The air pirate and his dirigible airship

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The hijacker and his dirigible (also known as Captain Mors the hijacker , but not to be confused with the eponymous series of 1948) was a German science fiction - pulp novel series , which appeared from 1908 to about 1911-12. It was the first German series of its kind and probably one of the first science fiction booklet series in the world. According to Hans Joachim Alpers , the series already had all the elements of the later Space Opera .

Publishers

The series was originally published by Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH in Berlin. From issue no. 94, the series was published under the title Der Luftpirat by Verlag moderne Lektüre GmbH in Berlin . A total of 165 issues were created. In 1914, issues 65 to 86 were reissued by P. Lehmann GmbH, this time under the title Der Fliegerteufel .

Authors

Nothing is currently known about the writer (s) of the series. Based on various text analyzes, Heinz J. Galle suspects that at least some issues could have been written by Oskar Hoffmann .

The main character

The hijacker is Captain Mors , the steerable his airship and the global vehicle , the Meteor , which is also suitable for the flight in space , against criminals , but also anarchists fighting.

According to Heinz J. Galle, Mors is based on two literary models, both of which come from Jules Verne : Robur the Conqueror and Captain Nemo .

Like Nemo, the airship and the cosmic vehicle also have an Indian crew, and like Nemo the air pirate has a base on a mysterious island in the Pacific .

background

Captain Mors (from Latin mors = death ) has no other proper name. In the text he is also called The Air Pirate or The Masked One .

From Volume 1 ( The Ruler of the Skies ) it can be seen that Mors lived in Georgia , which is part of the Russian Empire at the time the series is set, until his family was murdered . Whether Mors is also of Georgian origin remains unclear, because from a conversation among the murderers of his family it can only be inferred that Mors wanted to spread “his crazy ideas of human rights” in Georgia. Mors is also said to have been the captain of a submarine .

The von Mors family were killed by criminals believed to be socialist revolutionaries . In Volume 1, Mors visits the crime scene again , apparently his family home, which is now only made of rubble. According to his own statements, the captain has always campaigned for human rights . At the grave of his family, he first swears to only take revenge on the murderers he wants to seek all over the globe:

“But then it is the turn of others, anyway I want to appear where injustice is being done. I want to appear everywhere, Captain Mors, appear like lightning out of the blue, with my wonderful vehicle, which gives me power, I want to appear as a vengeance. I want to cross the whole earth restlessly, I don't want to die until I have completed this life's work. I only had to see the site of my former happiness again before! Now the time of vengeance begins! "

- Volume 1, The Ruler of the Skies : Quoted in Galle, Der Luftpirat , p. 66.

Four of the perpetrators, Orloff, Matuschewsko, Gregor and Wassil, are in Odessa during a revolution they instigated . The Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Empire also takes part in the uprising and now wields red flags as a symbol of the revolution. Mors appears incognito in Odessa and intervenes by calling on Cossacks and citizens to defend themselves against the revolutionaries.

He then succeeds in arresting a number of the perpetrators who are on board one of the revolutionary ships. However, Matuschewsko, apparently one of the leaders of the revolutionaries, escapes. Mors and his crew hang the prisoners on the railing of the airship.

The content of the plot is in the context of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin .

outer appearance

Captain Mors has brown hair and his face is partially covered by a half mask. A mustache and a goatee are recognizable , as they were worn by officers of the Imperial Navy at the time; this external similarity was probably intended by the authors.

Mors wears a contemporary blue naval officer uniform including a cap with a gold captain's stripe. He is armed with two revolvers and a heavy sword.

Minor characters

Lindo is his young Indian servant who owns at least two silver-plated pistols and an Indian sword. He wears a white burnoose as an upper garment . He addresses the captain with Sāhib .

The engineer of the world vehicle is called Star .

Another of Mor's employees is typically called Terror .

Professor van Halen , originally a prisoner of the captain, later his colleague, supports Mors in the development of technical innovations.

The vehicles of the air pirate

The dirigible airship is used for traffic in the earth's atmosphere , the cosmic vehicle , the meteor , for space travel .

A picture of the airship can be found in volume 59 ( The uncanny blast furnace ). Thereafter, the vehicle has a battering ram , thumb screws , a central gallery , the spaces of Captain Mors (study, Salon , bedroom), an instrument room, headlights , front and rear gallery, a machine room , a living room for the helmsman , two crew quarters , a control chamber and a pantry .

The world vehicle is presented in volume 32 ( Captain Mor's first journey in the world vehicle ); Co-developer is Professor van Halen , who is also introduced to the plot at this point. It is made entirely of platinum , which Mors obtained from Russia .

In volume 38 ( Captain Mor's Enemies in Space ) the air pirate undertakes a journey in space for the first time , in this case to Venus .

A picture of the world vehicle can be found in volume 42 ( In the death crater of the new planet ). Then it has windows made of “strongest glass”, an airtight door to the outside gallery, a lookout, an upper gallery, a giant magnet for the drive, cables for the magnet with “enormous diamonds”, a steering device, a power center, a device for the air supply, an electricity container, a metal container, tubes for liquid air, a "device for counteraction of the giant magnet, mounted on diamonds" and the "joint" of the giant magnet.

Both color images are reproduced in Galle, Der Luftpirat , on pages 34–37.

Time level of the action

The series takes place between 1905 and 1910/11. It deals with current world events, such as the Messina earthquake in 1908 .

Aliens in the act

Both the moon and Venus and Mars are inhabited by intelligent living things . On a moon of Saturn , there are crystal - robots , on the Mercury pterosaurs . The Martians live underground and are thousands of years ahead of humanity in terms of civilization , but they also wage war against the Venusians.

reception

Little is known about the reception of the series, due to the genre. Although it was practically forgotten for decades because it was hardly accessible, at the time it stood out from the mass of magazine series:

“A Berlin antiquarian could very well remember that the LUFTPIRAT caused a sensation among Berlin schoolchildren when he and his parents moved to Berlin in 1908. Between 1909 and 1913, the LUFTPIRAT was one of the ten most popular magazine series in the cities of northern and central Germany ; it was mainly read by the 10-16 year olds. "

- Galle : Der Luftpirat, p. 12

The end

On April 1, 1916, distribution of the series along with 151 other series was banned due to a decree of the Commander-in-Chief in the Marche, Colonel General Gustav von Kessel , dated March 22, 1916 from Berlin. The printing plates were destroyed so that no new edition could take place after the First World War .

To the state of research. New edition of the series

Compared to contemporary American works, Nagl saw the series positively:

If one compares the "air pirates" with the science fiction, which was popular in the USA at the same time, z. For example, with Edgar Rice Burroughs ' Mars novels, which have been published in "All-Story" magazine since 1912, the German series even represents a more rationally advanced level of science fiction in terms of astronomical interest, spatial expansion and technical imagination. Burroughs and other American authors meanwhile produce stories that can be described as astronomical-exotic fairy tales with a technical-magical inventory, atavistic-reactionary plot and form of society.

In 2005, Heinz J. Galle edited a selection volume with six reprints of the series at Dieter von Reeken Verlag, Lüneburg , and wrote a comprehensive introduction to the series. The reprints no longer appeared in Fraktur , but in Garamond .

Ralph Ehrig started to reprint the series in Berlin in 2010 . His mother, the former Perry Rhodan author Marianne Sydow, was involved in the edition until her death in 2013 and added information about the series to the reprints.

literature

  • Entry: The air pirate and his dirigible airship , in: Hans Joachim Alpers u. a .: Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature. Extended and updated new edition in one volume , Munich (Wilhelm Heyne Verlag) 1988, pp. 1184–1189. ISBN 3-453-02453-2
  • Manfred Nagl: Science fiction in Germany. Studies on the genesis, sociography and ideology of fantastic mass literature , Tübingen (Tübingen Association for Folklore) 1972.
  • Roland Innerhofer: German Science Fiction, 1870–1914. Reconstruction and analysis of the beginnings of a genre , Vienna a. a. (Böhlau) 1996, p. 170. ISBN 3-205-98514-1
  • Peter Wanjek: The German booklet novel . A manual of the novel booklets published in the German Reich between 1900 and 1945 , Wilfersdorf 1993, pp. 79–81.
  • Heinz J. Galle (ed.): The air pirate and his dirigible airship , 2nd, reviewed edition Lüneburg 2009.
  • Heinz J. Galle: Folk books and booklet novels , Vol. 2: From the Empire to the “Third Reich” - 40 years of popular reading material , Lüneburg 2006, p. 92.
  • Decree of the High Command in the Marches - Berlin. Against the "Schundliteratur" , Berlin, March 22, 1916, printed as Appendix D. in: Paul Samuleit: Kriegsschundliteratur , Berlin (Carl Heymanns Verlag) 1916, pp. 47–54.
  • Hans Frey : Progress and Fiasco. The first 100 years of German science fiction. From the Vormärz to the end of the Empire 1810-1918 , Munich / Berlin (Memoranda) 2018. ISBN 3-946503-32-2 . ISBN 978-3-946503-32-3 . ISBN 978-3-946503-33-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c John Clute , Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . St. Martin's Press, New York 1993, ISBN 1-85723-124-4 .
  2. ↑ Alpers et al., P. 1184
  3. ↑ Cf. Heinz J. Galle: People's books and book novels. A foray through 100 years of entertainment literature , 1998, p. 83f.
  4. ^ Nagl, Science Fiction in Deutschland , p. 143.

Title of all editions

  1. The ruler of the skies
  2. A fight for millions
  3. Captain Mors in India
  4. The air pirate in the diamond country
  5. Adventure in the unknown land
  6. The treasure in the fire-breathing mountains
  7. The secret of the Japanese
  8. The mutiny in Manchuria
  9. The mysterious island of Captain Mors
  10. The creepy engineer
  11. The dirigible airship in a cyclone
  12. A fight in the air
  13. The mysterious mine of Captain Mors
  14. The ivory treasure in the polar sea
  15. The Malay's Revenge
  16. Captain Mors as a prisoner
  17. A duel between heaven and earth
  18. Captain Mors and the traitors
  19. The scary skyscraper
  20. The tyrant's million treasure tower
  21. The prison on Devil's Island
  22. Captain Mors' hardest hour
  23. The secret of the mountain castle
  24. The governor's revenge
  25. The rock of death
  26. The Ghost Railway Bridge on the Shaho
  27. The gold mountain in the coral sea
  28. The old Mongol magician's explosives
  29. The diamond field in Transvaal
  30. The spy on the dirigible airship
  31. The riddle of the Sulioten mountain
  32. Captain Mor's first trip in the world vehicle
  33. The dirigible airship in the ghost mountains
  34. Captain Mors in the meteor rain
  35. In the fight with the Japanese airship
  36. A ride with death
  37. On the rails of the desert railway
  38. Captain Mor's enemy in space
  39. The mysterious machine of destruction
  40. The outrage in the world vehicles
  41. A fight between dirigible airships
  42. In the death crater of the new planets
  43. The air pirate under the sea
  44. Under the spell of destruction
  45. Between merciless enemies
  46. The secrets of the meteorite
  47. The Tower of Death of Damascus
  48. The mysterious flying machine
  49. The journey to the fire planet
  50. The air pirate at the North Pole
  51. How Captain Mors destroyed his mortal enemy
  52. The fight with the inhabitants of the war planet
  53. The air pirate and the mysterious forest robbers
  54. A desperate battle in space
  55. The air pirate in the Messina earthquake
  56. The world travelers on the giant planet
  57. A duel above the clouds
  58. A rebellion in the star world
  59. The eerie blast furnace
  60. Adventure in the world of death
  61. The battle of annihilation in the air
  62. The mysterious house on the moon
  63. The terrifying journey of the cosmic vehicle
  64. The death voyage on the Mars Channel
  65. The air pirate on the Paris Eiffel Tower
  66. The world vehicle between the giant comets
  67. The mountains of fire in the mysterious world
  68. The crater lakes of the unknown planet
  69. The American's ghost airship
  70. The mysterious enemies of Captain Mors
  71. The rebel's fog airship
  72. The fall of an unknown world
  73. In shackles on a burning balloon
  74. The stolen princess' daughter
  75. The most terrible fight of the air pirate
  76. The riddles of the invisible planet
  77. The strange armored airship
  78. In the world of horror
  79. The duel of the dirigible airships
  80. The temple in the lunar landscape of Plato
  81. The secrets of the air pirate
  82. Aviation on the metal plate
  83. In the talons of death
  84. At the end of the solar world
  85. The spirit forest in Manchuria
  86. The last journey of the world vehicle
  87. Between life and death
  88. The mysterious submarine mine
  89. Captain Mors fighting with mutineers
  90. The hunt for the document bag
  91. A struggle for domination in the air
  92. The secret society of death
  93. The rebel general and his victim
  94. The skull in the cabin
  95. The Haunted Canyon in Arizona
  96. Warship and flying machine
  97. Last hour rescue
  98. A woman's vengeance
  99. The mysterious balloon
  100. Adventure in the land of freedom
  101. The mysterious gold mine in Alaska
  102. Death in space
  103. The island of horrors
  104. A decisive battle above the clouds
  105. The daughters of the Rajah
  106. The horror in Sudan
  107. The lost north polar expedition
  108. The secret of the ruined castle
  109. In the stream of fire on the Halley planet
  110. The flying machine in the ocean waves
  111. The master of the free mountain people
  112. The secret of the lunar world
  113. In the wilderness of Siberia
  114. The Denver Lynch Court
  115. The enemies of the earth's inhabitants
  116. The death ride with the madman
  117. The horror of the Sierra
  118. The Selenite fortress on the moon
  119. The enigmatic flying machine
  120. The journey into the primeval world
  121. The mutiny on the dirigible airship
  122. The secrets of the planet Mars
  123. The Convict Island in the Pacific
  124. With the armored boat into the Martian world
  125. On the verge of death
  126. Adventure on the new planet volcano
  127. The air fleet and its conqueror
  128. On the crystalline moon of Saturn
  129. The airship station in the wilderness
  130. The mysterious detective
  131. The secret of the black rocks
  132. The ride through the shooting stars
  133. The airship of the Nebelberge
  134. The signal station at the Cassini crater
  135. The riddle of Devil's Island
  136. The missing on Mars
  137. The treasure in the old Spanish mine
  138. The mysterious crater of the moon
  139. Between heaven and earth
  140. In the primordial sea of ​​the most distant planet
  141. The train in the burning forest
  142. The world vehicle in the valley of horror
  143. The pearl treasure in the Indian Ocean
  144. The world trip to the fire planet
  145. The conspiracy of the secret group
  146. In the realm of eternal death
  147. In the midst of unleashed forces of nature
  148. In the desert of Mars
  149. The tank tower on the Cape of Terror
  150. The wall of idols in the lunar crater
  151. Captain Mors and the Night Riders
  152. The glacier fairy by Nanda-Devi
  153. The flying machine in the tundra
  154. The most terrible hour of the air pirate
  155. In the ambush of the secret police
  156. Without a tax in space
  157. The journey to doom
  158. The downfall of the world vehicle
  159. Buried in glacial ice
  160. The battle for the airship model
  161. Between life and death
  162. The mysterious world vehicle
  163. The path of death in the dirigible airship
  164. In the fight with the mortal enemy
  165. The hour of the decision