Alfred Lemm
Alfred Lemm (born December 6, 1889 in Berlin ; † October 16, 1918 there ; actually Alfred Lehmann ) was a German expressionist narrator, pacifist and essayist who, in many of his writings, based on Martin Buber, advocated a renewal of Judaism in Germany started by turning to Eastern Jewry.
Life
Alfred Lehmann was the son of a bookseller Paul Lehmann and his wife Emma. He still had three brothers: Curt, who had completed an apprenticeship in banking, later lived in Palestine and temporarily ran a hotel in Ben Shemen , Erich, an art historian and communist (he called himself Lehmann-Lukas), who emigrated to France with his wife in 1933 , but interned there in 1939 and deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and murdered, and Siegfried Lehmann , the founder of the Jewish People's Home in Berlin, the Jewish Children's Home in Kovno and finally the Ben Shemen Children's and Youth Village . Roni Hirsh-Ratzkovsky refers to the many connections between Siegfried Lehmann's work and Alfred Lemms' ideas of the renewal of Western Jewry through the turn to the Jews in Eastern Europe.
Following Thomas Mann's article Weltfrieden in the Berliner Tageblatt of December 27, 1917, which contributed significantly to the division of the brothers Thomas and Heinrich Mann , Lemm took sides against Thomas Mann without denying his appreciation for him. He vehemently criticizes his “apolitical” position, which was actually a decidedly political statement against democratic aspirations and for the continued existence of the monarchy: “These statements are sharp by our younger literary-political generation, which mostly rallies around your brother Heinrich have been convicted. Allow me to say: rightly so. But please also allow me to say why I, who partly also belong to that group, agree with him and still understand you to the extent that you agree: The artist in me is happy about your words, but the ethicist, the person in me, who calls for a solution to these horrific world conditions of today, realizes that you have done no good with it. "
Alfred Lemm was married to Susi Behr. After his untimely death he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . Grave no. 53881, field BV, row three, has a stone depicting an open book and the inscription on the back: “His pursuit was purity, truth / and righteousness / severity towards himself / full of great love for his own Art / and the people. "
His widow was married to the businessman Paul Zadek for the second time. They are the parents of the director and artistic director Peter Zadek .
Works
- Galician diary , in: Zeit-Echo. A war diary of the artists 1914–1917 , ed. by Otto Haas-Heye, January 1916.
- A stretcher's records , Zeit-Echo, April 1916.
- Drive through Poland , Frankfurter Zeitung, September 3, 1916, and in: Selbstwehr. Independent Jewish weekly , September 15, 1916.
- Grossstadt Unkultur und die Juden , in: Der Jude , August 1916.
- On the task of the Jews in Europe , in: Der Jude , 1917.
- The fleeing Felician. Novel. Müller, Munich 1917.
- Of the essence of true love of the country. Series: Writings against Time, 3rd Heinz Barger, Der Neue Geist Verlag, Berlin, 1917.
- Murder. Novellas, 2 volumes. Roland Verlag Albert Mundt , Munich 1918.
- Stories. The new series, 10
- Tries. The new series, 11
- The way of the German Jews. A sketch. Series: Der neue Geist, 13. Der Neue Geist Verlag, Leipzig, 1919.
- Posts in The Forum . Editor: Wilhelm Herzog . Volume 1, April 1914 - March 1915 and in Zeit-Echo . Editor: Otto Haas-Heye . Vol. 2, issue 8, 1915-1916.
- Alfred Lemm: Weltflucht , in: Fritz Martini (ed.): Prosa des Expressionismus , Reclam, Stuttgart, 1970, pp. 245-263
literature
- Lemm, Alfred. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 15: Kura – Lewa. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-22695-3 , pp. 261-265.
- Hans J. Schütz: "I was once a German poet". Forgotten and misunderstood authors of the 20th century. CH Beck, Munich 1988
- Beata Mache: Time to work against venom. Literature and the war: Alfred Lemm, Hugo Sonnenschein and Uriel Birnbaum , in Kalonymos , Jg. 17, H. 4, S. 4–7; Lemm p. 5f.
- Florian Sendtner
- Alfred Lemm - Life and Work , Master's thesis, University of Regensburg, 1992.
- Fighter against death. The unknown expressionist writer Alfred Lemm - and an all too well known debate , DIE ZEIT, No. 12/1994, March 18, 1994.
- Lemm, Alfred. In: Andreas B. Kilcher (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature. Jewish authors in the German language from the Enlightenment to the present. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02457-2 , pp. 331f.
- Roni Hirsh-Ratzkovsky: From Berlin to Ben Shemen: The Lehmann Brothers between Expressionism and Zionism , AJS Review, Volume 41, Issue 1, April 2017, pp. 37-65.
Web links
- Short biography and information on Alfred Lemm's work at Literaturport
- Literature by and about Alfred Lemm in the catalog of the German National Library
notes
- ↑ Roni Hirsh-Ratzkovsky: From Berlin to Ben Shemen: The Lehman Brothers between Expressionism and Zionism
- ↑ a b c Quoted from Florian Sendtner: Fighters against death. The unknown expressionist writer Alfred Lemm - and an all-too-well-known debate
- ^ Hans Jürgen Schütz, born September 4, 1936 Wilhelmshaven, † July 10, 2004 Bremen
- ↑ with an excerpt from: The gentleman with the yellow glasses. 1915, published in 1920. A young man who does not want to cheer for the war with the crowd is lynched by the crowd, by a mob of students, doctors, politicians and other petty bourgeoisie
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lemm, Alfred |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lehmann, Alfred (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German expressionist narrator and essayist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 6, 1889 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 16, 1918 |
| Place of death | Berlin |