August Peters (writer)

August Peters

August Peters (born March 4, 1817 in Taura , † July 4, 1864 in Leipzig ) was a German narrator.

Life

He was born in Taura near Chemnitz as the son of the stocking weaver Karl Gottlieb Peters. The parents were simple people, hard-working and thrifty, to whom no one would have equaled “simplicity of morals and fear of God” - as Peters writes in his childhood memories. The father in particular was a hardworking and solid person who worked from morning to night, but mostly in a strict and sullen mood. In 1822 the family moved to Marienberg . Peters attended elementary school there . His early talent was expressed in an unrestrained thirst for knowledge, so that he took an exam for the Lyceum, the formerly known Latin school Marienberg, on his own initiative. The father severely punished his own authority. August Peters deals particularly with this subject in his childhood memories. The incident was certainly significant for his entire work and will: the educational rigor, which was rooted in the barriers of his social class and which put Peters' urge to be mentally active, later triggered reactions that made him important beyond his time : first his direct political engagement, then later - on a sublimated level - his poetic-narrative work, which always reveals the socio-critical intentions. Half a year later the boy was given permission.

He came into the fourth, but quickly hurried through the other classes, so that at the age of eleven he was already in the secondary. Peters' initial wish was to become a clergyman. But this wish earned him the derision of his classmates. He was particularly fond of ethnology and geography; he also developed a special talent for drawing. In general, there was a strong tendency towards music: he later spoke of the impressions that " Das Käthchen von Heilbronn " and Freischütz left behind in him.

The family's house became impoverished because of a prolonged business increase and the father's sick camp. A troubled time began for August Peters. In 1830 he turned his back on his parents' house to stand on his own two feet. He went to Dresden and was a clerk for a community official; after his death he looked for a job as a clerk in a shop in Pirna . The next year he returned to Marienberg at the request of his father. He went to school again and was confirmed. The Lyceum was then abolished. His father worked in a factory in Annaberg . In order to support himself, August entered the service of a council copyist. But then he hiked to Annaberg to go to school again. Because of enormous knowledge gaps, he was transferred back to the tertia. He lived on private lessons. Meanwhile the father found a job in Bohemia . During his holiday hikes, Peters came to Chemnitz, met former classmates there and decided to continue attending the school there. For reasons that he does not give more details, there was Handel with a classmate, a patrician son, whereby he forfeited the favor of his rector. This must have been a great pedant who saw something dangerous to the state even in the efforts of the gymnastics father Jahn . It was during this time that Peters' first poetic attempts were made, which also met with approval. He even wrote a tragedy in verse, a "lyrical-romantic monster", as he himself said, which was rejected as too long by a guest group of actors there. During this time dogmatic doubts arose in him; he gave up his desire to study theology and instead turned to jurisprudence. He did not completely forfeit his parents' favor by doing this, but from then on he was no longer supported by his mother. He laboriously earned his daily bread by singing in a choir, by copying notes, by private lessons and by running a factory school: at the calico printing company Claus & Pflugbeil.

Then his father persuaded him to join the military. So he came to the artillery in 1834 , but said goodbye because of a weak eye. He then worked as a forest secretary and later as a fire secretary. He published a small volume of poems in Gödsche's Verlag, Schneeberg . In 1845 he lived in Leipzig , where he earned his living from studying by writing. His first stories appeared in the "Vaterlandsblatt", in the "Sonne" and in other newspapers. In 1847 he took over the newspaper “Der Volksvertreter” in Berlin . He got engaged to a dancer. She was unfaithful to him; he publicly chastised his rival, a lieutenant in the guard; then he had to flee Berlin.

In 1848 he came to Meissen , where he founded the democratic weekly newspaper "Die Barrikade". Here he met Louise Otto , the daughter of the Meissen court director, who had already emerged as a writer . Your socially critical novels are important sources and evidence of the social conditions of the time. Louise Otto, who founded the first German women's newspaper in 1849 , became the (co-) founder of the women's movement in Germany and one of its most prominent representatives in the 19th century.

August Peters was politically active. In literature he is seen as a moderate democrat. He appeared as a speaker and leader for liberal endeavors. In 1849 he edited the “Bergglocke” in Marienberg. With free troops he went to the Dresden May Uprising . He arrived there too late and had to flee to southern Germany. There he was imprisoned as the leader of insurgents in Baden. A sick camp spared him the death sentence . His sentence was six years in solitary confinement . The engagement to Louise Otto took place in the cell prison in Bruchsal . In 1852 Peters was pardoned in Baden, but only to be extradited to Saxony. First he came to Zöblitz in custody. In 1853 he was admitted to the Waldheim prison . There he was allowed to work as a writer; the publisher Ernst Keil (editor of the famous “ Die Gartenlaube ”) paid for his lost work. He worked for all kinds of family magazines: in addition to the “Gartenlaube”, he also worked for the “Family Journal”, the “Entertainments on the domestic herd”, for the “Hannöverschen Kurier” (which contains the award-winning “Stille Mühle”) and for the 1856 founded Saxonia , which was opened with the story "The treasure trove 'Father Abraham'". All these publications now bore the name "Elfried von Taura" or the abbreviation "EvT" derived from it. Peters also sat at the criminal table (Leipzig) , as was testified by August Bebel . His name can also be read on the tabletop.

Gravestone of August Peters and his wife Louise Otto-Peters in the old Johannisfriedhof in Leipzig

In 1856 he was pardoned. He founded the trade paper Glückauf in Freiberg . Two years later he married Louise Otto (later Louise Otto-Peters ) in Meißen Cathedral . In the same year his “Erzgebirge Stories” were published by Verlag C. Rümpler, Hanover, which, among other things, are said to have been published by Ludwig Nonne in Annaberg in 1860 (relevant bibliographies do not provide any information on this). In addition, a travel guide “Hike through the Ore Mountains” was published by Nun, and “From home and foreign” (stories) by Hübner in Leipzig. Peters now moved to Leipzig, where he took over the management of the “Generalanzeiger” and later - together with his wife - that of the Mitteldeutsche Volkszeitung .

August Peters died in Leipzig on July 4, 1864. He is buried in the old Johannisfriedhof in Leipzig.

Posthumous appraisals appeared in an edition "In Sachsen und Böhmerland", Sondershausen 1878, the "Glückauf-Jahrbuch" 1886 by Hugo Rösch and a popular edition of the stories in 1910 by Friedrich Hermann Löscher.

Works

• Poems 1844
• The silent mill: a story from German Bohemia Hanover: Carl Rümpler 1856
• A rich heiress. Novella , Prague & Leipzig: JL Kober 1856
• The poacher's daughter. A story based on facts. , Prague & Leipzig: JL Kober 1857
• Erzgebirge Stories , Hanover 1858
• Courageous Hearts , 1858 (novella)
• The painter from Dresden. Narrative. , Prague: Kober and Margrave 1859
• Frederick the Joyful
• Haris von Rosenberg, called von Falkenstein , 1860 (historical novel)
• The noble lady. Dramatic character image in 3 acts , Leipzig 1861
• From home and abroad
• The Witkowetze. Historical novel. , Vienna: Markgraf & Comp. 1863
• Stories from Saxony and Bohemia , 1880 (together with Louise Otto-Peters)
• Gottfried Silbermann. A picture of life March 2009

literature

• Franz Brümmer :  Peters, August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 483-485.
• Hartmut Kühne: Karl May and E. v. T. In: Claus Roxin (Ed.): Yearbook of the Karl May Society 1970 , Hamburg 1970, pp. 198–220 ( e-text )
• Siegfried Sieber: August Peters. A romantic becomes a revolutionary. Life story of the freedom fighter August Peters and his wife Louise Otto-Peters, the champion of German women's rights . Ehlermann, Dresden 1948; New edition: Edition Marlitt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-938824-08-5

Web links

Wikisource: August Peters  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about August Peters in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by August Peters (writer) in the Gutenberg-DE project