Ernst Krawehl

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Ernst Krawehl (born March 10, 1909 in Essen , † December 2, 1993 in Essen) was a German businessman , publisher , translator and long-time editor for the writer Arno Schmidt .

Life

Ernst Walter Max Krawehl came to Essen in 1909 as the son of Otto Ernst Gustav Krawehl, mining assessor and specialist in coal refinement and coal liquefaction , and Marie Krawehl nee. Westphal to the world. He had a younger brother named Hans Georg.

Ernst Krawehl studied economics , sociology and philosophy in Cologne , Königsberg , Münster , Berlin and Leipzig and attended lectures with Erwin von Beckerath , Helmuth Plessner , Werner Sombart , Heinrich Scholz and Nicolai Hartmann , among others .

Krawehl became a scientific assistant in the state planning office at the Upper Prussian Presidium . From 1936 to 1966 he was an active partner in a family business that imported textile raw materials from overseas, as well as managing director of an administrative GmbH.

publisher

In 1950, Krawehl and Gerhard Heller joined the Stahlberg Verlag in Karlsruhe, which was founded by Ingeborg Stahlberg . Specializing in contemporary literature from the Romance countries, it published works by Curzio Malaparte , Henri Troyat , Raymond Queneau , Goffredo Parise and Roger Peyrefitte , of whom Krawehl translated two works, as well as the poetry of Peter Paul Althaus .

In 1968 the Stahlberg publishing house was transferred to the Goverts -Krüger-Stahlberg publishing house. In 1971, the Holtzbrinck Group bought the shares in Stahlberg Verlag, which was incorporated into the S. Fischer publishing group .

Working for the work of Arno Schmidt

Alfred Andersch had drawn the Stahlberg-Verlag's attention to the fact that Arno Schmidt, who had separated from Rowohlt-Verlag , could no longer find a publisher for his avant-garde works in Germany during the Adenauer era. On August 22nd and 23rd, 1955, Krawehl visited the author in his apartment in Kastel (Saar) and offered him the takeover of the entire work by Stahlberg-Verlag. He helped the financially troubled author with fixed advances and option payments, and occasionally also with credits to the publisher to promote the publication of Schmidt books, and also supported his (later withdrawn) plan to emigrate to Ireland.

First, Krawehl received the manuscript of the novel The Stone Heart from Schmidt for assessment. Under the impression of a process that had just been brought against Schmidt for blasphemy , Krawehl deleted or edited - after consulting a lawyer and with the consent of the author - a number of politically or sexually objectionable places, which in 1988 Jan-Philipp Reemtsma denounced as censorship . The original wording of these passages only appeared after Schmidt's death in the posthumous Bargfeld edition of his works.

From then on, Arno Schmidt's works and many of his translations were published by Stahlberg. Once a year, Krawehl visited the author for several days in his home town of Bargfeld in the Lüneburg Heath. In total, Ernst Krawehl oversaw fifteen first editions of Schmidt, and later also the paperback editions of shorter works published between 1949 and 1969 by Fischer Taschenbuchverlag. For more than two decades, Krawehl advertised Arno Schmidt's own stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair - a task that his niece, Freiburg Germanist Irmgard Roebling , later continued - and looked for booksellers and readers for the works, translations and - since 1970 - the large-format ones Typescripts, including the magnum opus Zettel's Traum , are of interest. Numerous Germanists owe him information on detailed questions. With his good international contacts, Krawehl also promoted Schmidt's translations into seven languages, including the English editions of the Scholars' Republic and the typescript evening with gold rim . After Schmidt's death, Krawehl published the memorial work Portrait of a Class with reports from classmates and relatives of Arno Schmidt, which was inspired by the author while he was still alive .

Disputes with the author's widow, Alice Schmidt , who separated from S. Fischer-Verlag, and with the Bargfelder Arno-Schmidt-Foundation resulted in the fact that Krawehl forbade the latter to publish his correspondence with Arno Schmidt.

estate

Krawehl, who died in Essen in 1993, left his literary legacy, including the extensive publishing library of the Stahlberg Verlag and the card box on Arno Schmidt's seascape with Pocahontas , to the German Literature Archive in Marbach. There his post-mortem estate is marked with a blocking notice, which was valid until 2013.

Published works

  • (Ed. With Marion Boyars :) Arno Schmidt: The egghead republic. A short novel from the Horse latitudes. English translation by Michael Horovitz . Boyars, London et al. 1979, ISBN 0-7145-2591-X
  • Arno Schmidt. His work at S. Fischer. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985.
  • (Ed.) Portrait of a class. Arno Schmidt in memory. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-10-070608-0

Articles and publications in letters (selection)

  • Some Preliminary Remarks concerning the Presentation of Page 636 of Zettel's Dream. In: The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 8 (1988) No. 1, pp. 118-122.
  • About Arno Schmidt's book “Fouqué and some of his contemporaries”. Cover of the bound first edition (14 × 21) in Stahlberg Verl. 1958. Zettelkasten, Vol. 10 (1991), pp. 173–175.
  • Reader's introduction to Arno Schmidt's book “Sitara and the way there” . Special prospectus for publication in 1963. In: Zettelkasten 9 (1991), pp. 177-180.
  • Wolf-Dieter Krüger: Arno Schmidt and the Frankfurt Book Fair. With letters from Ernst Krawehl and Marco Brännström. In: Zettelkasten 10 (1991), pp. 57-65.
  • Arno Schmidt / Ernst Krawehl: Lots of news. From the correspondence. In: copybook. Journal of Literature No. 43, May 1994, pp. 19-23.
  • Horst Denkler : "Orientation aid for an unprecedented cause". Letters from Ernst Krawehl. In: Zettelkasten 15th year book of the Society of Arno Schmidt readers 11 (1996), pp. 269–285.
  • "... Ulyß first, and a year later Wake" . Two letters. In: Bargfelder Bote, Delivery 273–274, August 2004, pp. 3–6.

literature

  • Gunnar Ortlepp: Until the last court. In: Der Spiegel No. 11 of March 14, 1983. Web resource
  • Jan Philipp Reemtsma: Censorship . In: Arno Schmidt ./. Processes 1 & 2. Ed. By Jan Philipp Reemtsma and Georg Eyring. An edition by the Arno Schmidt Foundation published by Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-251-00103-5 .
  • Ralf Keller, Jochen Meyer, Hansgeorg Schmidt-Bergmann (arrangement): The books of the Stahlberg publishing house . Catalog for the exhibition in the Upper Rhine Poetry Museum in Karlsruhe January 28, 1994–25. February 1994. Book series of the Upper Rhine Poet Museum in Karlsruhe Founded by Hansgeorg Schmidt-Bergmann. Published by the Literary Society (Scheffelbund) Karlsruhe. Rieden 1994, ISBN 3-86142-016-3 .
  • Hartwig Suhrbier : His publisher. In: Bargfelder Bote, No. Lfg. 185/186 (1994), pp. 33-35.
  • Society for the joint implementation of deeds and works. Ernst Krawehl in conversation with Hartwig Suhrbier. WDR 3, 9./10. March 1989, printed in: copybook. Journal of Literature No. 43, May 1994, pp. 11-18.
  • F. Peter Ott: In memory of Ernst Krawehl. In: note box. Yearbook of the Society of Arno Schmidt Readers 11 (1996), pp. 287-301.
  • Language work with Schmidt. The editor Ernst Krawehl. Christoph Penshorn speaks to Martin Hielscher . Audio cassette, German Literature Archive, Marbach am Neckar 2006 (time capsule 6).

Others

  • Peter Paul Althaus dedicated a poem to Ernst Krawehl in his volume of poetry In der Traumstadt ; the name Krawehl also occurs in his telephone poem in Dr. Gentian .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Jan Philipp Reemtsma: Censorship . In: Arno Schmidt ./. Processes 1 & 2. Ed. By Jan Philipp Reemtsma and Georg Eyring. An edition of the Arno Schmidt Foundation published by Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1988.
  2. ↑ Cf. Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Bernd Rauschenbach , Wolfgang Schlueter: Editorial commentary , in Arno Schmidt: The stone heart. Bargfeld edition. Work group 1: novels, stories, poems, juvenilia. Vol. I / 2, Haffmans, Zurich 1992, p. 353.
  3. ↑ See the publisher's information from S. Fischer-Verlag.
personal data
SURNAME Krawehl, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1993
Place of death eat