Christine Koch

This article is about the poet Christine Koch. On the politician see Christine Koch (politician) .

Christine Koch in 1896

Christine Koch's birthplace in Herhagen

Christine Koch , b. Wüllner, (born April 23, 1869 in Herhagen , community Eslohe , † April 18, 1951 in Schmallenberg- Bracht ) was a German poet in Sauerland dialect.

life and work

Christine Koch was the fifth of seven children of the farmer Casper Wüllner and his wife Therese Mathilde Luise Nolte. After attending primary school in Reiste and the teachers' college in Duderstadt, she worked as a teacher in Padberg (Sauerland) from 1888 to 1902 . Subsequently, she was the headmistress of a girls' school in Vogelheim in what is now the Essen- Borbeck district , until in 1905 she decided to leave school for health reasons. On May 3, 1905, she married the local restaurateur and farmer Wilhelm Koch in Bracht (Schmallenberg municipality). This was also her cousin. After his death in 1943 she took over the restaurant and worked as a landlady. Her brother-in-law was the teacher and author Franz Joseph Koch . The Koch family experienced considerable economic difficulties in the 1920s. In 1931 part of the property had to be sold. In addition, the author had health problems.

In addition to her work as a mother, housewife and landlady and innkeeper, Christine Koch wrote stories and poems in Sauerland dialect . She became particularly known for her homeland and nature poems. Georg Hermann Nellius gave it the nickname "Sauerland nightingale". In 1923 her first poem appeared in the magazine of the Sauerland Heimatbund De Suerländer , in 1924 her first book Wille Räousen , and in 1929 the second volume of poetry Sunnenried . Her prose volume Rund ümme'n Stimmstamm rümme was published in 1927 . According to her biographer Willy Knoppe , she wrote poems in the 1920s with a “völkisch-nationalistic gesture”. She was biographically “predisposed” to “folk-nationalistic ideas”. She has taken up “clichés of ' Heimatkunst '”, even if it does not fit into this concept.

At the end of the 1920s, the composer Georg Hermann Nellius founded the Sauerland Artists' Circle (SKK), which Christine Koch joined and with her, among others, her friend Josefa Berens-Totenohl and Maria Kahle , both also writers and as such folk "political activists". In the following years, the circle was headed by Hans Menne , an early NSDAP member.

Nellius set numerous texts by Koch to music. His German Mass, which was awarded a state prize in 1932, was composed from one of her texts. Berens-Totenohl illustrated several of her books. She also gave the laudation in 1939 when the Klaus Groth Prize was awarded.

A poem from 1934 quoted by Willy Knoppe in his Koch dissertation stands for Koch's political poetry from 1933 with the lines:

"Duitsland is free, van Sklavensäilen is lying.
Seyn Schild is bare in the sharpest Iutland eyes.
Fiär usen leaders greet Heil and Sieg!
Un allewiäg duitsk, un allewiäg trui! "

Knoppe also quotes from 1934 a "Commemoration of the Germans Abroad" for the teachers' festival in Obermarsberg:

"Verbung in Truie,
van Laiwte umeslungen,
to confuse clods,
to pay us,
proud, wäikun hard
is duitske Aart.
A people, a land,
in leader, in volume
for everything, wat duitsk un tribal related. "

Knoppe's conclusion is that Koch's poems contained “a patriotic to folk-nationalistic tendency”. "This includes" also poems with an open partisanship for Hitler and the NSDAP. "They also show social Darwinist traits and" signs of a lack of tolerance of those who think differently "[obviously meant: towards those who think differently], so if they use the metaphor of the" Unkruit "Or consider the opponents of Low German with the remark:" un wai't despised, is sick. "The literary scholar Steffen Stadthaus from the literary commission of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association counts them together with Maria Kahle as " the völkisch literary scene ".

The publicist and local researcher Peter Bürger, on the other hand, sees her as a “patriot”, as evidenced by her “war and field post poetry”, which was “without any obvious reservations”. She was "aware of a difference to the worldview of the friend Josefa Berens". Nonetheless, on the basis of her German-national sentiments, Koch participated “in the shift to the right in broad circles” “by 1932 at the latest”. In this context, Bürger quotes a proclamation from Koch for the dedication of the war memorial in Schliprüthen in November 1933:

"But we who live are their heirs,
Heirs of loyalty and heroic blood.
And if a world were to be broken into pieces:
German courage remains unbroken. "

The Fiihrer praise ceased after 1936 and Koch was not an anti-Semite . You have shown "emphatic solidarity with outsiders or the homeless". Some “examples of their poetry” showed “a high level of formal art”.

Koch did not join the NSDAP, but he did join the Reichsschrifttumskammer as early as 1933 , for which she submitted an Aryan certificate.

Honors

• 1939: Winner of the Klaus Groth Prize for Low German poetry and poetry, endowed for the first time and endowed with 1,000 Reichsmarks
• 1943: last recipient of the Westphalian Literature Prize awarded every two years from 1935 to 1943, endowed with 10,000 Reichsmarks, after Josefa Berens-Totenohl , Maria Kahle , Karl Wagenfeld and Heinrich Luhmann
• 1944: Honorary membership in the Sauerland Mountain Club (SGV)
• 1969: numerous articles on the hundredth birthday in Westphalian newspapers and magazines, including by Heinrich Kleibauer , Ferdinand Tönne and Heinrich Luhmann . On this occasion, Kleibauer described her as "the most important Low German poet from the Sauerland", Tönne as "one of the best iut uesem Lanne".
• 1995: Unveiling of a memorial plaque in the village of Padberg near Marsberg at the former elementary school
• 2007: Unveiling of a monument in her former place of residence, the village of Bracht in the Schmallenberg community

In 1929 the Sauerland and the Westphalian Heimatbund tried in vain to obtain a pension from the government in Arnsberg and the Prussian government in Berlin as a "gift of honor" as the main teacher. The appeal was signed by Heinrich Luhmann and Karl Wagenfeld , among others .

Three schools in the Sauerland (in Schmallenberg , Eslohe , Bamenohl ) and several streets, a SGV hiking trail and a hiking home near Schmallenberg were named after her.

In February 2014, a citizen's application was directed to the city of Schmallenberg, after which the street and school there should be renamed after Hans Frankenthal , since Koch had belonged to the volkish literary scene and some of her poems were volkisch-Nazi tendencies as well as openly partisanship for Adolf Hitler and his NSDAP show. A few months later, the citizen's application and renaming were rejected by a majority by the city council, as according to the information provided by the expert Peter Bürger Koch, although he was not a resilient role model, he was not a National Socialist and anti-Semite, but rather just a temporary follower.

Christine Koch dialect archive

The Christine Koch dialect archive at the Eslohe Machine and Local History Museum has been researching the poet's life and work since 1987 . It houses the handwritten estate and is the publisher of the four-volume edition of the work including biography and high German workbook.

Thematically, the dialect archive is not limited to Christine Koch and the regional dialects. It asks about the South Westphalian “literary legacy” left behind by ethnic and National Socialist authors such as Maria Kahle, Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Heinrich Luhmann and Karl Wagenfeld, and tries to come to terms with it. Materials on the current state of research are available on the archive's website.

Christine Koch Society

Memorial plaque for Christine Koch at the former elementary school in Padberg

The Christine Koch Society was founded in Schmallenberg in 1993 as the "Society for the Promotion of Literature in the Sauerland". Above all, it wants to promote and scientifically research literature in the Sauerland and South Westphalia, promote contemporary regional authors and present the region in literature. A reference to "home" is addressed as one point among others: It is "among other things, to make the significance of the characteristic and unmistakable landscape of the Sauerland visible in literature". "Home wanders inside and nowhere else."

“Another important task” the CKG sees as “the maintenance of the literary heritage as an essential task.” All literary work in the Sauerland, “regardless of whether a reference to the past or the present is to be established, regardless of whether High German literature or Sauerland [sic] dialect is present ”, is the object of the effort. This includes the highly Nazi-polluted blood-and-soil literature and the folk " Heimatkunst " of the Sauerland and the rest of Westphalia. In recent times, critical approaches and initiatives from the circle of membership have been identified in this area.

The Christine Koch Society maintains a Sauerland literature archive in Schmallenberg with around 2,000 periodicals and books. The library is located next to the Schmallenberg City Archives in the narrow house near the town hall. The archive belonged to the estate of the Sundern-born writer Dietmar Rost , who was the founding chairman of the society. With around 300 members, the Christine Koch Society is the largest literary association in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Fonts

• Will maws. Poems in the Sauerland dialect. Music and art publishing house König, Neheim 1924.
• Sunnenried. Poems in the Sauerland dialect. Music and art publishing house König, Neheim 1929.
• Works Part 1: Poems in the Sauerland dialect. Edited by Peter Bürger et al. Fredeburg 1992.
• Works Part 2: Stories and other prose in Sauerland dialect. Fredeburg 1994.

literature

• Alfred Bruns: Schmallenberg heads. Published by the Schmallenberg-Holthausen Slate Mining Museum. Slate Mining Museum , Schmallenberg-Holthausen 1985 (= Publications of the Slate Mining Museum on State History 6 (recte 7), ZDB -ID 2293376-1 )
• Peter Bürger: Aanewenge. People's life and Low German people good in the Sauerland. Machine and Local History Museum Eslohe, Eslohe 2006, ISBN 3-00-020224-2 .
• Peter Bürger (ed.): Christine Koch (1869–1951). Overview of biography, examples of works, updated bibliography. Eslohe 2010 ( online version ; PDF file; 1.62 MB)
• Peter Bürger: In the reypen Koren. A reference work on dialect authors, language certificates and Low German activities in the Sauerland and neighboring areas. Machine and Local History Museum, Eslohe 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-022810-0 .
• Peter Bürger (edit.): National conservative, militaristic and Nazi-friendly poems by Christine Koch 1920–1944. Eslohe 2012, Daunlots No. 59, Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at the Eslohe Machine and Local History Museum, ( online version ; PDF file; 5.28 MB)
• Willy Knoppe: Searching for orientation in a regional form of language. Everything is wuat. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch. Dissertation. University of Münster 2005. Cuvillier, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-86537-494-8 . (= Slate Mining Museum Schmallenberg-Holthausen, contributions 15)
• Manfred Raffenberg: The city of Essen in the life and work of Christine Koch , page 25 ff., In Daunlots No. 32, Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at the Machine and Local History Museum Eslohe, 2011 (online version ; PDF file; 5 , 5 MB)

Web links

Commons : Christine Koch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Christine Koch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Christine Koch dialect archive
• Information on the Christine Koch Society
• Homepage of the Christine Koch Society
• Christine Koch in the Low German Bibliography and Biography (PBuB)
• Christine Koch in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors

Individual evidence

1. ↑ As evidenced by the denazification documents according to information from the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dept. Rhineland.
2. ↑ De Suerländer: Verluarene Laier by Christine Koch, p. 39 (PDF) ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. . 
3. ↑ Willy Knoppe, Un bey alles is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional form of language. A literary-pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, pp. 37, 113, 289ff., 344, 368f.
4. ^ Peter Bürger, The völkisch wing of the Sauerland homeland movement. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle - at the same time a contribution to the street name debate, in: daunlots. Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at Museum Eslohe, No. 60, Eslohe 2013, see: [1] .
5. ↑ [2] .
6. ↑ [3] .
7. ↑ Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Christine Koch. Spoken in Hamburg at the award of the Klaus Groth Prize for Low German Poetry to Christine Koch, in: De Suerlänner, Bigge, 1940, pp. 65–67.
8. ↑ Quoted from: Willy Knoppe, Un bey allem is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional language. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 292.
9. ↑ Quoted from: Willy Knoppe, Un bey allem is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional language. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 293.
10. ↑ Willy Knoppe, Un bey alles is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional form of language. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 289, see also p. 37.
11. ↑ Willy Knoppe, Un bey alles is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional form of language. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 301.
12. ↑ Steffen Stadthaus, Heinrich Luhmann. Homeland poet and National Socialist ?! Expert opinion on behalf of the city of Hamm, o. O. (Hamm) o. J. (2012), see: [4] .
13. ↑ Quoted from: [5] .
14. ↑ Peter Bürger (arrangement), National conservative, militaristic and Nazi-friendly poems by Christine Koch 1920–1944, Eslohe 2012 (daunlots. Internet contributions from the christine-koch-mundart archive at the eslohe machine and home museum, no. 59), p. 12, see: [6] .
15. ↑ Peter Bürger (edit.), National conservative, militaristic and Nazi-friendly poems by Christine Koch 1920–1944, Eslohe 2012 (daunlots. Internet contributions from the christine-koch-mundart archive at the eslohe machine and home museum, no. 59), p. 13, see: [7] .
16. ↑ home. Not only see the beautiful lyrics, but also the downsides. in: Der Westen from May 25, 2013
17. ↑ Peter Bürger, Im reypen Koren - A reference work on dialect authors, language certificates and Low German companies in the Sauerland, Eslohe 2010, p. 343.
18. ↑ Willy Knoppe, Un bey alles is wuat - a search for orientation in a regional form of language. A literary pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 14.
19. ^ Heinrich Kleibauer in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
20. ^ Ferdinand Tönne in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
21. ^ Heinrich Kleibauer, Christine Koch was born in 1869. The most important Low German poet from the Sauerland also had the Droste Prize, in: Heimat am Hellweg, calendar for Hamm and the district of Unna, 1969, no.29.
22. ^ Ferdinand Tönne, Christine Koch. “Äine der Beste iut uesem Lanne”, in: Sauerland, Meschede, 1969, no. 1, p. 6f.
23. ↑ See Christine Koch in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
24. ↑ See: bürgerredaktion, in: [8] .
25. ^ Derwesten.de (Laura Nowicki): Christine Koch School will not be renamed from September 6, 2014 .
26. ↑ See: Christine Koch-Mundartarchiv at the DampfLandLeute-MUSEUM ESLOHE , Sauerlandmundart.de .
27. ↑ HP of the Christine Koch Society, We About Us - The Society, see: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
28. ↑ See: Self-presentation of the society in " NRW Literature on the Net " of the Westphalian Literature Office in Unna: [9] .
29. ↑ See the series "daunlots internet contributions of the christine-koch-mundart archive at the dampflandfolk_museum eslohe" published by Peter Bürger [10] .
30. ↑ Monika Willer - The West: The largest North Rhine-Westphalian literary association will be accessed on August 22, 2013 on September 1, 2013