Erich Grisar

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Erich Grisar (born September 11, 1898 in Dortmund ; † November 30, 1955 there ) was a German working-class poet, journalist and photographer.

Erich Grisar's literary work shows the Ruhr area of the 1920s and 1930s, but also the immediate post-war period in all its facets. As a writer and journalist, he dealt with working life and highlighted the anecdotal aspects of everyday life. It was not until 60 years after his death that Grisar's photographic work also became the focus of interest. His photographs show milieu studies that were made while traveling at home and abroad, as well as previously unknown views of the Ruhr area.

biography

education and profession

Grisar was born in Dortmund's northern part of the city and grew up in a working-class household that was influenced by social democracy and interested in literature. After attending primary school and completing his apprenticeship, he worked as a technical draftsman in a boiler and bridge construction factory in Dortmund. Drafted as a soldier in 1916, he was seriously wounded after fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts during the First World War . The traumatic war events made Grisar a determined pacifist.

Early publications

In 1919 Grisar returned to Dortmund from the military hospital in Sulzbach / Upper Palatinate and found a job as a draftsman in a Dortmund iron and steel works. In the meantime he had contacted a publisher in which his poems, some of which had already been written during the war, were published in 1920 under the title Morgenrot . From 1922 to 1924 he worked in various machine and ironworks in Leipzig and in Butzbach in Hesse . This is where further volumes of poetry were created, which were published by various publishers within a very short time. Titles like Das Herz der Erde hammert (1923) signal that Grisar in his early publications as a worker poet was influenced by literary expressionism as well as by socialism as an expression of proletarian self-confidence.

The working-poet

After returning to Dortmund in 1924, Grisar married and started a family. He worked as a journalist and freelance writer; he and his family could live well on his income. His choruses with titles such as Sacrifice (1926) or Day of Light (1926) were very well received by the workers' youth movement at their political mass events. With his reports and articles, Grisar was regularly represented in both local and national newspapers and magazines. At the same time he was active in Dortmund's cultural life, especially in the proletarian-revolutionary milieu, and performed texts himself, including in the cabaret group Henkelmann , which the communist worker- poet Paul Polte founded based on the model of Soviet agitprop groups. In 1927, after half a dozen volumes of poetry and a few prose sketches, his debut novel Heinrich Volkmann appeared in the Dortmund local press , the original version of which bears the programmatic subtitle “A Worker's Novel”.

The photographer and photo reporter

Journalistic work was central to earning a living; From 1928 onwards, Grisar's activity as a photo reporter can also be proven: double-page photo reports can be found, for example, in the Volksblatt-Illustrierte , a supplement to the Saxon Volksblatt . Also in 1931 on the initiative of Erich Knauf in the books Gutenberg published Captions band Kohlenpott of Georg Schwarz (1896-1943), who also came from Dortmund and proletarian committed the living conditions in the Ruhr region at the time of the first coal mine death during the Great Depression describes Grisar with Photographs and poems represented. Grisar probably did less commissioned work, but offered his photo series with associated texts to the local and national editorial offices. Grisar found preferred photo opportunities on the street: he was interested in people doing their usual activities and photographed peddlers, craftsmen and disabled people as well as situations on construction sites and at the weekly market. His pictures of children are particularly noteworthy. Grisar's photographs provide an authentic view of the Ruhr area.

Unlike Heinrich Hauser and Albert Renger-Patzsch , who became known as photographers in the Ruhr area, but both came from other regions of Germany and had a middle-class background, Grisar knew the hardships and peculiarities of life in the Ruhr area from personal experience. He specifically photographed topics from the working class, to which he also devoted himself as a writer: life in the city, everyday life in the settlements, hard physical work and the technical skills of different professional groups. His photographs show an inside view of the area and are put into the picture with a humanistic-empathic look. But Grisar's work as a photojournalist was not limited to the Ruhr area. Various press articles document an extensive travel activity.

The travel and novelist

In 1932 the travel report volume With a camera and typewriter through Europe was published with 101 photographs, published by Bücherkreis , a social democratic book club in Berlin. The cover design and layout as well as the arrangement of the photographs was done by Jan Tschichold , representative of the New Typography of the Bauhaus and one of the most famous book designers of the 20th century. In 27 chapters, Grisar reports in a sober, objective observation style of experiences on his travels to various European countries. Aside from the usual tourist routes, he explored the back alleys, the working-class quarters and industrial regions in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Warsaw, Venice, Marseille (and many others) and visited the former battlefields of the First World War in Belgium. In 1938, the National Socialists put the book on the list of harmful and undesirable literature. Parallel to the photo-text report , Grisar wrote the novel Ruhrstadt (1931) with a camera and typewriter through Europe . This “portrait of a city”, so the subtitle, with its combination of documentary realism, narrative ease and critical contemporaneity is not only a Dortmund portrait, but also a novel of the Ruhr area. Published posthumously from the estate in 2016, the novel drafts a contemporary historical panorama at the time of the global economic and financial crisis and tells of the effects on the workforce. But questions of urban design and, last but not least, the positioning against advances by the NSDAP , which is increasingly gaining popularity among citizens and industrialists, are also relevant.

National Socialism

From 1933 the journalist Grisar's work became increasingly difficult; the social democratic papers had been banned or reoriented as part of the Gleichschaltung, and his previous political attitude became a problem in other papers. In order to be able to continue publishing, Grisar became a member of the Reich Association of German Writers and the Reich Chamber of Literature . Although he did not become an ardent advocate of National Socialism, his poems, glosses and articles, which could still be published until the early 1940s, show an author who was primarily interested in publications. The working-class poet Grisar knew how to reinterpret his subjects in a nationalist way, but without using racist or anti-Semitic slogans. In 1937 the work novel Seventeen Bridge Builders was published - a pair of shoes , in 1943 the collection of fictional workers Klinkhammer and other bridge builder stories . At the same time, Grisar began working on his novel Caesar 9 , which tells of the bombing war and the housing shortage, but also of forced laborers, those returning from the war and mass murders in Dortmund between 1943 and 1946. For the novel, however, Grisar could not find a publisher; it wasn't released until 2015.

post war period

As early as 1946, Grisar was the editor of an “anthology of German emigrant poetry” entitled Think I of Germany in the Night . Last but not least, the reputation of the social democratic writer was to be proven. Through Fritz Hüser's mediation , Grisar had been working as an information librarian in the Dortmund public library since the end of 1945; there he was entrusted with various special tasks such as building up the extensive collection of newspaper clippings. This enabled him financially to continue his literary work: In addition to the autobiographical memories Kindheit im Kohlenpott (1946), the very successful anecdotal collection Der lachende Reinoldus was published in 1953 . Here as well as in his newspaper and magazine articles, Grisar established himself as a knowledgeable local researcher and an accomplished chat. Grisar died on November 30, 1955 at the age of 57. On the decision of the main and finance committee of the city of Dortmund, a street name in the Dortmund city district Innenstadt-Nord has been a reminder of him since 1958 . Grisar's grave is in the south-west cemetery in Dortmund .

The estate

Writer's estate

Today the writer's estate is in the archive of the Fritz Hüser Institute in Dortmund. It has now been opened up; a finding aid is available and will be available online shortly. In 1972 Fritz Hüser successfully tried to get the estate to be bought by the Dortmund City and State Library. In addition to novel manuscripts, drafts, poems, correspondence and correspondence with the publisher, the estate also includes numerous notebooks, early diaries, chants, short stories and almost entirely Grisar's journalistic work.

Photographic estate

The photo estate is in the Dortmund city archive and was digitized in 2011; it comprises around 4,350 photographs, of which 4,250 have only been preserved as large-format negatives. The photographs, some on film, some on glass plates, were numbered by Grisar himself. There are some large gaps in the tradition, which indicates a much larger collection of originally at least 7700 photos. After digitization, the image motifs could be identified; about 80 percent of the photos were clearly located. Around a third of the photographs that have been preserved show motifs from Dortmund, where Grisar spent most of his life. A third of the pictures were taken during stays in different regions of Germany, where Grisar captured, for example, oil drilling in northern Germany, the wild horse trapping in the Meerfelder Bruch, castles in Münsterland or the construction of the Cologne-Mülheim bridge with the camera. The last third was made while traveling in other European countries. Based on historical events and the publication of photos in various newspapers, the creation of the photographs can be dated to between 1928 and 1933.

Exhibitions

Publications

  • Dawn. Poems. Seidel'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Sulzbach 1920.
  • Morning call. Poems. Nuschke, Leipzig 1923.
  • The heart of the earth is hammering. Sketches and poems. Publishing house for proletarian free thinkers, Leipzig 1923.
  • Chants of life. Poems. Thuringian Publishing House, Jena 1924.
  • The breathing space. Poems. Roter Türmer, Leipzig 1925.
  • Scream in the night. A book of reflection. Publishing house for proletarian free thinkers, Leipzig 1925.
  • Brother, the sirens scream. Poems for my class. Arche, Hirsau 1931.
  • Through Europe with a camera and typewriter. Pictures and reports. The book circle, Berlin 1932.
  • Seventeen bridge builders, a couple of shoes. A work novel. Köhler, Hamburg 1937.
  • Fitter Klinkhammer and other bridge-building stories. Gauverlag, Bayreuth 1943.
  • Childhood in the coal pot. People and Time, Karlsruhe 1946.
  • The Holtmeiers. Novel . Koehler, Hamburg 1946.
  • Between the times. Selected poems . Koehler, Hamburg 1946.
  • The act of Hilko Bossmann. Narration . Bulwark, Offenbach 1947.
  • The wedding in the boiler shop. Novel . Felsenburg, Marburg 1949.
  • The laughing Reinoldus. Old and new anecdotes from an old Hanseatic and young industrial city . Wulff, Dortmund 1953.
  • Erich Grisar reading book . Compiled and with an afterword by Walter Gödden. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2012.
  • Selected works . Edited by Fiona Dummann, Walter Gödden, Kerstin Mertenskötter. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2014.
  • Caesar 9th novel . Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2015.
  • Childhood in the coal pot . New ed. by Walter Gödden. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2016.
  • Through Europe with a camera and typewriter. Pictures and reports by Erich Grisar . Edited by Andrea Zupancic. Klartext, Essen 2016.
  • Ruhrstadt. Portrait of a city. Novel . Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2016.

literature

  • H. Hollmann, arr .: Erich Grisar on his 75th birthday. A directory of his works. Dortmund 1973.
  • Fritz Hüser, M. Neumann-Honsmann: Erich Grisar 1898-1955. In memory of his 80th birthday. Dortmund 1978.
  • Josef Jansen: Erich Grisar , in: Literature from next door (1900-1945). 60 portraits by authors from what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. Edited by Bernd Kortländer. Bielefeld 1995, pp. 114-119.
  • Dieter Sudhoff : The literary modernity and Westphalia. Visiting a neglected cultural landscape. Bielefeld 2002, pp. 286-332.
  • Dirk Buchholz (arrangement): Caesar 9. An unpublished novel by Erich Grisar , in: Heimat Dortmund 1/2005 (special issue: Dortmund 1945. 60 years after the end of the war), pp. 32–35.
  • Walter Gödden: Afterword , in: Erich Grisar reading book. Bielefeld 2012, pp. 133–157.
  • Walter Gödden: Erich Grisar - an author between the chairs , in: Literature in Westphalia. Contributions to research 13 (2014), pp. 283-317.
  • Hanneliese Palm: field gray and dawn. From the diaries of Erich Grisar 1916-1919 , in: Heimat Dortmund 1/2014 ( special issue : Dortmund in the First World War), pp. 54–59.
  • Arnold Maxwill: “And now, is that still a life? It's a mess. ” Erich Grisar's view of the bombing war and the post-war period , in: Erich Grisar: Caesar 9. Roman. Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2015, pp. 331–359.
  • Arnold Maxwill: Street, Settlement, Steel Works. Grisar's “Ruhrstadt” is a portrait of Dortmund, but also a chronicle of the crisis - and last but not least a workforce novel , in: Erich Grisar: Ruhrstadt. Portrait of a city. Novel. Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2016, pp. 267–297.
  • Andrea Zupancic: Erich Grisar: The Discovery of a Photographer , in: Rundbrief Fotografie 22 (2015), No. 3, pp. 16–26.
  • Erhard Schütz / Andrea Zupancic: “Today I travel the world as a photo reporter.” - Epilogue , in: Through Europe with a camera and typewriter. Pictures and reports by Erich Grisar . Edited by Andrea Zupancic. Essen 2016, pp. 165–207.
  • Heinrich Theodor Grütter, among others (Ed.): Erich Grisar. Ruhrgebietsfotografien 1928–1933 [exhibition catalog Ruhr Museum]. Essen 2016.
    • Stefanie Grebe: Erich Grisars Ruhrgebietsfotografien 1928–1933. Documentary photographs and social reports by a writer , pp. 67–83.
    • Andrea Zupancic: The photographer Erich Grisar , pp. 117–127.
    • Arnold Maxwill: Observation and Description. Orders of narration in Erich Grisar , pp. 130–137.
    • Walter Gödden: The writer Erich Grisar , pp. 194–201.
    • Hanneliese Palm: Erich Grisar's estate in the Fritz-Hüser-Institut , pp. 202–212.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hanneliese Palm: Field gray and dawn. From the diaries of Erich Grisar 1916-1919 , in: Heimat Dortmund 1/2014, pp. 54–59, here pp. 54f.
  2. ↑ Walter Gödden: The writer Erich Grisar , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 194–201, here p. 196.
  3. ↑ Andrea Zupancic: The photographer Erich Grisar , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 117–127, here p. 118.
  4. ↑ Hanneliese Palm: The Erich Grisar estate in the Fritz-Hüser-Institut , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 202–212, here p. 202.
  5. ↑ Walter Gödden: The writer Erich Grisar , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, p. 194–201, here p. 196f.
  6. ^ Georg Schwarz: Coal Pot. A book from the Ruhr. Book Guild Gutenberg, Berlin 1931. (New edition 1961; reprinted under the title Kohlenpott 1931 in the series Ruhrland documents by Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1986, ISBN 3-88474-316-3 ; online edition by Project Gutenberg-DE ); Erich Grisar is introduced in Chapter 20 (“ The Ruhr Proletariat writes ”).
  7. ↑ Stefanie Grebe: Erich Grisars Ruhrgebietsfotografien 1928–1933. Documentary photographs and social reports by a writer. In: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 67–83, here p. 68.
  8. ↑ Andrea Zupancic: The photographer Erich Grisar. In: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 117–127, here p. 119.
  9. ↑ Stefanie Grebe: Erich Grisars Ruhrgebietsfotografien 1928–1933. Documentary photographs and social reports by a writer. In: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 67–83, here p. 68.
  10. ↑ Andrea Zupancic: The photographer Erich Grisar. In: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933. Essen 2016, pp. 117–127, here p. 124.
  11. ↑ Through Europe with a camera and typewriter. Pictures and reports by Erich Grisar. Edited by Andrea Zupancic. Klartext, Essen 2016.
  12. ↑ http://www.berlin.de/rubrik/hauptstadt/verbanned_buecher/az-autor.php?buchstabe=G
  13. ^ Arnold Maxwill: Street, settlement, steel works. Grisar's “Ruhrstadt” is a portrait of Dortmund, but also a chronicle of the crisis - and not least a work-class novel. In: Erich Grisar: Ruhrstadt. Portrait of a city. Novel. Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2016, pp. 267–297.
  14. ^ Erich Grisar: Ruhrstadt. Portrait of a city. Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2016.
  15. ↑ Erhard Schütz / Andrea Zupancic: “Today I travel the world as a photo reporter.” - Epilogue , in: With camera and typewriter through Europe. Pictures and reports by Erich Grisar . Edited by Andrea Zupancic. Essen 2016, pp. 165–207, here p. 197.
  16. ↑ Arnold Maxwill: “And now, is that still a life? It's a mess. ”Erich Grisar's view of the bombing war and the post-war period , in: Erich Grisar: Caesar 9. Roman. Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2015, pp. 331–359, here p. 334.
  17. ↑ Erich Grisar: Caesar 9th novel . Edited by Arnold Maxwill. Bielefeld 2015.
  18. ↑ Walter Gödden: The writer Erich Grisar , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933 . Essen 2016, pp. 194–201, here p. 199.
  19. ↑ [1]
  20. ↑ Hanneliese Palm: The Erich Grisar estate in the Fritz Hüser Institute. In: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933 . Essen 2016, pp. 202–212, here pp. 205–208.
  21. ^ Andrea Zupancic: The photographic legacy in the Dortmund city archive , in: Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933 . Essen 2016, pp. 128–129.
  22. ^ Editorial note, in: Heinrich Theodor Grütter, et al. (Ed.): Erich Grisar. Ruhr area photographs 1928–1933 . Essen 2016, p. 214.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grisar, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German worker poet
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1955
Place of death Dortmund