Arthur Silbergleit

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arthur Silbergleit

Arthur Silbergleit (born May 26, 1881 in Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia ; died after March 13, 1943 in the Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German poet and storyteller .

Life

youth

Arthur Silbergleit was born on May 26, 1881 in Gleiwitz as the son of a traditional Jewish patrician family. In a review of his life, he describes his father as an all-rounder: “Photographer, painter, poet, inventor, owner of numerous patents, great child of the world and prophet of a new age”.

His siblings were Max Silbergleit, who stayed in Gleiwitz as a merchant, Helene, who married Rabbi James Krakauer in Breslau , and Charlotte, who was married to Salomon Getz. While Arthur Silberglei's father died of natural causes, his mother, who lived in a home for the blind in the 1930s, and all of her children fell victim to the Holocaust; only Charlotte's son Heinz-Zwi Getz survived.

Silbergleit attended the Royal Catholic High School in his hometown and then completed an apprenticeship at the Heimann banking house in Breslau. The first poems that Silbergleit wrote on bill of exchange and receipt forms later appeared in Expressionist magazines such as Franz Pfemfert's Aktion and Herwarth Walden's Der Sturm . Silberglei's poetry , however, is less committed to Expressionism than to the Jewish faith of his parents' home and to Catholic mysticism .

His friend Erwin Magnus introduced him to the Breslauer Dichterschule association , where he was supported by Paul Barsch , Marie Muthreich and Paul Keller . In this circle, Silbergleit became acquainted with Walter Meckauer in 1905 , later with Paul Mühsam , both of whom belonged to the Breslau school of poetry.

At the end of 1907, Silbergleit gave up his unpopular position as a merchant and moved to Berlin , where he became assistant editor of the magazine Ost und West. Illustrated monthly for modern Judaism .

Poets, honors

As a lyricist, Silbergleit admired the works of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Paul Verlaine ; he counted the translator of the latter, Stefan Zweig , among his best friends.

During the First World War , Silbergleit volunteered as a nurse and came to Russia , fell ill himself and returned to Berlin after a nine-month hospital stay . He was awarded the Red Cross Third Class Medal in April 1918. Impressions from this period can be found in his first volumes of poetry, Flanders and Die Balalaika .

After the war, the Orpheus poetry cycle was composed of 600 poems, excerpts of which could not be printed until his 50th birthday and which Gertrud Isolani described as his “most wonderful work”. In 1919, Silbergleit was invited by the Wroclaw People's Council to read from his works in the exhibition for culture and work in Upper Silesia . The lecture tour also took him to Beuthen , Königshütte , Oppeln and before that to Posen .

For the legend The Maid Silbergleit received the honorary award of the city of Cologne ; the poetry section of the Prussian Academy of the Arts awarded him an honorary gift on October 9, 1931. A lectureship at the Lessing University of Applied Sciences in Berlin released him from existential needs for a few years from 1925. From 1931 he received a grant from the Schiller Foundation .

Marriage and final years

In the early 1930s, Silbergleit met Gertrud Michler (1884–1979) from Guben in Niederlausitz and married her on May 15, 1933. His marriage to a non-Jewish woman saved him from the worst repression in the first years of the Third Reich .

Gertrud Silbergleit also took care of the material existence of the couple with her small salary, during a manuscript completed by her husband in 1936, Der Leuchter. Novel of a lucky hero , could no longer be published in Germany. He was only able to have two operations on his lungs carried out with the financial support of Stefan Zweig.

Several attempts by émigré friends finally resulted in an affidavit for the United States . But the trip failed because of open pulmonary tuberculosis , which Silbergleit had been suffering from since 1936. Friederike Zweig did not succeed in obtaining an interim residence permit for France for him.

On March 3, 1943, the almost completely blind poet was picked up by the Gestapo from his Berlin apartment at 25 Ansbacher Strasse . The so-called “mixed marriage” no longer protected him from deportation; after ten days of imprisonment, Silbergleit was brought to Auschwitz in a collective transport .

Horst Bienek created a memorial for Arthur Silbergleit in his novel Septemberlicht , the second volume of his tetralogy Gleiwitz Childhood .

Works

Publications

  • Flanders. Wagner, Innsbruck n.d. [1916]
  • Poland. Cycle. Edited by the Association of Artists Thanks (Clauss-Rochs Foundation). Eigenbrödler-Verlag, Berlin undated [1918]
  • The cornucopia of God. Pastels. Hesperiden-Verlag, Berlin-Steglitz 1919
  • The maid. A legend. With hand-colored lithographs by Erich Büttner. Published by the Association of Artists Thanks (Clauss-Rochs Foundation), Berlin 1919.
  • Dass., With twelve hand-colored lithographs by Ernst Zoberbier. Eigenbrödler-Verlag, Berlin 1919; that. also Gottschalk, Berlin undated [1919]; Republished in 1923
  • The lost Son. With 4 woodcuts v. Eugen Ludwig Gattermann. Eigenbrödler-Verlag, Berlin undated [1920]
  • The balalaika. A verseigen. With 8 lithographs by Hermann Struck. Edited by the Association of Artists Thanks (Clauss-Rochs Foundation). Eigenbrödlerverlag, Berlin undated [1920]
  • The festival of colors. Mosaik-Verlag, Berlin 1922
  • Bajazzo autumn. Illustrated with 4 plates by A. Kölblin. Drei-Kegel-Verlag, Berlin 1928
  • Orpheus. On the 50th birthday of the poet on May 26, 1931 Arthur Silbergleit. Cartel of lyric authors, Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1931
  • The eternal day. Poems. Edited by the Artists Aid of the Jewish Community in Berlin. Levy, Berlin, 1935
  • Dass., Facsimile printing of the Berlin 1935 edition. New ed. with an afterword by Horst Bienek. Verlag Europäische Ideen, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-921572-21-5
  • Arthur Silbergleit(= Poetry album 327), selection of poetry by Martin A. Völker, graphic by Franz Peters. Märkischer Verlag Wilhelmshorst 2016, ISBN 978-3-943708-27-1 .

Book contributions

  • Wilhelm Müller-Rüdersdorf (ed.): The Schlesierbaum. A poetry reading from the 13th century to the present day. Vol. 1: The book of Silesian poetry. Publishing house Görlitzer Nachrichten und Anzeiger, Görlitz 1922
  • Preface to: Hugo Rochs: From bygone days. Stories from the life of a senior general practitioner. W. Röwer, Berlin 1923
  • Contribution to Gerhard Zwerenz / Ralph Giordano: Terrorism or Democracy? VVA, Berlin 1978 (European Ideas, Vol. 40)

Contribution to periodicals

  • The action. Journal for liberal politics and literature
  • Bimini. A colorful sheet for art, literature and life
  • The blue book. Weekly for public life, literature and the arts
  • The flute
  • The guests. A bi-monthly publication for the arts
  • Jewish almanac
  • Youth. Munich illustrated weekly magazine for art and life
  • The young art
  • Kothurn. Semi-monthly publication for literature, theater and art
  • March. A weekly journal
  • Tomorrow. Weekly for German culture
  • New revue
  • East and West. Illustrated monthly for modern Judaism
  • The East. Literary monthly of the "Breslau Poet School"
  • Phaeton. Monthly magazine for poetry
  • The Rhineland. Monthly for German art and art
  • The storm. Weekly for culture and the arts
  • Westermann's monthly books
  • Wieland. German weekly for art and literature

literature

  • Silbergleit, Arthur. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 19: Sand – Stri. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-22699-1 .
  • Hans Otto Horch: "in glowing lights and shimmering lights ... a festival of peace". On the life and work of the German-Jewish poet Arthur Silbergleit since 1933. In: Between racial hatred and the search for identity. German-Jewish literary culture in National Socialist Germany. Edited by Kerstin Schoor. Göttingen: Wallstein 2010, pp. 197-234.
  • Walter Meckauer : Arthur Silbergleit. In: Ost und West, year 1921, issue 3–4 (March), pp. 67–72 digitized
  • Arthur Silbergleit about himself. In: Welt und Wort , vol. 11 (1956), p. 213 ff.
  • Walter Meckauer: memorial sheet for a Silesian poet. For the 80th birthday of the Gliwice poet Arthur Silbergleit. In: Der Schlesier , May 1961.
  • Else Levi-Mühsam (Eds. :) Arthur Silbergleit and Paul Mühsam. Evidence of friendship between poets. A picture of time. A publication of the Stiftung Kulturwerk Schlesien, Würzburg. Bergstadtverlag Korn, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-87057-174-8
  • Karina von Tippelskirch: Silbergleit, Arthur. 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. 466-468.
  • Silbergleit, Arthur , in: Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography . Volume 5. Chernivtsi, 1931, p. 510f.

Web links

Wikisource: Arthur Silbergleit  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Else Levi-Mühsam (eds. :) Arthur Silbergleit and Paul Mühsam. Evidence of friendship between poets. A picture of time. A publication of the Stiftung Kulturwerk Schlesien, Würzburg. Bergstadtverlag Korn, Würzburg 1994, p. 23
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 31
personal data
SURNAME Silbergleit, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-speaking, Silesian poet and storyteller
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Gliwice , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH after March 13, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp