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Freie Straße was a German-language anarchist and Dadaist magazine with changing editors, published from 1915 to 1918 .

history

The magazine published by the Freie Straße publishing house in Berlin was founded by Franz Jung in 1915 and supported by a small group of friends that included the writers Oskar Maria Graf , Max Herrmann-Neisse and Richard Oehring , the sexual psychologist Otto Gross , Clare Oehring and the painter Georg Schrimpf belonged. The first six issues had the subtitle preparatory work .

The aim of the magazine was the preparatory work for the "reorganization of the relationship", by which both personal, friendly and sexual, as well as the totality of social relationships were meant. Franz Jung formulated the intention of the booklet in the first edition as follows: "Nobody should take care of the other and not rest until he is so far that the existence of this other person has an intensifying effect on him."

The individual issues had changing editors. Jung was responsible for booklet one and six, for booklet two it was Schrimpf, for booklet three and five it was Richard Oehring , for booklet four it was Gross and Jung.

Instead of issues 7 and 8, the important issue Club Dada appeared in April 1918 as a prospectus for the publisher (Thomas Dietzel and Otto Hügel. German literary magazines 1880–1945. Munich 1988. 448). In retrospect , Raoul Hausmann writes : "(...) without the eighth issue of Freie Strasse , which appeared as a prospectus, without this support, DADA might never have become what it was in Berlin, in Germany". Richard Huelsenbeck came to Berlin in 1917 from Zurich, where he co-founded Cabaret Voltaire . Here he promoted the Zurich movement and teamed up with the groups of the two magazines "Freie Straße" and Neue Jugend . Similar to Cabaret Voltaire, but much more aggressive and connected with political statements, they finally organized joint exhibitions (the first at IB Neumann) and Dada soirées, the first on April 12, 1918 in the "New Secession". That evening the number 7/8 was sold together with the founding manifesto written by Huelsenbeck (Raoul Hausmann, ibid). The spectacular appearance is extensively described in the relevant literature. The event, as well as the two publications, were so successful that Hausmann envisaged in a letter of May 3 to Höch, u. a. to open a gallery. Dada should compete with Herwarth Walden . In June, the two publications were confiscated by the police; the collages in writing were interpreted as a secret message. The booklet contains Raoul Hausmann's full-page woodcut “The Leap from the World” and the title woodcut, as well as the typographically designed advertisement on the back for a Dada evening in May 1918, which, according to Bergius, did not take place. It announces: "Simultanist poem (six contributors), bruitist music, cubist dances (ten women)". Richard Hülsenbeck also published “A Foreword to the History of Time” and the beginning of his novel “Dr. Cheap in the end ”. The text "American Parade" was printed by Franz Jung. Political and Dadaist slogans as well as advertising lines for Huelsenbeck's “Fantastic Prayers” are set in red letters running across the text. George Grosz and Johannes Baader are also mentioned . In the literature, June is sometimes given as the month of publication (Bergius), which, however, clearly contradicts Hausmann's own statement, especially since the advertisement on the back cover for the event at the end of May also suggests it will be published in April on the occasion of the first Dada evening.

This was followed by the numbers nine and ten published by Johannes Baader and Raoul Hausmann. Issue ten was entirely dedicated to the "Ober-Dada" Johannes Baader.

The first issue of the magazine had sixteen pages and a circulation of 120 copies. The number of copies for the next five issues was 200; a booklet cost a mark. The impact of Freie Strasse was initially minor. However, the magazine contributed significantly to the emergence of Berlin Dadaism. The first six issues appeared in the format 17 × 24.5 cm, the last two in newspaper format. Jung wrote to Karl Otten in 1959 about the background : “ Freie Straße was not a magazine at all, but a loose series of pamphlets, under the patronage of Pfemfert, who provided paper and printer from his campaign license, and probably also those Paid printing costs later ”.

In addition, a portfolio with 8 woodcuts by Georg Schrimpf was published by the publishing house in 1916, which was taken over by the Malik publishing house in 1917 . The portfolio is mentioned in issue 11/12 of the first year of the monthly Neue Jugend .

notebooks

  • No. 1: What are you looking for rest, since you were born to restlessness , 1915
  • No. 2: To you - earth! 1915
  • No. 3: The other in you , 1916
  • No. 4: For Wisdom and Life , 1916
  • No. 5: Responsibility - to coercion by others , 1916
  • No. 6: The Technique of Happiness , 1917
  • No. 7/8: Club Dada . Brochure from the Freie Strasse publishing house, April 1918
  • No. 9: Against Possession , 1918
  • No. 10: President Baader , 1918

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Quote from: Fritz Mierau : The disappearance of Franz Jung. Stations in a biography. Edition Nautilus , Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-89401-294-3 , p. 48.
  2. ↑ See this: Raoul Hausmann : In the beginning there was Dada. Edited by Karl Riha and Günter Kämpf. Anabas-Verlag Kämpf, Steinbach / Gießen 1972, ISBN 3-87038-013-6 .
  3. ↑ See this: Hanne Bergius : Das Lachen Dadas. = DADA. Special edition. Anabas-Verlag Kämpf, Steinbach / Gießen 1993, ISBN 3-87038-257-0 , p. 31f. ( Werkbund Archive 19).
  4. ↑ See on this: Berlinische Galerie (Ed.): Hanna Höch, a life collage. Volume 1, Department 1: Cornelia Thater-Schulz: 1889–1918. Archive edition. Argon-Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-87024-107-1 , p. 330ff.
  5. ↑ See: In the beginning was Dada , p. 23 and Hanna Höch archive edition: Hausmann, Club Dada, August 1969. Unpublished typescript. Berlinische Galerie, Sternberg-Hausmann correspondence
  6. ↑ See: Rotes Antiquariat. Catalog spring 2011. Art and literature. Berlin 2011. No. 7, pp. 10ff. http://www.rotes-antiquariat.de/_pdf/web11_barbeiten.pdf
  7. ↑ (Quote from Mierau, p. 94) - see also Franz Pfemfert and Die Aktion
  8. ^ Frank Hermann: The Malik publishing house. 1916-1947. A bibliography. Neuer Malik-Verlag, Kiel 1989, ISBN 3-89029-026-4 , No. 309a. Red second-hand bookshop. Catalog spring 2011. Art and literature. Berlin 2011. No. 7, pp. 10ff., No. 9, p. 14.