Mittenwald in Bavaria . In the course of the denazification proceedings initiated against Karrasch in 1946, he assigned himself to the group of the “exonerated” and stated that “from 1933 until the end of unconditional commitment and [...] help for those persecuted, threatened and others. unjustly treated ”. The tribunal classified him as a "fellow traveler" and imposed a fine of 500 RM .

In 1952 Karrasch published the novel Danse Macabre , which contains autobiographical features, in Verlag Zimmer & Herzog . He had particular success after the end of the “Third Reich” with Appassionata - A Beethoven's Life Novel (1958) and his last novel Nobel - Life Novel of an Inventor (1963). He brought out both works under the pseudonym Alfred Amenda.

Others

All of the writer's novels published between 1933 and 1945 - with the exception of Mr. Hans Kramer - at home! and Die Sternengeige - were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .

Fonts

  • The Star Song: A funk ballad about the violin maker Jakob Stainer . around 1925.
  • Party comrade Schmiedecke: A time novel. 1934.
  • Wave, colored pennants! A fisherman's story from the Curonian Spit . 1933.
  • Stone, give bread -! : A chronicle of the struggle of our day . 1933.
  • Mr. Hans Kramer - at home! A marriage novel. 1937.
  • The Undes: decline and rise of an East Prussian clan. 1938.
  • The star violin. Roman, 1938.
  • Chronicle of the imperial capital. together with Max Arendt , 1940.
  • Copernicus . 1944
  • Danse Macabre . 1952
  • Madonna and Demon . 1954
  • Little night music in Mittenwald. A story in love . 1954
  • as Alfred Amenda : Appassionata. A Beethoven novel of life. 1958.
  • as Alfred Amenda : Nobel : An Inventor's Life Novel. 1963.

literature

  • Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch, the “confidante of the workers”. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Vol. 2 .: Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Nine author portraits and an essay on literary societies to promote the work of ethnic poets. Aisthesis Verlag , Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-89528-855-5 , pp. 107-142.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Project historical novel: Alfred Karrasch , database entry .
  2. ↑ a b Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 110.
  3. ↑ a b Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 111.
  4. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 114.
  5. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 117.
  6. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, pp. 115–117.
  7. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 118.
  8. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 107.
  9. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 124.
  10. ↑ Hans Günther: The Lord's Own Spirit. Selected writings . Berlin: Aufbau 1981, p. 617. Quoted in Haidar (2011), p. 126.
  11. ^ Robert Albinus: Königsberg Lexicon . Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-88189-441-1
  12. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 127.
  13. ↑ Alfred Karrasch: Mr. Hans Kramer - at home! Stuttgart, Berlin: Cotta 1937, p. 199 (?). Quoted in Haidar (2011), p. 127.
  14. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 130.
  15. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, pp. 130f.
  16. ↑ Alfred Karrasch: Father Peitschat speaks with his six sons. In: Schul-Rundfunk. Biennial for educational work. Year 1940/41, issue 22 (January 19, 1941), p. 426.
  17. ↑ State Archives Munich, SprKa, box 4263, Karrasch Alfred. Quoted in Haidar (2011), p. 132.
  18. ↑ a b Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 132.
  19. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, pp. 131, 133f.
  20. ↑ Ute Haidar: Alfred Karrasch - the confidante of the workers . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2011, p. 136.
  21. ^ List of literature to be discarded. 1946 - transcript letter K. pp. 203-239.
  22. ^ List of literature to be sorted out - classification.
  23. ↑ was made into a film
  24. ↑ plays in East Prussia
  25. ^ Hungarian version udT: "Eroica", first 1964; frequent new editions in several languages
personal data
SURNAME Karrasch, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Amenda, Alfred (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, poet and editor
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1973
Place of death Mittenwald