Erich Ebermayer

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Erich Ebermayer (born September 14, 1900 in Bamberg , † September 22, 1970 in Terracina ) was a German writer .

meaning

Erich Ebermayer was an author who wrote, published and was effective in three epochs of German history: he began with expressionist dramas and short stories in the Weimar Republic , then wrote novels, plays and screenplays during the Third Reich , and produced in the Adenauer era he, in addition to other entertainment literature , series on Nazi topics and autobiographical texts such as his two-volume diaries and as yet unpublished memoirs .

It was well known, had a large number of copies, and earned a fair amount of money - and yet it is as good as forgotten today. His work is not significant because of its literary qualities, but it can be interpreted as an example of three epochs of German entertainment literature and bourgeois reading taste.

His principle of “quick work for quick money” meant that he supplied the magazines, film and television markets with routine and sometimes sentimental texts. He converted the money he earned into “life”, which he in turn represented in autobiographical texts. He was only able to publish some of these, although (or perhaps precisely because) they are literarily more demanding than his routine productions.

Life

Origin and education

He was born on September 14, 1900 in Bamberg. His father was the Reich judge and senior Reich attorney Ludwig Ebermayer , his mother Angelika (called "Lika"), née Bouhler, was the aunt of Hitler's later Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler , one of the most influential functionaries of the Third Reich. His ancestors were Frankish lawyers and clergymen; a branch of the family can be traced back to Nuremberg in 1585 .

Since his father was appointed judge at the Imperial Court in Leipzig and was given a professorship for criminal law at the university, Erich Ebermayer attended the Thomas School as a child . He passed his Abitur at the end of the First World War (1919); then he studied law in Leipzig, Munich and Heidelberg . He received his doctorate at the age of 22 and was already a lawyer at the age of 23.

Weimar Republic

Shortly afterwards, in 1924, he published his first volume of short stories, "Doktor Angelo", in which he carefully addressed his own life problem, homosexuality . The book had some success, which motivated him to continue working as a writer alongside his job as a criminal defense lawyer. He frequented the circles around Klaus Mann and Ernst Toller , was friends with Stefan Zweig and was strongly influenced by the "life theory" of Johannes Müller , the master of Elmau Castle .

In 1927 he had his first stage success with the play "Kaspar Hauser", which was performed at the Hamburger Kammerspiele with Gustaf Gründgens in the title role and then went on many stages. He also became known abroad with the novel about rural educational homes “Kampf um Odilienberg” (1929), in which he processed his friendship with the reform pedagogue Gustav Wyneken . This was followed by the post-war novel Jürgen Ried and the play Professor Unrat , loosely based on Heinrich Mann , which was performed at the Burgtheater . Comedies Ebermayer so cash laughs and sun for Renate went on many platforms at home and abroad. These pieces without literary depth show his talent for construction, speed and the setting of punch lines, which he later benefited as a screenwriter.

For the “Stückefabrik” of the Jewish publisher and producer Georg Marton , he worked on his own and other materials. This brought in money, but left the literary claim unsatisfied. That is why in 1932 he wrote the great ideological novel Tools in God's Hand , in which he processed the world of Johannes Müller and which was able to appear shortly before the Nazis came to power.

Third Reich

From this point in time until the outbreak of the Second World War , his two diaries report Because today Germany belongs to us ... (1959) and ... and tomorrow the whole world (1966) with a total of over 1000 pages in detail about his life under the Nazi regime. At the same time, they are a clear illustration of the political development of these years.

Ebermayer got caught between the ideological fronts. He rejected the regime and was sometimes exposed to violent attacks; but his cousins Philipp Bouhler , head of the Fuehrer's office , and Fritz Todt , Reich Minister and General Inspector for German Roads, were able to protect him repeatedly. On the other hand, he played skillfully with the various currents in the Third Reich: Goebbels and Göring were for him, Rosenberg and Streicher against him. He also took risks: for years he employed his Jewish secretary Emilie Heymann, helped her to go into hiding with false papers and was then interrogated by the Gestapo .

Even in the Weimar Republic he was considered a "system poet" and a "Jew friend" in national circles. After 1933, most of his books were banned and the publishers stopped delivering those that were not banned; but the film industry did not want to give up his talents. The Jannings film Traumulus, based on his script, received the State Prize from Joseph Goebbels in 1936.

Since Ebermayer, as the security police noted, was "a typical representative of such [homosexual] circles in his appearance and in his whole nature", there were repeated "investigations into E." Some of his writings were banned because of "homosexual content". In 1936 he was also "questioned by the state police" in criminal proceedings under Section 175, which he glossed over in his memoirs. While archival material shows that he was questioned as a suspect, Ebermayer wrote in 1966 that he was questioned as the former lawyer of a homosexual couple. Ebermayer denied the allegations at the time - "the opposite" cannot be "proven to him". His later efforts to be appointed to the Honorary Council of German Film then fail because of “his abnormal [sic!] Inclinations”.

He could not make up his mind to emigrate ; he justified it later, just like Erich Kästner : he couldn't speak foreign languages ​​and he had to look after his mother. To do this, he claimed the concept of inner emigration - probably wrongly. Because although he was not a Nazi, he was a winner who got through well and did not earn badly: According to his tax return (in the Berlin Document Center) he received 20,000 marks per script, and since he wrote two to three scripts a year during the war wrote, he had an annual income of around 50,000 marks. His works were created very quickly; For example, he wrote the 350 pages of Love Can Lies in seven days.

Later he rarely questioned his role: He hardly admitted that Goebbels needed talents like him, that he operated the system and thus stabilized it. Some of his texts came directly towards the ideology of National Socialism. His screenplay for Hans Steinhoff's feature film Ein Volksfeind (1937) is very different from the literary model, the drama of the same name by Henrik Ibsen , and mocks the democratic culture of the Weimar Republic in the story that was moved to 1932 and to Germany. Ebermayer himself seemed to have been aware in this case that he had been working on a propaganda film; in his diary he noted: “Well - Hitler himself and Dr. Goebbels will be convinced that the dictatorship of the individual and his victory over the majority are fortunate for Germany, and I almost fear that this film has a chance of pleasing the gentlemen. [...] Stubborn Nazi idealists can possibly see the play as a justification for the elimination of parliament. "

Until the outbreak of war he enjoyed the lifestyle of a wealthy intellectual, went on long trips every year, visited Thomas Mann in his exile in Switzerland and Gerhart Hauptmann in Rapallo . When Göring's banker van der Heyde told him the imminent outbreak of war in the summer of 1939 , he looked for a refuge in the country and bought the ailing Kaibitz Castle near Bayreuth , which he renovated with great effort and expense and moved into in August 1939. He had closed his villa in Berlin-Grunewald . The war did not interrupt his film work; however, the productions from Berlin were increasingly outsourced to the studios in Prague , where he had to travel again and again.

Shortly before the end of the war, some military trucks suddenly turned up in Kaibitz: They brought Gerhart Hauptmann's extensive archive, which was brought to safety from the approaching Russians from Silesia . Shortly afterwards, the Americans occupied the castle and looted part of the archive. They stoked a campfire with Hauptmann's love letters to his first wife. The rest could be saved.

Shortly afterwards , when his childhood friend Klaus Mann , now a correspondent for the soldiers' newspaper The Stars and Stripes in nearby Oberwarmensteinach, interviewed Winifred Wagner , Ebermayer invited him to his castle. But Klaus Mann refused.

In the post-war period, Ebermayer emphasized the difficulties that the regime had undoubtedly caused him and kept silent about attempts to adapt. He drew this self-image in his diaries: In 1958 the past was so forgotten and repressed that he was able to redefine it.

post war period

In June 1945 - after a brief interlude as mayor of Kaibitz - he became a lawyer again at the request of the occupying power and appeared as a defense attorney in some denazification trials, such as the Emmy Göring and Winifred Wagner cases.

Many of his books appeared in new editions, new novels emerged. Some of them appeared as series in magazines. He wrote biographies about Magda Goebbels , Emmy Göring and Oscar Wilde , brought out a Eckermann edition, and in 1951 Magisches Bayreuth was published to mark the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival . With Winifred Wagner, who had been “disempowered” by her sons, he remained intimate friendship until the end of his life.

On October 21, 1947, he married Martina Hillebrand, from whom he was divorced in 1949. He later adopted two young men who grew up at Kaibitz Castle and gave them his name.

Finally, Ebermayer gained a foothold again in post-war films: Among other things, he wrote the scripts for Canaris , Die Mädels vom Immenhof and the great Zarah Leander film Der Blaue Nachtfalter . The anthology You were innocent dealt with "wrong judgments in the name of justice".

On his 60th birthday, his friend and partner Ernst Max Hacke (pseudonym Peer Baedeker ) (1912–1999) published the book of friends , which u. a. contains a (incomplete) bibliography. In Terracina near Rome he built a country house ("Casa Ebermayer"), in which he from now on spent part of the year. He now recognized the increasing importance of television and wrote screenplays for this medium about sensational criminal cases ( The Maria Schäfer Case and The Hau Case ). His comedy Two Clueless Angels ran successfully on many stages.

For ten years he was president of the Association of German Stage Writers, member of the board of the Association of German Writers' Associations and member of the board of directors of the collecting society Wort . By the French government, he received the "Officer's Cross of Civil Merit" by the Federal President, the Federal Cross of Merit , First Class.

A few days after his 70th birthday, he died of a heart attack during a car trip (to the Temple of Jupiter Anxur) in Terracina . On the way to the clinic, the driver caused an accident so that any help came too late. Shortly afterwards, Kaibitz was broken into and numerous valuable antiques and books were stolen. At the instigation of Peer Baedeker, a tombstone was inaugurated at Kaibitz Castle in 1979, which commemorates the "captain friend" Erich Ebermayer.

In the summer of 2004 by Dirk Heißerer the literary legacy of Erich Ebermayer in the chapel recovered "under dust and cobwebs" and titled Before I forget ... it published. The estate is administered by the literature archive of the Munich City Library .

Works

prose

  • 1924 Doctor Angelo, short stories
  • 1925 victory of life
  • 1927 Anton in America (arrangement)
  • 1928 Das Tier, novella.
  • 1929 Night in Warsaw, novella.
  • 1929 Battle for Mount Odilien, novel. Zsolnay publishing house, Berlin / Vienna / Leipzig.
    • 1964: as Ullstein paperback: Odilienberg . Ullstein publishing house, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin.
  • 1931 Jürgen Ried, The Step into the Open, Roman
  • 1932 Tool in God's Hand, novel
  • 1933 The Claasen case, novel
  • 1936 Liberated Hands, novel
  • 1940 Among other things heaven, novel
  • 1944 The dream of Croesus, stories
  • 1946 Folly of Youth, novel
  • 1947 Hubertus, novella
  • 1948 Dangerous Wonderland, novel
  • 1948 Risen, novella
  • 1948 defense amendments
  • 1949 Master Sebastian, Roman
  • 1949 Magda Goebbels, companion of the devil
  • 1950 Adrast, novella
  • 1951 Emil Jannings, King of Actors, series in Revue
  • 1951 Emmy Göring, series in revue
  • 1951 Oscar Wilde, biography
  • 1952 Die Verbrecherinnen, series in Revue
  • 1952 Magical Bayreuth
  • 1952 The last summer
  • 1953 Denazification - a failure. Series in the weekend
  • 1953 Lost Love, novel
  • 1954 Kathrin needs sun, Roman
  • 1954 Regardless of the person, novel
  • 1955 Late Spring, novel
  • 1956 The Golden Voice, novel
  • 1957 The heart can be hell, series in Quick
  • 1959 Because today Germany belongs to us, diary
  • 1959 Tingeltangel, editing of biography
  • 1969 The blue moth, novel
  • 1961 The boy and the swing, novel
  • 1961 In the Twilight of Fame, novel
  • 1962 All light on Gloria, Roman
  • 1962 Gerhart Hauptmann, biography
  • 1963 You were innocent, court reports
  • 1964 You're all sinners, Roman
  • 1965 Forgive me if you can, Roman
  • 1966 ... and tomorrow the whole world, diary
  • 1967 Gustav Wynecken, biography
  • 1968 Hitler and the women, series in Wochenend
  • 2005 Before I forget, autobiography

Radio plays

  • 1930 The minister is murdered
  • 1926/27 Kaspar Hauser
  • 1934 night flight
  • 1952 Master and Disciple

Plays

  • 1925 brothers
  • 1927 Kaspar Hauser
  • 1927 brothers
  • 1928 Bobby's great ride, Christmas comedy. With WvRichthofen
  • 1929 Triangle of Luck, tragic comedy
  • 1930 Primaner
  • 1931 Incited youth
  • 1932 Professor Unrat. After Heinrich Mann
  • 1933 Bargeld laughs, comedy. With Ralph Artur Roberts
  • 1933 Long live the emperor, comedy based on Luigi Bonelli
  • 1934 Mrs. Inger on Oestrot. After Ibsen
  • 1934 Canossa. With Milan Fürst
  • 1934 Sun for Renate, comedy
  • 1935 The Claasen case
  • 1935 Peter plays with fire. With Rudolf Ahlers
  • 1936 romance
  • 1937 headline
  • 1941 master and disciples
  • 1969 Two unsuspecting angels, comedy

Scripts

Film template

Ebermayer also wrote some non-film scripts, such as B. Kaspar Hauser , Richard Wagner , Dürer in Venice , A dead man wins and and in the evening in the Scala .

literature

  • Peer Baedeker, Karl Lemke (ed.): Erich Ebermayer - The book of friends. Lohhof near Munich 1960.
  • Bernhard M. Baron : Erich Ebermayer in Kaibitz. Remembering an (almost) forgotten writer and screenwriter. In: Oberpfälzer Heimat , Vol. 58 (2014), ISBN 978-3-939247-40-1 , pp. 219-229.
  • Exhibition catalog of the Nuremberg City Library, 1970.
  • Erich Ebermayer and Kaibitz Castle. In: Kemnather Zeitung , issue of September 12, 1970.
  • From the Kaiserhof to Kaibitz. In: Der neue Tag , Weiden, edition of September 1, 1989.
  • Erich Ebermayer's legacy. In: Der neue Tag , Weiden, edition of September 30, 2003.
  • The strange friend. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , issue of December 11, 2005.
  • Such was internal emigration. In: Die Welt , issue of January 28, 2006.
  • Memories of Erich Ebermayer. In: Der neue Tag , Weiden, March 17, 2006.
  • Dirk Heißerer (ed.): Erich Ebermayer: Before I forget? Memories of Gerhart Hauptmann and others (foreword). Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-7844-3028-7 .
  • Thomas Muggenthaler: The girls from Immenhof and their forgotten author. Broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk on July 13, 2003 (26 minutes).
  • Elisabeth Leinisch: Erich Ebermayer and Kaibitz Castle. TV broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk on October 4, 2003 (16 minutes).
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 (on Ebermayer pp. 159-163).
  • Ernst Klee : Erich Ebermayer. Entry in ders .: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .

Archives

  • Deutsche Kinemathek Foundation , Berlin: Ebermayer deposit: Correspondence on film projects.
  • Berlin State Library, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, manuscript department: Correspondence with Gerhart and Margarethe Hauptmann (220 letters, postcards and telegrams).
  • Federal Archives, Berlin Zehlendorf branch: Ebermayer inventory, Reichsschrifttumskammer, files 2101, 2652, 2703, 2705. Gestapo files, film contracts, correspondence with RKK, tax returns, etc., his life in the Third Reich.
  • Bamberg State Library : Part of Peer Baedeker's estate (mainly manuscripts, photos, film and theater programs, also over 1,000 letters).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gottlieb Tesmer, Walther Müller: Honor roll of the Thomas School in Leipzig. The teachers and high school graduates of the Thomas School in Leipzig 1912–1932. Commissioned by the Thomanerbund, self-published, Leipzig 1934, p. 34.
  2. ^ Catalog of the German National Library - odilienberg ebermayer. Retrieved March 8, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Ebermayer's biography at rosa-winkel.de , accessed on April 5, 2017
  4. ↑ Cf. Uwe Englert: Magus und Rechenmeister. Henrik Ibsen's work on the stages of the Third Reich. Tübingen / Basel 2001, p. 230 ff.
  5. ↑ Erich Ebermayer: ... and tomorrow the whole world. Memories of Germany's dark times. Bayreuth 1966, p. 165.
  6. ↑ Schloss Kaibitz: Erich Ebermayer's Gerhart Hauptmann Archive
  7. ↑ Literary find at Kaibitz Castle
  8. ^ Note from the city library with a short biography of Ebermayer
personal data
SURNAME Ebermayer, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Bamberg
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 1970
Place of death Terracina