Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer

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Portrait Kolbenheyer by Emil Stumpp (1926) with the sitter's signature (left signature)

Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (born December 30, 1878 in Budapest , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary , † April 12, 1962 in Munich ) was an Austro-German novelist , playwright and poet .

Life

Kolbenheyer was born as the son of the Hungarian-German architect Franz (also Ferenc) Kolbenheyer, who was involved in the construction of the Budapest University as an employee of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture . His grandfather Moritz Kolbenheyer was a politically influential pastor in Ödenburg , his father's grandmother was a Hungarian from Vienna ; a distant relative was the Hungarian revolutionary general Arthur Görgey . Kolbenheyer's mother Amalie born Hein came from a long-established family in Karlsbad , her father was also an architect. Soon after Erwin's birth, the family moved to Karlsbad, where he started school. He then went to high school in Eger . A philosophy - psychology - and zoology studies at the University of Vienna (1900-1905), he completed a doctorate to Dr. phil. from. In Vienna he became a member of the Academic Corps Symposion in 1906 . During his student years, Kolbenheyer became friends with Stefan Zweig, who was already active as a writer .

In 1906 he married Marianne Eitner (1880–1957), a daughter of the leather researcher Wilhelm Eitner, in Vienna .

During the First World War , Kolbenheyer volunteered for military service in the spring of 1915, but was classified as unfit for the front and headed a prisoner of war camp near Linz until the end of the war .

In 1919 Kolbenheyer moved to Tübingen , where he lived as a freelance writer until 1932 . Between 1917 and 1926 he created his main work, the Paracelsus trilogy of novels . From 1926 he was a member of the Poetry Section of the Prussian Academy of the Arts, founded in the same year .

Work and worldview

Kolbenheyer placed the same emphasis on his intellectual work as on his poetic work. The core of his worldview is a social Darwinian biologism and the pseudo-religious mystification of Germanness . He viewed peoples as supra-individual, fundamentally biologically determined units, which had to prove themselves in the constant struggle for adaptation according to the mechanisms of selection and differentiation depending on their characteristics. The essence and character of a people are determined by their “Artplasma”. He attributes the Germans a " Faustian ", restlessly burrowing being who wants to scour all depths and climb peaks and restlessly search for the deepest haven of calm of his existence. He attributes specific peculiarities of German poetry, for example, to such supposedly biologically and essentially determined foundations of German nationality . His poetic work is directed towards the mythical construction of life and history against the background of this ethnic ideology. His portrayal of historical material aims to shed light on “the German people's spiritual coming to terms with themselves from being covered by Mediterranean spirituality” on the basis of specific events and figures. In Paracelsus he chooses the time of the Reformation for this and describes the struggles between Lutheranism and Catholicism , humanism and Anabaptism as a cultural and historical realization of his views. "Each of the three volumes is introduced by a 'conversation' between Wotan and Christ about the German people, whose urge for a firm faith is stifled by denominational fragmentation and empty religious formulas." Kolbenheyer founded a school of like-minded people that followed the national structure should promote the model of the medieval construction huts .

Kolbenheyer also viewed World War I as a racial struggle for survival. The German people had fought alone and on their own against the “Mediterranean spirit” and for the “livelihood of white mankind”, he explained in a speech in spring 1932. As early as 1928, Kolbenheyer belonged to the support group of the Kampfbund for German culture . In the period from 1933 to 1944 he supported National Socialism in numerous speeches and writings. After the death of Paul von Hindenburg , he was one of the signatories of the call by cultural workers for a “ referendum ” on August 19, 1934 about the amalgamation of the Reich Chancellor and Reich President offices in the person of Hitler. He welcomed the integration of the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement with euphoria. In 1940 he joined the NSDAP . Kolbenheyer received numerous awards during the National Socialist era . In 1944 Adolf Hitler put him on a special list on the Gottbegnadetenliste , which should contain the six most important German writers in Hitler's eyes. As a result, he enjoyed further privileges, such as exemption from all military service, including on the home front .

In 1948, the Munich court of justice classified him as an incriminated; He was sentenced to five years of professional bans , the deprivation of half of his property and 180 days of special work. A revision procedure in 1950 resulted in the classification as less burdened, the professional ban was lifted and the atonement was reduced to 1,000 DM. At no point did Kolbenheyer show any understanding in public. He was a member of the right-wing extremist Society for Free Journalism and its forerunners.

Kolbenheyer lived in Schlederloh and most recently in Gartenberg (Geretsried) near Wolfratshausen . He was buried in the forest cemetery in Gartenberg.

reception

Between 1927 and 1937 Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize for Literature , every year from 1934 to 1937, twice by Hans-Friedrich Rosenfeld and most recently by Heinz Kindermann .

Stefan Zweig described him in 1942 as a “literary friend of his youth” who had “become one of the official poets and academics of Hitler Germany”. Werner Bergengruen assessed Kolbenheyer's work during the Nazi dictatorship in 1946 with the words: "In his great vanity, he was of the opinion that the intellectual life of Germany culminated in himself."

In the Soviet occupation zone , several of Kolbenheyer's writings were placed on the list of literature to be segregated. After the founding of the GDR , the publication Das Kolbenheyer-Buch (1937, edited by Kolbenheyer's friend Ernst Frank ) met the same fate in 1953 . On the Austrian list of banned authors and books (Vienna 1946) Kolbenheyer's complete works were banned; Nevertheless, his books were able to appear in 1951 with the Rabenstein publishing house in Salzburg .

Kolbenheyer Society

Accompanied and supported by Kolbenheyer himself, the "Society of Friends of the Works of EG Kolbenheyer" was founded in 1951, later in "Kolbenheyer-Gesellschaft e. V. “renamed. In 1958 a subsidiary was founded in Austria. The company has been issuing the “Bauhüttenbrief” since 1955, has been managing the Kolbenheyer archive since 1962, and from 1957 to 1978 was responsible for the edition of Kolbenheyer's writings. In addition to the literary estate of Kolbenheyer, in 1983 the archive looked after a collection of 6,000 library and archive volumes and 70,000 photographs.

In 1963 the society had around 850 members. For a long time it was based in Nuremberg , later Geretsried . The Austrian subsidiary had 200 members in the 1970s and was initially based in Velden am Wörther See , later in Salzburg . The chairmen of the company included Karl-Heinz Laaser (around 1963), Walter Hawelka (at least from 1989 to 2005) and Hans Berger (at least from 2012 to 2018). The chairmen of the Austrian subsidiary were a. Gerhard Soos (from founding), Fritz Friedl (at least from 1972 to 1976) and Heinrich Koller (at least from 1978 to 1989).

Many of the chairmen were closely associated with right-wing extremist to right-wing extremist circles. The long-time chairman Walter Hawelka was a member of the Witikobund , and Hans Berger was also the representative of Austria in the right-wing extremist association Europäische Aktion . Heinrich Koller was clearly assigned to the German national spectrum in Austria . Correspondingly, the society is attested in the literature that it would "preach racist ideas unhindered under the guise of maintaining the works". In the publications of the Kolbenheyer Society and the ideologically related Blunck Society, "an understanding of history emerges which in its most extreme form represents an implicit denial of the Holocaust and which suggests that these associations are located in the right-wing extremist milieu."

Honors

The Kolbenheyerstraße in his former place of residence Geretsried was renamed Graslitzer Straße in the 1990s due to political concerns .

Works

  • Giordano Bruno. The tragedy of the renaissance , drama about Giordano Bruno , 1903
  • Amor Dei , Spinoza novel, 1908
  • Master Joachim Pausewang , novel about Jakob Böhme , 1910 ( see also Adam von Dobschütz )
  • Montsalvasch , novel, 1912.
  • Ahalibama , short stories, 1913.
  • The thorn bush is burning , poems, 1922.
  • Paracelsus (Kolbenheyer) : ISBN 3-469-00108-1 .
    • The Childhood of Paracelsus , 1917
    • The star of Paracelsus , 1922
    • The Third Reich of Paracelsus , 1926
  • Three legends , 1923.
  • The Bauhütte 1926 (revised in 1939 and entitled The Philosophy of the Bauhütte 1952)
  • The Smile of the Penates , novel, 1927.
  • The Bridge , play, 1929.
  • Carlsbad Novella , 1929.
  • Chase him - a human! Drama, 1931.
  • The Law in You , play, 1931.
  • Reps, the Personality , novel, 1932.
  • The encounter in the Giant Mountains , novella, 1932.
  • Klaas Y, the great neutral , short stories, 1936.
  • The Blessed Heart , novel, 1938.
  • Dedications , poems, 1938.
  • Vox humana , poems, 1940.
  • Two speeches: The spiritual life in its folk-biological meaning. Youth and Poetry , 1942.
  • People and Gods , Drama Tetralogy, 1944.
  • Sebastian Karst about his life and time , autobiography. 3 volumes. 1957/58
  • Mensch auf der Schwelle (created 1951–1956), 1969

literature

  • Ingeborg Drewitz : The poetic representation of ethical problems in Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer's work. Dissertation . Berlin 1945.
  • Ernst Frank : years of happiness, years of suffering. A Kolbenheyer biography. Blick + Bild Verlag cap, Velbert u. a. 1969.
    • NB: Frank was the editor of Das Kolbenheyer-Buch , Karlsbad 1937.
  • Waldemar Grosch:  Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 331-336.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Christian Jäger: Individuality and Property. Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer's Politics of the Arcanum. In: ders .: Minoritarian literature. The concept of small literature using the example of Prague and Sudeten German works. Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005 (habilitation thesis at the Humboldt University of Berlin , 2001), ISBN 3-8244-4607-3 , pp. 119–178.
  • Eberhard Knobloch: The choice of words in the archaic chronic narrative. Meinhold, Raabe, Storm, Wille, Kolbenheyer. (= Göppingen work on German studies. 45). Kümmerle, Göppingen 1971, ISBN 3-87452-085-4 .
  • Franz Koch: Kolbenheyer. Göttinger Verlag-Anstalt, Göttingen 1953
  • Herbert Seidler:  Kolbenheyer, Erwin Guido. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 453-455 ( digitized version ).
  • Thomas Vordermayer: educated middle class and ethnic ideology. Constitution and deep social impact of a network of ethnic authors (1919–1959). De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2016.
  • Siegfried Wagner: Who was Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer? In: Literature in Bavaria. In: Munich. 15, 1989, pp. 2-11.
  • Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf: Mysticism of Modernity. The visionary aesthetics of German literature in the 20th century. Metzler, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-476-00665-4 .

Web links

Commons : Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Kolbenheyer (February 13, 1841 in Eperjes - January 11, 1881 in Buziás ), see also Kolbenheyer Ferenc , at Magyar Életrajzi Lexicon
  2. ↑ Kolbenheyer Móric , in Magyar Életrajzi Lexicon
  3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 136/38
  4. ↑ a b Stefan Zweig: Yesterday's World. Memories of a European , Stockholm 1942, Chapter 6 (online) .
  5. ↑ Joseph Alois Sagoschen:  Eitner, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 425 ( digitized version ).
    Like Herbert Seidler:  Kolbenheyer, Erwin Guido. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 453-455 ( digitized version ).
  6. ↑ Christian Jäger: Minoritarian literature. The concept of small literature using the example of Prague and Sudeten German works. Wiesbaden 2005, p. 163, note 136.
  7. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Complete revised Edition, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-17153-8 , p. 295.
  8. ↑ All quotations in this paragraph from Herbert Seidler's entry about Kolbenheyer in the NDB .
  9. ↑ Christiane Weller: World War Drama and National Socialism. In: The First World War in Drama. German and Australian perspectives. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-04671-0 , pp. 201–222 (on Kolbenheyer: pp. 202f.).
  10. ^ Date from Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Complete revised Edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 296.
  11. ↑ Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for the Third Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 274.
  12. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Complete revised Edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 296.
  13. ^ Entry by Kolbenheyers in the nomination database of the Nobel Prize Organization , accessed in December 2019.
  14. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Complete revised Edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 296.
  15. ↑ polunbi.de
  16. ↑ polunbi.de
  17. ↑ polunbi.de
  18. ↑ Ursula Kramml: Salzburg Publishing History from 1945 to 1959 . Diploma thesis (Master’s degree) under Michael Schmolke . University of Salzburg , Salzburg 2002, p. 60 ( wienbibliothek.at [PDF; 2.1 MB ; accessed on December 28, 2019]).
  19. ↑ General Directorate of the Bavarian State Libraries (ed.): Handbook of Bavarian Libraries , 2nd edition, Munich 1983, ISBN 3598105002 , p. 89.
  20. ↑ a b c Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar. 54th year (1963), ISBN 3111698556 , p. 851.
  21. ↑ Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar. 56th year (1974), ISBN 3110826062 , p. 1225.
  22. ↑ Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Literature Calendar. 58th volume (1981), ISBN 3110838966 , p. 1396.
  23. ↑ a b Wolfgang Kessler: East German cultural assets in the Federal Republic of Germany. A handbook of the collections, associations and institutions with their holdings. Saur, Munich 1989, ISBN 3598105770 , p. 359.
  24. ^ Frank Kupke: Crib jewel with flaws. In: Main-Post , November 8, 2005, accessed June 22, 2020.
  25. ^ Ceremonial event in memory of Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer. Event announcement in the Haus der Heimat Wien, spring 2012, accessed on June 22, 2020.
  26. ↑ a b Michaela Reibenwein: Nazi allegations: Suspects die away. In: Kurier , August 26, 2018, accessed June 22, 2020.
  27. ↑ Kolbenheyer to his friends in Austria. In: Sudetenpost , 2nd year, issue 1, January 14, 1956, p. 4.
  28. ^ Salzburg. In: Sudetenpost , Volume 18, Issue 2, January 28, 1972, p. 5.
  29. ^ Salzburg. In: Sudetenpost , 22nd year, issue 3, 5th February 1976, p. 6.
  30. ^ Salzburg. In: Sudetenpost , Volume 24, Issue 11, June 1, 1978, p. 6.
  31. ↑ a b Alexander Pinwinkler: The "founding generation" of the University of Salzburg. Biographies, networks, appointment policy, 1960–1975. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2020, ISBN 978-3-205-20937-9 , p. 82.
  32. ^ German Bundestag : Answer of the federal government to the minor question of the MP Ulla Jelpke and the group of the PDS - printed matter 13/1273 - The »Witikobund«, the anti-Semitism and the right-wing extremism. Printed matter 13/1483 of May 24, 1995.
  33. ^ AFP conference on the Austro-Hungarian border. Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance , news from the news section on the far right , November 2015, accessed on June 22, 2020.
  34. ↑ Jan-Henning Brinkmann: Literary senior circles? Societies for the promotion of the work of writers of the Third Reich (Miegel, Kolbenheyer, Blunck). In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 2. Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89528-855-5 , pp. 301–342 (quote: p. 337).
personal data
SURNAME Kolbenheyer, Erwin Guido
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-German novelist, playwright and poet of the fascist era
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1962
Place of death Munich