August Stramm

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August Stramm

August Stramm (born July 29, 1874 in Münster , † September 1, 1915 at Horodec, east of Kobryn , now Belarus ) was a poet and playwright of German Expressionism .

Life

1874-1912

Stramm grew up in Münster, Düren , Eupen and Aachen , where he passed his Abitur in 1893 at the royal Kaiser-Wilhelms-Gymnasium, today's Einhard-Gymnasium . He then joined the postal service as Posteleve, soon became postal secretary and from 1897 worked in the sea mail service between Germany and the USA. In 1902 he passed the administrative examination for post and telegraphy. In the same year he married Else Krafft , and he also wrote his first literary work, the drama Die Bauern . In 1903 and 1904 the children Ingeborg and Helmuth were born. From 1905 the family lived in Karlshorst . Stramm studied alongside his work until 1908 at the Berlin University and received his doctorate in 1909 at the University of Halle ; The topic of his dissertation was the universal postage . In the same year Stramm was promoted to postal inspector.

1912-1915

August Stramm, 1915
Facsimile of Stramm's handwriting

Around 1912, Stramm, who had repeatedly tried his hand at literary work for a number of years, found his own tone. In works like Rudimentär and Die Haidebraut , naturalistic themes are combined with language experiments. Probably under the influence of Italian Futurism , poems emerged that were groundbreaking for Expressionism: Strictly destroyed word forms and syntax and re-assembled language elements, for example in the poem Freudenhaus (1914): “Lichte dirnen aus den Windows / die Epuche / spreads an der Door / and offers women moans! "

Through these works Stramm came into contact with Herwarth Walden , the editor of the magazine Der Sturm , with whom he soon became a close friend. The opportunity to finally publish in a respected magazine and to find recognition at all triggered Stramm's last and most productive creative phase, which is mainly characterized by the war poems (collected under the title Tropfblut , 1919).

Stramm had completed his military service as a one-year volunteer in 1896/97 and at the start of the war in 1914 he joined the Badischer Landwehr Infantry Regiment 110 as captain of the reserve, which was deployed behind the front on the Upper Rhine in Alsace. In January 1915 Stramm was transferred as a company commander to Reserve Infantry Regiment 272 of the newly formed 82nd Reserve Division, which fought in trench warfare near Chaulnes ( Somme department ). At the end of February he received the Iron Cross II. Class , came to the Eastern Front with his regiment in April and took part in the Battle of Gorlice in early May . Battalion commander since 19 May, he fought in the battle of Radymno and in July near Grodek , for which he received the Austrian Cross of Merit . On September 1, 1915, Stramm fell while attacking Russian positions on the Dnepr-Bug Canal .

The grave of August Stramm and his son Helmuth is located in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf on the southern city limits of Berlin.

Work and effect

Texts like Patrouille stand out due to their simple, reduced language. Often no emphasis is placed on grammar; Nouns, substantiated verbs and neologisms form the main component.

Patrol
The stones enemies
Windows grins Treason
Branches choke
mountains Bushes leaf quickly
Gellen
death.

Stramm's style was surprising and new. Stramm's poems stand out clearly from those of other early expressionists such as Georg Heym and Theodor Däubler due to their brevity, harshness and the widely pursued language experiments . While the latter are mostly still clearly influenced by neo-romanticism and symbolism , Stramm's language montages tear open the horizon into modernity. The chopped-up rhythms, the scraps of sentences and words make Stramm's poems the most convincing lyrical testimonies of the World War, all the more since hardly any other author has succeeded in processing the horror of this first machine war in a form appropriate to this completely new experience. In Ralf Schnell's opinion , August Stramm's experience of the world war found its strongest German-language lyrical expression.

Already with the first publications in the storm , young authors adopted Stramm's style, including Kurt Heynicke , Walter Mehring and Kurt Schwitters . Stramm's linguistic style also influenced the expressionist prose of Alfred Döblin , for example . Later Stramm followers include Arno Schmidt , whose early prose (1946–1956) is also stylistically influenced by Stramm's poetry, Gerhard Rühm and Ernst Jandl .

Works

  • The Peasants (Drama 1902/05)
  • Emigrants! (Essay 1903)
  • The world unity postage. Historical, critical and financial research on the postal fee rates of the Universal Postal Union and their bases . Halle, Kaemmerer 1910 ( Dissertation online  - Internet Archive )
  • The victim (drama 1909, missing)
  • The husband (drama 1909/11)
  • The sterile (drama around 1910) ( online  - Internet Archive )
  • Rudimentary (drama around 1910)
  • Sancta Susanna (drama around 1912, based on Paul Hindemith's one-act opera Sancta Susanna )
  • The Haidebraut (Drama 1914)
  • The Last (Prose 1914)
  • Waiting (prose 1914)
  • Traumwiese (poem around 1914, lost)
  • Awakening (Drama 1914) ( online  - Internet Archive )
  • Humanity (poem 1914/17)
  • Forces (Drama 1914) ( online  - Internet Archive )
  • War (unfinished drama 1914, lost)
  • Blossom (poem 1914)
  • You (love poems 1915)
  • Early Spring (1915)
  • Unfaithful (1915)
  • Weltwehe (poem 1915)
  • Events (Drama posthumously 1915) ( online  - Internet Archive )
  • Dripping blood (poems posthumously 1919)
  • Frostfire (poem 1914)
  • Storm attack (poem 1915)
  • Passing by (poem 1915)

literature

expenditure

  • August Stramm: The Work. Poetry and prose . Edited by René Radrizzani. Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1963
  • Michael Trabitzsch (Ed.): Letters to Nell and Herwarth Walden , Edition Sirene, Berlin 1988
  • Peter Brasch (arrangement): August Stramm. Berlin 1992 [= Poet's Corner 7].
  • Jeremy Adler (ed.): Everything is poem. Letters, poems, pictures, documents. Arche-Verlag, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-7160-2068-0 .
  • Jeremy Adler (ed.): The seals. Complete poems, dramas, prose , Piper, Munich 1990 ISBN 3-492-10980-2
  • August Stramm: Poems. Dramas. Prose. Letters . Edited by Jörg Drews . Stuttgart 1997
  • August Stramm reading book. Compiled and provided with an afterword by Wolfgang Delseit. Cologne 2007 [= Nylands Kleine Westfälische Bibliothek 15] ISBN 978-3-936235-16-6 Online edition of the reader
  • August Stramm: Addendum , Kirchseeon 2014 [FRANC-TIREUR 11], ISBN 978-3-9810572-8-7 . Contains: The Festival of Love and The Gallows .
  • August Stramm: YOU. Lovepoems & posthumous love poems , translated and with an essay by Susanne Fiessler. Monsenstein and Vannerdat & ULB Münster, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-8405-0126-5 . Online edition . Contains: You and other posthumous love poems.

media

  • August Stramm: world uniform postage. Poems and excerpts from letters. Münster: Daedalus Verlag 1998 (audio book based on an idea by Walter Gödden , 51:02 min.)
  • Martin Semmelrogge reads Gustav Sack: "Crazy and not a little vain ..." radio play and poetry. Bielefeld 2004 [= Edition Nyland by Pendragon Verlag] (Audiobook, 70:30 min.)

Secondary literature

  • Kristina Mandalka: August Stramm - Language Skepticism and Cosmic Mysticism in the Early Twentieth Century , Herzberg, 1992
  • Lothar Jordan (Ed.): August Stramm. Contributions to life, work and impact. Bielefeld 1995
  • Enno Stahl : Anti-Art and Abstraction in Modern Literature (1909-1933) . Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1997 [= research on literary and cultural history 61] (Chapter 4: The word art of the STURM circle)
  • Dieter Sudhoff : The literary modernity and Westphalia. Visiting a neglected cultural landscape. Bielefeld 2002 [= publications of the literature commission for Westphalia 3], pp. 355–375
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1900–1918. From the turn of the century to the end of the First World War. Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52178-9 , pp. 567-569, 678-679 and 685-689
  • "The storm must roar in this dead world" - Herwarth Walden's 'Sturm' and the lyric poets of the 'Sturm' circle during the First World War. Art program and war poetry of an expressionist magazine in context . WVT, Trier 2006. ISBN 978-3-88476-825-9 (Chapter III: The First World War in the poetry of the storm, August 1, Stramm, pp. 196-258)
  • Thomas Diecks:  Stramm, August Albert Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-428-11206-7 , p. 470 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hiltrud Herbst u. Anton G. Leitner (Hrsg.): Weltpost ins nichtall. Poets are reminiscent of August Stramm. Münster 2015. ISBN 978-3-89126-310-5

Web links

Wikisource: August Stramm  - Sources and full texts
Commons : August Stramm  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ralf Schnell : History of German Poetry. Volume 5: From the turn of the century to the end of World War II . Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-018892-7 , p. 81.
  2. ↑ On this Jörg Drews : Arno Schmidt and August Stramm. Observations on the expressionist style elements in the early novels , in: text + kritik , issue 20 / 20a: Arno Schmidt , 3rd edition, May 1977, pp. 82–88.
personal data
SURNAME Tight, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet and playwright of German Expressionism
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1915
Place of death near Kobryn , Belarus