Bernhard Kellermann

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Bernhard Kellermann on the grandstand of the Goethetage event in 1949

Bernhard Kellermann (born March 4, 1879 in Fürth , † October 17, 1951 in Klein Glienicke near Potsdam ) was a German writer .

Life

Bernhard Kellermann and Otto Nagel 1950

Bernhard Kellermann began his studies at the Technical University in Munich in 1899 , later he studied German and painting . From 1904 he made a name for himself as a novelist when one of his early works, Yester and Li , achieved extraordinary success and had a total of 183 editions by 1939.

The novel Ingeborg (1906) also achieved 131 editions (until 1939).

In the years before the First World War , novels and travelogues appeared following trips to the USA and Japan . The travelogues A walk in Japan and Sassa yo Yassa. Japanese dances appeared in 1910 and 1911. The Swiss painter and illustrator Karl Walser illustrated the books. His novel Das Meer from 1910 was filmed in 1927 by Peter Paul Felner , Sofar-Film-Produktion GmbH, with Heinrich George , Olga Chekhowa and Simone Vaudry, also known as "Island of Passion" or "The Island of a Thousand Sins". In 1913 his main work, Der Tunnel, appeared . It was a huge success for the author and his publisher : the total circulation exceeded one million and the work was translated into 25 languages. This book was filmed four times: in 1915 as a silent film by William Wauer , in 1933 as a German-French production directed by Kurt Bernhardt in the German version with Paul Hartmann , Olly von Flint , Attila Hörbiger and Gustaf Gründgens and in parallel with Jean Gabin in a French version Version and finally in 1935 as an English production under Maurice Elvey (screenplay, inter alia, Curt Siodmak ).

Kellermann's work was less marked by the previous impressionistic and lyrical prose than by the socially critical and realistic mode of representation. Bernhard Kellermann knew the painter Moritz Coschell , who illustrated for the S. Fischer publishing house and for the Berliner Tageblatt. Coschell made a large portrait of Kellermann and the important painting was shown in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1909. During the First World War, Kellermann worked as a correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt . Several war reports were published.

In 1920 the novel November 9 appeared , which critically examined the behavior of soldiers and officers towards the population. From 1922 onwards numerous short stories and stories followed . In 1926 Kellermann became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts , Poetry section. Although he had signed the section's declaration of loyalty to the Nazi state required by Gottfried Benn , he was expelled from the academy on May 5, 1933. The novel November 9 was banned and publicly burned. Kellermann did not emigrate, nor did he offer any resistance, but instead wrote trivial novels .

After the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship, Kellermann founded the Kulturbund together with Johannes R. Becher . He became a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR and chairman of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship . In 1949 he received the GDR National Prize, Literature / Class 2, for his novel Totentanz . His political and cultural involvement in the GDR prompted West German booksellers to take his books off the market and to boycott him . As a result, his name was forgotten in West Germany. Shortly before his death in 1951, he called on the writers of both German states to advocate all-German consultations.

Bernhard Kellermann was buried in the New Cemetery in Potsdam . His grave is still there.

Works

Published posthumously

  • Bernhard Kellermann in memory. Articles, letters, speeches 1945–1951 (1952)
  • A review 1906–1951 (1979)

literature

  • Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 227 f.
  • Bożena Chołuj: German writer under the spell of the November Revolution 1918 . Bernhard Kellermann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller, Erich Mühsam, Franz Jung. In: DUV: Literary Studies . Deutscher Universitats-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1991, ISBN 3-8244-4039-3 (also dissertation at the University of Warsaw , 1988).
  • Christa Miloradovic-Weber: The inventor novel 1850-1950 . For the literary processing of technical civilization. Constitution of a literary genre. In: Zurich German Studies . tape 15 . Lang, Bern / Frankfurt am Main / New York 1989, ISBN 3-261-03995-7 .
  • Bernd Noack: Paved with light and shadow . Eleven literary explorations in Fürth. In: On the trail of poets and thinkers through Franconia . tape 5 . Schrenk, Gunzenhausen 2007, ISBN 978-3-924270-49-0 (In the footsteps of Elia Halevi, Leopold Ullstein, Max Bernstein, Alfred Louis Nathan, Jakob Wassermann, Bernhard Kellermann, Eugen Gürster, Ruth Weiß, Richard Krautheimer, Mary Rosenberg ).
  • Barbara Ohm: Bernhard Kellermann . On the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Fürth-born author. In: Fürther Heimatblätter . No. 51 , 2001, p. 97-135 .
  • Barbara Ohm: Fürth: History of the City . Jungkunz, Fürth 2007, ISBN 978-3-9808686-1-7 (with a detailed biography by Bernhard Kellermann).
  • Fritz Reinert: What unites us is the suffering, the legacy and the fate of Germany . Notes on two Potsdam writers (1945–1949). In: Germany archive . No. 32 . W. Bertelsmann Verlag , 1999, ISSN  0012-1428 , p. 604-613 .
  • Uta Schaffers: Constructions of the foreign . Experienced, written down and exquisite using the example of Japan. In: Spectrum literary studies . tape 8 . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 978-3-11-018862-2 (also habilitation thesis at the University of Cologne , 2005).
  • Klaus Loyalty: Bernhard Kellermann. The moralist from Fürth . In: Bernd Flessner (Ed.): Visionaries from Franconia. Six fantastic biographies . Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2000, ISBN 3-87707-542-8 , p. 101-112 .
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 , pp. 93-95 .
  • Aysche Wesche: Kellermann, Bernhard . In: Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature since 1900. With a look at Eastern Europe , edited by Christoph F. Lorenz, Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-63167-236-5 , pp. 381–384.
  • Gertraude Wilhelm:  Kellermann, Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 470 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Bernhard Kellermann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 300.
personal data
SURNAME Kellermann, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and politician, MdV
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1951
Place of death Klein Glienicke near Potsdam