Charlotte water

Charlotte Wasser (born August 20, 1914 in Breslau , Lower Silesia ; today Wrocław, Poland , as Charlotte Sille; † [before August 18, 2001 in Berlin ) was a German publicist and literary propagandist.

Life

Charlotte Sille was the daughter of a tailor and a domestic worker and grew up in poor circumstances. Her wish to escape the working class environment through education failed because of the family's precarious financial situation. From 1920 to 1928 she attended elementary school and then worked as a domestic servant and as an assistant in a dairy shop in Wroclaw. In 1937 she met the machine fitter Artur Wasser (1912–2004), a staunch communist , whom she married in 1939. She later said that he had expelled her “petty bourgeois ideology” and awakened her political consciousness. His political views led to difficulties during his time in the Wehrmacht . He was imprisoned, assigned to work in the armaments industry and finally called up again to serve in the war in southern France. In 1944 he succeeded in defection to the Americans. Charlotte water was as 1940-1941 stenographer in the air base Wischau operates. One day after the attack on the Soviet Union , she was arrested and served a five-month sentence in the Wroclaw remand prison. After a downcast accusation of “preparation for high treason ” she was drafted as an office assistant at the Gandau Air Base / Wroclaw. Due to the fact that she had hidden a deserter at home during the last months of the war , her apartment remained untouched in the midst of the wave of looting by the Red Army and she enjoyed the right to stay in Wroclaw until the end of 1946. During this time she worked as a saleswoman. She and her mother moved to Berlin to live with her great aunt, where she met her husband, who had now been released from American (and ultimately English) captivity . Together they joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and from 1947 to 1949 attended lectures at the social science faculty of Leipzig University , her husband as a registered student, she as a guest student . Since Artur Wasser found a job as a scientific librarian at the Berlin City Library, the couple moved to East Berlin . Charlotte Wasser worked there from 1950 as an editor , first in the writers' association and later in various publishing houses. In between, she completed a two-year course for cultural workers at the evening university, a one-year direct study at the SED district school and attended a three-month course at the district school of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF). From 1955 to 1959 she worked as a consultant for Soviet literature on the central board of DSF.

From 1960 she worked as a freelance writer and literary propagandist. Above all, she created literary portraits of artists in the form of slide and audio presentations, which were called "tape image strips". The initial spark was a writers' evening in 1951, on which the life story told personally by Ehm Welk was without adequate visitor feedback. Wasser had then envisaged preserving such artist insights and bringing them closer to many people. Only a few years later was their first slide series with a twenty-minute "tape accompaniment" available. She had seen an exhibition on Maxim Gorky in the central house of DSF and photographed the panels. She gave an actress the explanatory texts, which she then spoke professionally on the tape. She continued according to this pattern in the years that followed. Her best-known work became the portrait of Ernst Busch , created in 1967 , which, as a result of her close friendship with the artist, was expanded again and translated into four languages.

Schools, youth clubs, companies, cultural centers and libraries were the preferred locations for their documentation. She was her own event technician who took care of the entire equipment assembly before the actual task of imparting knowledge. Copies of their works also made it possible for other people, teachers in schools, librarians in libraries, nurses in clinics, party officials in mass organizations , carers in holiday homes, etc., to carry out the slide show with the help of the instructions in the projectionist's book.

In the 1960s she wrote articles, most of which related to her lecturing activities, for various party organs , cultural journals, professional periodicals and occasionally published them in Neues Deutschland or Junge Welt . Sometimes she reported on literary discussions that she had moderated, described in detail her visits to combines or, from the early 1970s, devoted herself to subjects of the visual arts. She focused on the latter at her events in the 1980s and 1990s ( Marc Chagall , Pablo Picasso , Paula Modersohn-Becker , Salvador Dalí , Edward Hopper , Andy Warhol ), while Ernst Busch remained a topic and Paul Robeson was added.

Quote by Charlotte Wasser

"All in all, my work is about massively and in an easily comprehensible manner, awakening and promoting the receptivity for artistic works and understanding for their creators [...]."

- Charlotte Wasser : newspaper interview, 1973

Quotes about Charlotte water

"When your pictures, words and music merge into one unit, you have the feeling of attending a successful theater performance in which intellect and feeling are addressed equally."

- Eva Salzer : Neues Deutschland, 1993

“Charlotte Wasser has empathy and sensitivity. It is not superficial in any phase of its performance, you can feel the thorough preparatory work. The text, the reproductions of the paintings, additional photos and the music create a unit and are coordinated with each other. "

- sr. : Pankower Bridge, 1992

"Tape picture strips" (later called "sound-slide cycle")

Not all information could be determined. Attempt of chronological sorting according to water in newspaper articles.

• 1955 or later: Maxim Gorki , 20 min
• after 1955: Michail Scholochow
• after 1955: Johannes R. Becher
• 1961: Bertolt Brecht. Life and Work , Magistrate of Greater Berlin, Culture Department (Ed.)
• 1961: Otto Gotsche. Between Night and Morning , District Management of the SED, Department of Culture, Magistrate of Greater Berlin, Department of Culture (ed.)
• 1962: Gerhart Hauptmann. From his life and work , Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge . Bureau. Art and Literature Section and Exhibitions and Illustrative Material Section (Ed.), 55 min
• 1962 (?): Erich Weinert speaks! - From his life and work in sound and images , Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (ed.) [There is also the information from time to time: District Board of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain]
• around 1962/63 (?): FC Weiskopf
• 1963: Louis Fürnberg. "Nothing is more beautiful than the human heart". His life and work in sound and images , society for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Bureau. Art and Literature Section and Exhibitions and Illustrative Material Section (Ed.)
• 1963: Kurt Tucholsky. Greetings forward , Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge. Bureau. Art and Literature Section and Exhibitions and Illustrative Material Section (Ed.)
• 1963 (?): Friedrich Wolf
• 1963: Guest of Alex Wedding. Life and work in picture and sound , 45 min
• 1963: Arnold Zweig. Tribune of Peace , Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (ed.)
• 1966: love - ancient ways
• 1967: Ernst Busch. Forward and not forget ... His life and work in song, word and image , Council of the Berlin-Friedrichshain District, FDGB District Board Berlin-Friedrichshain, 80 min (also as a gift box / box set in a representative version with 155 glass slides, tape and accompanying material)
• 1967: My unforgotten friends. Encounter with Soviet books and their heroes , Federal Board of FDGB, Department of Culture, Society for German-Soviet Friendship, Department of Culture (ed.), 70 min
• 1970: Lenin - Life and Action (Part 1 of the lecture on Lenin: Childhood and Youth and his Work up to the October Revolution, presented in words, images and music ), district leadership of the SED Berlin-Pankow, Department of Agitation and Propaganda (ed.), 60 min
• 1970: Because you give life (Part 1 of the lecture on women in art: The role of women in the course of times, represented by the visual arts, poetry and music ), District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed .), 50 min
• 1970: Because we are lovers and future (part 2 of the lecture on women in art: friendship and love then and now, in the work of fine arts, poetry and music ), District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed.) , 70 min
• 1970: Children's eyes look at us (part 3 of the lecture about women in art: The world of children - in the past and present - in the work of visual artists, poets, educators and composers ), District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture ( Ed.), 60 min
• 1971: Lenin - Life and Action (Part 2 of the lecture on Lenin: His role in solving the tasks of the young Soviet country ), district leadership of the SED Berlin-Pankow, Department of Agitation and Propaganda (ed.), 60 min
• 1972: The artist and his image of man , district executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, culture department (ed.), 60 min
• approx. first half of the 1970s: When reason is asleep. Art in the Third Reich
• 1974: This is my country in which I live , District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed.)
• 1975: You are not alone. The role of the Soviet Union as a peace power , District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed.)
• 1976: But who is the party - the spiritual and moral face of the comrade in the mirror of literature, art and reality , District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed.)
• 1977: But we open our hearts to friends. - A contribution to German-Soviet friendship , District Executive of the FDGB Berlin-Friedrichshain, Department of Culture (ed.) [There is also the information from time to time: District Executive of the SED Berlin-Pankow, Department of Agitation and Propaganda]
• 1984: I am America too - Paul Robeson

Extensive articles

• 1962: A novel and its readers. Creative controversy about "Description of a Summer" by Karl-Heinz-Jakobs . In: Neue deutsche Literatur , 4/1962, pp. 65–74.
• 1962: The long way. Records from a brigade diary . In: Berliner Zeitung , 15. April 1962, full-page report.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jochen Voit , Margrit Manz: Margit Manz about her mother Charlotte Wasser and her great passion for Ernst Busch. (No longer available online.) In: erinnerorte.de. October 20, 2008, archived from the original on November 7, 2017 ; accessed on October 31, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Art as a mediator of ideological conviction . In: National Council of the National Front (Ed.): Information . Work with us, plan with us, rule with us! Everyone is responsible for the whole. No. 7/1971 , October 1, 1971, pp. 14-15, 18 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Eva Salzer: Intellect and feeling . In: New Germany . January 28, 1993, Berlin heads, p. 23 .
4. ↑ MB: Closely connected to literature. The poet and his audience - Charlotte Wasser makes the acquaintance between them . In: The morning . No. 169/1970 , July 19, 1970, pp. 8 .
5. ↑ Cordula: Curiosity about a voice. Charlotte Wasser's idea with tapes, slides, music and books . In: National newspaper . No. 167/1971 . Berlin July 18, 1971, p. 6 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Gudrun Skulski: Beauties of home discovered. Slide-tone lectures by Charlotte Wasser . In: New Time . No. 170/1974 , July 20, 1974, Woman - Family - Society, p. 8 .
7. ↑ Charlotte Wasser: A novel and its readers. Creative controversy about "Description of a Summer" by Karl-Heinz-Jakobs . In: German Writer's Association (Hrsg.): New German Literature . Monthly magazine for beautiful literature and criticism. No. 4/1962 , April 1962, pp. 65-74 .
8. ↑ Charlotte Wasser: The long way . Records from a brigade diary. In: Berliner Zeitung . April 15, 1962 (full-page report, unpaginated page).
9. ↑ ^{a b} sr .: The portrait - Charlotte Wasser . In: Pankower Bridge . Information for seniors. No. 9 June 1992, pp. 16-18 .
10. ^ Elisabeth Wegerer: Artist - Time - Image of Man. The literary propagandist Charlotte Wasser on her plans . In: Neue Zeit (=  the NZ interview of the week ). Berlin January 13th 1973.

Web links

• Literature by and about Charlotte Wasser in the catalog of the German National Library
• Charlotte-Wasser-Archiv in the archive of the Akademie der Künste , Berlin