Bruno E. Werner

Bruno Erich Werner (born September 5, 1896 in Leipzig ; † January 21, 1964 in Davos , Switzerland ) was a successful German Germanist , publicist , journalist , writer , essayist , translator , art and literary critic and diplomat , who served in 1952 the Federal Republic of Germany entered. His life spans from the German Empire through the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich to the Adenauer era, and his biography reflects the manifold breaks of this era.

Werner came from a liberal-conservative milieu and is today widely regarded as a typical representative of the so-called " inner emigration ". His initial attitude towards Nazi cultural policy is characterized by internal contradictions and is not always assessed unanimously. Politically rather conservative, during the first years of the Nazi dictatorship he made concessions to the prevailing taste in art of the National Socialists, which, according to his own statements, he always rejected internally. When evaluating Werner's art-political statements during the Nazi era, however, it should be borne in mind that Werner was of non-Aryan descent according to the Nazi racial ideology and therefore had to reckon with constant persecution by the authorities of the National Socialist state. The extent to which his statements on contemporary art were influenced by this initial situation still needs to be clarified by cultural studies research.

Aesthetically, the versatile Werner was under the influence of the Bauhaus direction in art and architecture , which is also noticeable in his preference for contemporary art . Werner, who was generally open to art, was also interested in other art movements, in particular expressionism and in general the avant-garde of classical modernism.

Life

Childhood and youth in the empire

Werner came from the privileged class of the upper Lutheran educated middle class. His father, who had a doctorate in chemistry , worked as the managing director of a gas works. His mother Jenny, b. Salinger, came from a Jewish family, which is why Werner was classified as a so-called "first degree Jewish half- breed" according to the Nuremberg Race Laws, i.e. , in National Socialist diction , he was considered a half-Jew .

Werner first attended elementary school in Nuremberg . He then moved to a Dresden grammar school, where he also took the Abitur exam. In 1914 he joined the Dresden Leibregiment as a war volunteer, whose company commander was the later writer and Spanish fighter Ludwig Renn . From 1915 to 1918 Werner took part in the First World War and was honored for his bravery.

Study time, professional and private life during the Weimar Republic

After the end of the war he successfully studied literature , art history and philosophy, initially in the Bavarian capital Munich , where Werner witnessed the Munich Soviet Republic and its violent suppression by Freikorps units . Later Werner then continued his studies in the capital of Berlin . His most important academic teachers were the art historians Heinrich Wölfflin and Fritz Strich .

In 1922 Werner married Katharina Kluge, with whom he stayed together until his death. From the marriage in 1927, the sculptor Imogen Stuart , who has lived in Ireland since 1951, and later another daughter, Sibylle, emerged.

Between 1926 and 1938 Werner was part of the arts section of the liberal-conservative Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ) in Berlin and in 1934 was promoted to head of the arts section, theater and arts sections. As part of his features he mainly wrote art and theater reviews and made a name for himself with travel reports and articles about architecture.

1929 Werner was with the work of the German transmissions by Paul Verlaine Dr. phil. obtained his doctorate and initially worked in the art department of the Bibliographical Institute in Leipzig as an art historical advisor. He also edited several volumes of Shakespeare's works in individual editions for the Leipziger Insel Verlag and, in this context, provided revisions of some Shakespeare translations by Dorothea Tieck . He later switched to the Wertheim Group , an up-and-coming chain of department stores, but whose Jewish owners were expropriated by the National Socialist state in 1937. Werner headed the antiques department there for some time.

Also in 1929 began his editing of the culture magazine Neue linie , which was strongly influenced by the Bauhaus in typography and graphics and aimed at an educated readership. It was published monthly by the Beyer Verlag in Leipzig and its first edition by conservative writers like Thomas Mann for its “literary level “Was explicitly praised. Werner succeeded u. a. to this day, recognized authors such as Hermann Hesse , Werner Bergengruen or Kasimir Edschmid for the new line , but also works by authors close to National Socialism such as Will Vesper or active National Socialist cultural functionaries such as Hanns Johst or Hans Friedrich Blunck were in the magazine, which opposed directed the art scene of the Weimar Republic , largely determined by the left . In a leading article in 1932, Werner demanded that “art” must function “as the creative expression of the nation”, thereby linking to the völkisch semantics of right-wing extremists even before the so-called “ seizure of power ” by the NSDAP . However, Werner named painters as diverse as the expressionist Oskar Kokoschka , the verist Otto Dix or the impressionist Lovis Corinth as praiseworthy role models , who were more or less rejected by the National Socialists or even regarded as 'degenerate'.

Professional and private life during the Nazi dictatorship

In October 1933 Werner was one of the 88 writers who signed the pledge of loyal allegiance to Adolf Hitler . In a letter of December 9, 1933 to the Reichskulturwalter, State Commissioner Hans Hinkel , Werner confirms that the new line supports “the new Germany” in terms of cultural policy. In 1934 he published a book with the title From the permanent face of German art , which was part of Gerhard Bahlsen's series, Obligation and Awakening. Writings on the present appeared and in which Werner also praised a folk artist like Emil Nolde . Above all, the work ostracized by the National Socialists was honored by Ernst Barlach , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , August Macke , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel .

Due to his classification as a so-called “half-Jew”, Werner was only allowed to publish after 1935 with a special permit, which could be withdrawn from him at any time. To what extent this threatening situation contributed to his officially announced positive assessment of Nazi cultural policy is controversial. Obviously, Werner's ambivalent cultural and political stance and his participation in the First World War meant that he and his family could live and work relatively undisturbed by the National Socialists for a long time, despite his partly Jewish origins.

Nevertheless, in the years that followed, he increasingly came into conflict with the authorities and the Nazi censorship. In July 1937 Werner delivered a "Munich Special Report" for the DAZ, in which he strictly adhered to the conditions imposed by the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with regard to reporting on the "Great German Art Exhibition 1937" and the notorious exhibition " Degenerate Art " held. Nonetheless, Werner had to leave the DAZ editorial team in 1938. From then on he concentrated primarily on his work for the new line . The volume Die deutsche Plastik der Gegenwart , which was completed in 1940 and was supposed to appear in the Rembrandt publishing house in Berlin, was banned and crushed because, in addition to works officially recognized by the National Socialists, such as the bronze sculpture Der Führer by Fritz Klimsch, it also contained sculptures of the so-called " Half Jew ”, Adolf von Hildebrand and again treated and positively assessed by Ernst Barlach.

When the air raids on Berlin began in 1941, the Werner's two daughters were evacuated first to Bavaria and later to Vienna , where they found shelter with a family friend. In 1943 the two o. G. Monthly magazines, which were characterized by an elaborate layout, discontinued in the course of the war events that made rationing of raw materials necessary. At about the same time Werner began work on his autobiographical novel Die Galeere , which lasted until 1947. This work describes the fate of a German intellectual who is married to a German Jew between 1932 and 1945.

In 1944 the family house in Berlin-Schmargendorf was confiscated by the National Socialists. Werner barely escaped persecution by the Gestapo and spent some time underground, including a. in the Bavarian town of Dießen am Ammersee and in Dresden, where he witnessed the devastating Allied air raids on the Saxon capital in February 1945. When Werner found out towards the end of the war in Bavaria that his daughter Imogen had been drafted to dig anti-tank trenches against the Red Army advancing on Vienna , he went to Vienna to bring his firstborn to Bavaria, where father and daughter were liberated together experienced by approaching American troops. Some time later Werner managed to bring his wife and younger daughter Sibylle to the American-occupied Bavaria, where they were protected from attacks by Soviet soldiers.

Working life in the Federal Republic of Germany

From 1945 to 1946 Werner headed the Wort department at Radio Hamburg (later NWDR Hamburg). In 1947 he moved back to Munich. There Werner wrote primarily theater reviews and finally took over the management of the feature pages of the Neue Zeitung from Erich Kästner , a daily newspaper sponsored by the American military government, which was supposed to contribute to the re-education and democratization of the German population as part of the so-called " re-education " At that time one of the few German papers of international importance was. His articles showed a move away from pure aestheticism towards greater cultural-political engagement in the sense of a democratization of post-war German society promoted by art.

At the end of his time as head of the features section of the Neue Zeitung , Werner undertook a three-month trip through the USA to get to know the American cultural scene and the “American way of life”. From memories of his stay in the USA, the band Can you forget Europe? Notes from a trip to America, published in 1952 by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt . In the same year Werner also published a volume on contemporary architecture in Germany at Bruckmann Verlag.

From 1952 he served as counselor and cultural attaché in Washington, DC. During his work until 1961 he succeeded a. a. to set up a large exhibition of German expressionist art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York . In 1957 his second novel was published by the S. Fischer publishing house, entitled The Goddess and taking up Werner's experiences in the field of tension between personal experience, art trade and political intrigues. In the meantime, the attempt to help another culture or lifestyle magazine with the title glossy and the new line to break through failed .

In 1962 Werner returned to Germany and, as he did when he was a student, settled again in Munich, which was to be his last place of residence. He wrote articles for Die Welt and gave many lectures on art historical topics. In the same year Werner succeeded Erich Kästner once again, this time as President of the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In his last years Werner suffered from progressive heart disease, from which he finally died on January 22nd, 1964 at the age of 67 in the Swiss climatic health resort of Davos. He found his final resting place in the St. Anne's Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem . The grave has not been preserved.

effect

His various journalistic and columnist work earned Werner a high reputation over the years, which also played a major role in his 1952 appointment as cultural attaché with the former war opponent USA .

Nevertheless, not least because of his ambivalent relationship to the Nazi regime, he was not undisputed as a writer during his lifetime. Herbert Hupka, for example, accused him on Bayerischer Rundfunk of taking a “bar stool perspective” in his novel Die Galeere, which was inadequate for the severity of events, and that he viewed the time of the Nazi dictatorship as “a snobbish dandy”. Thilo Koch from the NWDR complained that the galley was "neither true nor entertaining".

The successful playwright Carl Zuckmayer, on the other hand, praised Werner's novel in the Neue Zeitung as a future “bestseller”.

1953 was Werner's work Between the Wars. Abendländische Reisen (1940) placed on the list of literature to be discarded in the German Democratic Republic because of tendencies that are considered fascist .

An article by Werner in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 20, 1937, which also documents his complicated and multi-layered involvement in Nazi cultural policy, was used in the research to reconstruct the exhibition “Degenerate Art” .

Works

• About the permanent face of German art. Berlin, publishing house Die Runde 1934
• Between the wars. Occidental travel. 1940
• The German sculpture of the present. Rembrandt Publishing House; Berlin 1940
• The galley. (autobiographical novel), Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp (formerly S. Fischer) 1949
• Can you forget Europe? Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1951
• New building in Germany. Munich, Bruckmann 1952
• The goddess. S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1957
• The twenties. From morning to midnight. , Munich, Bruckmann 1962
• Rendezvous with the world. Travel pictures from four decades. Bruckmann 1963
• Lunapark and Alexanderplatz. Berlin in poetry and prose. Editor with Ortrud Reichel , Piper; Munich 1964

Reviews of works by Bruno E. Werner

• Put in the straps. In: Der Spiegel. February 2, 1950, pp. 35f.

Secondary literature

• Andreas Hüneke : For example: Bruno E. Werner. Art critical and art historical journalism in the thirties. In: Art and art criticism of the thirties. Dresden 1990, pp. 198-204.
• Patrick Rössler: Bruno E. Werner. A man of qualities. Exhibition catalog, Edition 451, Stuttgart 2009.

Web links

• Literature by and about Bruno E. Werner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and information on the work of Bruno E. Werner at Literaturport
• Bruno E. Werner. In: The time. January 31, 1964. (Obituary)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} J. Hellmut Freund: noted. In: Bruno E. Werner: The galley. Frankfurt / M. 1991, p. 409.
2. ↑ See Werner's personal file at the Reich Chamber of Culture in the Berlin Federal Archives: RKK 2100. Box 0482. File 07.
3. ↑ ^{a b Placed} in the straps. In: Der Spiegel. February 2, 1950, pp. 35f.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} The Irish Times.
5. ^ 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. 658.
6. ↑ ^{a b} J. Hellmut Freund: noted. In: Bruno E. Werner: The galley. Frankfurt / M. 1991, p. 410.
7. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 658.
8. ↑ Quotation from Julia Bertschik: Kriegs-Mode. National Socialist propaganda in the magazines “die neue linie” and “Die Mode”. In: Claudia Glunz et al. (Ed.): Information Warfare. The role of the media (literature, art, photography, film, television, theater, press, correspondence) in depicting and interpreting war. Göttingen, 2007, p. 418f.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} J. Hellmut Freund: noted. In: Bruno E. Werner: The galley. Frankfurt / M. 1991, p. 411.
10. ↑ ^{a b c} J. Hellmut Freund: noted. In: Bruno E. Werner: The galley. Frankfurt / M. 1991, p. 413.
11. ↑ ^{a b} J. Hellmut Freund: noted. In: Bruno E. Werner: The galley. Frankfurt / M. 1991, p. 414.
12. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 565.
13. ↑ ^{a b Placed} in the straps. In: Der Spiegel. February 2, 1950, p. 36.
14. ^ Ministry of National Education of the German Democratic Republic, list of the literature to be sorted out. Third supplement, Berlin: VEB Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1953. pp. 205–217.
15. ↑ Peter-Klaus Schuster: The "Art City" Munich 1937. National Socialism and "Degenerate Art" . Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1987, p. 102.