Ernst Hardt

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Ernst Hardt
Collected stories , first edition, 1909, Leipzig

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Hardt , incorrectly also Ernst Stöckhardt, (born May 9, 1876 in Graudenz , West Prussia , † January 3, 1947 in Ichenhausen near Günzburg ) was a German writer , translator , theater and radio director.

Life

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Hardt was born as the son of Captain Ernst Hardt (1845-1883) and his wife Anna Lucie born. Zaettré (1847–1912) was born in Graudenz in West Prussia. At the father's request, Hardt visited the cadet school in Potsdam and then the one in Berlin-Lichterfelde , which he broke off prematurely. In Berlin he found the classical archaeologist and art historian Botho Graef as a fatherly friend and mentor, who introduced him to the artist, literary and scientific circles in Berlin and also took him on his travels. At the age of 17 he went on an almost four-year study trip that took him to Spain , Portugal , Greece, Morocco and Italy . His first literary and journalistic attempts are to be made during this time. Literary contributions by him appeared in Simplicissimus , where he emerged as the winner of a short story competition, and in Stefan George's Blätter für die Kunst . In 1898 he took over the position of a feature editor for the Dresdner Zeitung . The following year he married in Athens Polyxena von Hößlin (1872-1960), a daughter of the Greek lawyer, banker, President of the Greek Chamber of Deputies and Minister Konstantin von Hößlin (January 22, 1844 - January 17, 1920). With her he had a daughter (Donata, born August 27, 1900 Weimar, † April 10, 1986 Keitum, mother of Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen ) and a son (Prosper, born May 20, 1905, † September 1, 1976). Until 1907 Hardt lived as a freelance writer alternately in Berlin and Athens.

Move to Weimar

In 1907 he moved to Weimar in the house Am Horn 17b, first rented and later owned, and soon belonged to the center of an artist community at the court of Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst . At the beginning of the First World War he was released from military service for health reasons, but was involved in the “Weimar Collection”, a “war emergency fund” of the German Schiller Foundation . At the same time he became a member of the board of the “Association of German Scholars and Artists” in Berlin and an interpreter at the “Postverkehrprüfungsstelle” for prisoner-of-war mail in Erfurt , later in Berlin.

The house and garden at Am Horn 17b are still in the same layout and layout as they were in Ernst Hardt's time. The owner (s) have changed several times since then. In the meantime, according to the owner, it also served as a location for "Tatort" or other recordings.

Intendant in Weimar

After the war, in 1918 he called for the founding of a "Democratic Party of Greater Thuringia", was elected deputy chairman of the " German Schiller Foundation" and appointed acting director of the former court theater. In 1919 he was finally given the post of general manager. A few weeks later, the former court theater was renamed the German National Theater . On his initiative the "German National Assembly" was convened in Weimar.

Ernst Hardt brought the young graphic artist Fritz Lewy from Düsseldorf to Weimar. Together they developed and designed stage sets. The suggestive style of the 50s developed from the scenes that were limited to the bare essentials. Their work together later bore plenty of fruit at WDR.

Hardt also resolutely advocated the establishment of the “State Bauhaus ” under Walter Gropius . In 1923 he separated from his wife Polyxena (official divorce in 1930 ).

Right down to personal quarrels with critics, right-wing press and hypernationalist "Pan-Germans" were very hard on him and he did not extend his contract and in 1924 resigned from the management of the National Theater.

Theater and radio director in Cologne

In 1925 Hardt was appointed director of the theater in Cologne as the successor to Gustav Hartung . After several unsuccessful productions, he gave up his new position at the end of the 1925/26 season. On the recommendation of Konrad Adenauer , then Lord Mayor of Cologne, he became head of the new "Westdeutsche Rundfunk AG" (WERAG). In 1930 he married the actress Lou Daenner for the second time. In early 1932, Hardt was targeted by the right-wing press. The radio magazine Der Deutsche Sender quotes "the Cologne National Socialist daily newspaper" West German observers :

“Under the direction of Ernst Hardt, Westdeutscher Rundfunk has developed into a hotbed of pro-Bolshevik disintegration work. Just imagine: Of the nine departments of West German Broadcasting, the seven most important ones are occupied by Jews! "

And the West German observer writes about Hardt's salary :

“Intendant Hardt 4,000 marks a month, a bonus of 12,000 marks a year; a special monetary compensation for every microphone service (e.g. for the performance of a poem - duration ten minutes!) - around 150 tax marks! "

The time in the "Third Reich"

After the seizure of power of the Nazis in 1933 Hardt was as head of the West German Radio "on leave", was banned and was discharged after a few weeks. A few months later he was imprisoned for a short period and then took refuge in the Sankt Anna Hospital in Cologne-Lindenthal . Hardt then applied for admission to the Reichsschrifttumskammer , which was granted to him in 1934, and published articles and translations in the Neue Rundschau and the European Revue until the end of the war . In 1934 the "broadcast trial" took place, in which he was unable to take part due to his unstable state of health. In the same year his granddaughter Cornelia, who later became FDP - Bundestag and -Generalsekretärin Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen born. In 1935 he was acquitted on two counts, and on a third count the proceedings were dropped. Hardt then moved to Berlin. In 1938, at the instigation of Hermann Göring , he received a severance payment of 9,000 Reichsmarks from the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft . In 1940 Hardt divorced his second wife Lou and moved to Ichenhausen in 1943. In 1944 he married Tilla Schmalhorst, the third marriage.

New plans

After 1945, Hardt contacted the former Reich Broadcasting Commissioner Hans Bredow and the British control officer at the NWDR Alexander Maaß, a Cologne employee of Hardt before 1933. However, plans to take over a broadcasting directorship in Munich , Cologne or Hamburg failed due to Hardt's disease of lung cancer .

Ernst Hardt died on January 3, 1947 at the age of 70 in Ichenhausen. His ashes were scattered on the Wilhelmshöhe, in memory of him the city of Ichenhausen erected a memorial stone there and put a plaque on his house at Günzburger Straße 31 (owner painter Striebel).

Ichenhausen is a small town (9000 inhabitants) in the administrative district of Swabia in Bavaria, near the A7 and A8 Ulm-Elchingen junction on the B16 between Günzburg and Krumbach. In art and literary historical information, Ichenhausen is often referred to as a "small town in Upper Swabia". The administrative district of Upper Swabia is in Baden-Württemberg, on the other side (west) of the Iller, the state border between Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Ichenhausen's residents feel they are Bavarian Swabians and not Upper Swabians.

Aftermath

Since 2005, the Ichenhausen trade association has been trying to revive the memory of Ernst Hardt. Joseph Reichensperger has compiled what is probably the largest private Ernst Hardt archive outside of the German Literature Archive in Marbach . On the occasion of Ernst Hardt's 130th birthday, the Ichenhausen Economic Association restored the memorial stone on the Wilhelmshöhe on the Ichenhausen – Ettenbeuren road and had a bronze plaque engraved on it, on which Hardt's poem “At the last gate” is engraved:

At the last gate
Look there! The honorary post is now at this gate
With hip, lamp and the hourly sand.
One more time let me taste sweet and bitter
Then, Guardian, shine into the unknown land.

There was a memorial exhibition on Ernst Hardt in the foyer of the Ichenhausen school museum.

On the occasion of his 140th birthday (May 9, 2016) Joseph Reichensperger was invited to the lecture "Ernst Hardt in Weimar" by the "Friends of the City Museum Weimar". During the lecture it turned out that the plaster bust created by Richard Engelmann (1868–1966) in 1914/15 had been restored and is now in the Archives of Modernism at the Bauhaus University Weimar. The head of the Weimar City Museum, Dr. Alf Rößner, would like to try to bring this bust into the current exhibition "Weimar National Assembly".

Services

Hardt's entire early work is overshadowed by Stefan George and his circle. Hardt could not really detach himself from this influence throughout his life, even if he later experienced influences from Hugo von Hofmannsthal . He came very close to French symbolism .

Awards and honors

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of his death, the WDR commemorated Ernst Hardt with a ceremony.

Works (in selection)

Plays

  • Dead Time , 1898
  • The Battle for the Rose Red , 1903
  • From the days of the boy , 1904
  • Ninon von Lenclos , 1905 digitized
  • Tantris the Fool , 1907, first performed in Cologne 1908
  • Gudrun , 1911
  • Schirin and Gertraude , 1913 (set to music by Paul Graener)
  • King Solomon , 1913
  • Ernst Hardt brought Büchner's Fragments Woyzeck and a text-critical edition owned by Insel-Verlag to a version suitable for the stage.

Stories, short stories

  • Priests of Death , short stories, 1898
  • Life is Colorful , Novellas, 1902
  • From the days of the boy (1904)
  • At the gates of life , novella, 1904
  • Collected Stories (1909)
  • Commemorative speeches on the death of Otto Brahm (1912) and Joseph Kainz (1910)
  • Die Quelle (a scenic dialogue on February 6, 1919, 1st session of the “Weimar National Assembly”)
  • The ride to Cape Spartell and other stories , 1946
  • Don Hjalmar , 1946

Translations

literature

  • Fritz Adler: The work of Ernst Hardt. Bamberg, Greifswald 1921.
  • Dietmar N. Schmidt:  Hardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 667 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Werner Schulze-Reimpell : Ernst Hardt. Poet in the director's chair. News Office of the City of Cologne, Cologne 1976 (= Cologne Biographies; 7).
  • Harry Schumann: Ernst Hardt and the neo-romanticism. A reminder to the present. Kühnel, Lötzen 1913.
  • Susanne Schüssler: Ernst Hardt. A monographic study. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-631-45943-2 (= European university publications; series 1, German language and literature; 1430).
  • Jaewon Song: Ernst Hardt's stage works and the new drama in German literature around 1900. A study of attempts at dramatic innovation between the claim to art and the expectation of the public. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-631-35945-4 (= European university publications ; series 1, German language and literature; 1745).
  • Birgit Bernard: Making people more and more human. Ernst Hardt 1876–1947. (= Library of Journalism 3). With an afterword by Fritz Pleitgen . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8375-1121-5 .

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Ernst Hardt was really called that and not "Ernst Stöckhardt" as is often claimed. Documentation: Confirmation certificate (Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA), No. 89.97.527), certificate of departure from the 1st Company of the Haupt-Cadetten Anstalt (DLA No. 89.97.527), certificate of marriage with Anna Mathilde Schmalhorst, registry office Ichenhausen (DLA No. , 89.97.517).
  2. ↑ quoted from Der Deutsche Sender , Edition 4, Volume 3, January 1932, p. 4
  3. ↑ The dismissal became apparent immediately after Hitler came to power. The weekly journal of the Reich Association of German Broadcasters EV “Der Deutsche Sender” wrote in its edition 9/1933 of February 26, 1933: “One need only [...] remember that [...] Hardt is still head of the Kölner Rundfunk is - and it will be seen that there is still a lot to be done among the broadcasting directors. "
  4. ↑ Ernst Hardt - WDR honors pioneers of public service broadcasting. ( Memento from February 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ On this Edgar Lersch : Review Accessed on February 5, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Hardt, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst (full name); Stöckhardt, Ernst (wrong name form)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, translator and theater manager
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Graudenz , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1947
Place of death Ichenhausen near Günzburg