Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (born March 13, 1899 in Frankfurt am Main , † March 16, 1976 in Waldshut ) was a German seaman, adventurer and writer . He was also active as a painter.

In 1913, at the age of fourteen, he ran away from home to go to sea and traveled the world in an adventurous way until 1927. a. at the Foreign Legion. His travels inspired him to write several novels. These appeared from 1927 and were very successful at that time, in particular “Bestie Ich in Mexico”, “Amineh”, “Africa weeps”, “Blumenhölle am Jacinto” and “Tropical Symphony”. Löhndorff's books are currently no longer in German (as of 2011).

Löhndorff was a member of the NSDAP in Switzerland until 1938 .

Life

Childhood and youth

Löhndorff was the youngest child of the businessman Robert Löhndorff and his wife Paulina Augusta Raabe. He was baptized Protestant - Lutheran on August 27, 1899 . In 1902 the Löhndorff family settled in Vienna . Since his father often had work to do in Russia and later left his family, Löhndorff grew up largely without a father.

From September 16, 1905, Löhndorff attended the elementary school in Hietzing and later switched to the kk Staats- Realschule , where he was not transferred on July 6, 1912 because of “too many days off”.

seafaring

In the spring of 1913 Löhndorff managed to get to Hamburg - without permission from his parents - and hired there as a cabin boy on a Dutch sailing ship . When Löhndorff came back to Holland with this ship after a trip to Finland and Russia , his father and the police were waiting for him in the port of Delfzijl .

After a discussion with his father, Löhndorff was allowed to continue to sea. He signed on to the four-masted barque “ Thielbek ”, which sailed to Mexico on behalf of the shipping company Knöhr & Burchardt Hamburg . At the end of September 1914, the ship reached its port of destination, but was confiscated there because the First World War began .

First World War

Löhndorff fled the confiscated ship after a short time because he was terribly bored. For some time he got by with various jobs, including as a coastal skipper.

After a shipwreck, Löhndorff hoped for help from the German consul in Guaymas . Since he could not identify himself - the family was based in Austria - he did not believe that he was German. He met outside the embassy a Yaqui - Indians of the revolutionary forces and was recruited by the latter. He was quickly promoted, partly because he was able to translate English press texts for his superiors, and met the revolutionary Pancho Villa .

According to his own statements, Löhndorff was not interested in the political issues of the revolution , but was only looking for adventure. It was only when, in January 1916, how troops in northern Mexico near Santa Isabel took 17 civilians (American engineers) from a train and immediately executed them on Pancho Villa's orders, did Löhndorff see the war with different eyes. Since he was involved in this act, the United States put a bounty on him too. A punitive expedition led by General John Pershing was unsuccessful because the intervention troops were withdrawn in 1917 when the USA entered the First World War.

Captivity of War (First World War)

Löhndorff tried to break away from Mexico. Together with deserted sailors, he captured the ship " Alexander Agassiz ". They sailed under the German flag, but were picked up by the US Navy after about four weeks. Löhndorff was arrested and imprisoned in Los Angeles in February 1918 . From there he 638 came as a POW NO. In the War Barracks III in Fort Utah ( Utah ). During this time Löhndorff made the acquaintance of Captain Conrad Sörensen , with whom he, as a prisoner, took various nautical courses. After the end of the war, Löhndorff received provisional identification papers from the Swiss embassy with which he could leave the United States. On July 11, 1919 Löhndorff reached the port of Rotterdam as a passenger of the sailor “Martha Washington” . The German authorities that received him there, after several interviews, allowed him to enter Karlsruhe , where his family had lived since 1914.

Foreign Legion

In the post-war years Löhndorff signed up to the Foreign Legion . What induced him to do so is unknown; maybe it was financial hardship, the situation in post-war Germany or the urge for adventure. On November 13, 1920 he signed in Saarbrücken as "Ernesto de Naca e Villaverde", born on March 13, 1899 in Veracruz, a five-year commitment (according to "Etat signaletique et des services" of the Légion étrangère).

Löhndorff came via Metz and Nancy to Fort Saint-Jean near Marseille , from there to Oran ( Algeria ) and later to Sidi bel Abbès . Just two months later, the 22-year-old Löhndorff deserted and fled Algeria. In literary terms, his experiences in the Foreign Legion appeared in "Africa weeps - diary of a legionnaire". Here, too, as in almost all of his adventure novels , real experiences were mixed with poetry. The autobiographical style repeatedly gives the impression that Löhndorff was writing down his own experiences. Although not true, his travels and adventures inspired his work.

Second World War

After his last major trip to China in 1939, he settled with the von Alten family in Laufenburg, who were friends through his girlfriend, Countess Gertrud Montgelas de Garnerin . The Nazis rely on his supposed abilities and use him as an espionage agent, but since he did not meet the apparently high expectations he was expelled from the party. After the war he began to paint, he preferred watercolors in a dabbing technique. He described himself as a better painter than a writer.

Death and late honor

He died of a stroke that he suffered while shopping in Laufenburg. Long before it had been decided to present him with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , but it was postponed for a long time. Now he was given the badge of honor on the same evening, it was assumed that he would still realize this.

Works

The following list of works names the first editions as listed in the catalog of the German National Library . The detective novels published under the pseudonym Peter Dando were partly published later under the name Löhndorffs.

title Publishing year Place: Publisher Remarks
Beast Me in Mexico 1927 Stuttgart: Dieck & Co.
Satan Ocean: About schnapps pirates, hitchhikers and whalers 1930 Leipzig: Grethlein & Co .; Bremen: C. Schünemann
Africa weeps: diary of a legionnaire 1930 Leipzig: Grethlein & Co.
Amineh: The Ten Thousand Faces of India 1930 Leipzig Grethlein & Co.

Zurich: Bremen: C. Schünemann

Noah's Ark: A Saga of Man and Whale 1932 Leipzig, Zurich: Grethlein; Bremen: Schünemann
Flower hell on the Jacinto: jungle experience 1932 Zurich: Grethlein; Bremen: Schünemann
The Indio: Struggle and end of a people 1933 Bremen: Schünemann
Drums, Piet !: German Landsknechte in the jungle 1934 Bremen: Schünemann
Gold, whiskey and women in Nordland 1935 Bremen: Schünemann
The fool and the almond blossom 1935 Bremen: Schünemann
Southwest-Northeast: Erlebnisschildergn 1936 Bremen: Schünemann
Tropical Symphony 1936 Bremen: Schünemann
The mysterious one of Baden-Baden 1936 Bern, Leipzig, Vienna: Goldmann Goldmanns Roman-Bibliothek, Volume 54, under the pseudonym Peter Dando
Strange paths on 10 degrees south 1937 Schünemann, Bremen
Bowery Satan 1937 Bern, Leipzig, Vienna: Goldmann Goldmanns Roman-Bibliothek, Volume 69, under the pseudonym Peter Dando
The wife of Hawai 1938 Bremen: Schünemann
Eerie China: A Travel Report 1939 Bremen: Schünemann
The black widow 1939 Dresden: Seyfert under the pseudonym Peter Dando
Yangtsekiang: A Chinese novel 1940 Bremen: Schünemann
Khaiberpass 1941 Bremen: Schünemann
Gloria and the Teddyboy: Amerik. Moral image 1943 Bremen: Schünemann
Old Jamaica Rum 1949 Düsseldorf: Four falcons publishing house
Ultima Esperanza: Rise and End of the "King of Tierra del Fuego" 1950 Bremen: Schünemann
Egyptian nights 1952 Bleckede castle ad Elbe: Meissner
Voice from the desert: Muhamed Ibn Abd'Allah Ibn Abd. El Mottalib Ibn Hadschim el Emin. 1953 Bremen: Schünemann
Yellow stream 1954 Bremen: Schünemann
Whom the gods caress: Indian factual novel 1954 Berlin, Munich: white
Black hemp: novel of a drug 1956 Bremen: Schünemann
The Road to Dien Bien Phu: Novel of a Colony 1957 Bremen: Schünemann
Happiness in Manila 1958 Berlin-Schöneberg: White
Storm over Kenya 1960 Bremen: Schünemann
Yellow Hell on the Yangtze 1965 Hanover: Torchbearers-Verl. Schmidt-Küster
The cockaburra bird 1966 Hanover: Torch Bearer Publishing House

Translations

Löhndorff's works have also appeared in various translations in at least 12 languages: Danish , English , French , Flemish (Belgium) , Italian , Yugoslavian (Serbo-Croatian), Dutch , Polish , Spanish , Swedish , Czech , Hungarian .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hubert Matt-Willmatt: The adventure in the life and work of Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976). Schillinger Verlag, Freiburg 1999. pp. 115-123.
  2. ^ Hubert Matt-Willmatt: The adventure in the life and work of Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976). Schillinger Verlag, Freiburg 1999. pp. 18-36.
  3. ↑ a b Hubert Matt Welcome Matt: The adventure in the life and work of Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976). Schillinger Verlag, Freiburg 1999. pp. 41-63.
  4. ^ Hubert Matt-Willmatt: The adventure in the life and work of Ernst Friedrich Löhndorff (1899-1976). Schillinger Verlag, Freiburg 1999. p. 207.
personal data
SURNAME Löhndorff, Ernst Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1976
Place of death Waldshut