Ernst Lissauer

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Ernst Lissauer (around 1932). Photo: Max Fenichel

Ernst Lissauer (born December 16, 1882 in Berlin ; died December 10, 1937 in Vienna ) was a German playwright , poet, and publicist . Contemporaries he was considered "the most German of all Jewish poets" ( Walter A. Berendsohn ).

Life

Ernst Lissauer came from a long-established Berlin factory owner family and was the son of Hugo Lissauer and his wife Zerline Friedeberger. His father was a member of the Berlin militia during the revolution of 1848 and was a co-founder of the Berlin reform community . This association campaigned for full adaptation to German culture and represented the associated de-levraization of Judaism . Lissauer was brought up in this spirit, but at the age of 15 refused his parents' wish to be baptized as a Christian. He justified this initially with the fact that he did not want to change faith for the sake of social advantages. He later said that he would have felt a change as a "betrayal of Judaism". Despite this adherence to the Jewish faith, Lissauer was a child of the Wilhelmine era and an ardent Prussian-German patriot.

After attending the Friedrichswerder High School in Berlin and a few semesters of literary history at the universities of Leipzig and Munich , Lissauer returned to Berlin and settled there as a literary critic and freelance writer. After reading the first manuscripts of Lissauer, the publisher Eugen Diederichs reported that he had discovered “the greatest contemporary German poet”.

Lissauer was enthusiastic about Prussian history, Frederick the Great and the wars of liberation , which was expressed in 1913 in the cycle “ 1813 ” for their 100th anniversary. His first work Der Acker was published in 1907. He also published the magazine Front .

For Stefan Zweig , Lissauer was "the most Prussian or Prussian-assimilated Jew I knew" and "the most good-natured person one could imagine ... a sedate man, overflowing with zeal and self-esteem, overflowing with words, obsessed with poetry and by no resistance to prevent from quoting and reciting his verses again and again. With all his ridiculousness you had to win him fondly because he was warm-hearted, comradely, honest and with an almost demonic devotion to his art. "

"Song of hate against England"

In the spirit of many German-Jewish associations and his own convictions, Lissauer volunteered for military service at the outbreak of World War I , but was retired as unfit. Therefore he tried to “serve the cause” by other means and wrote poems with a national mood, such as the “Hate Song against England” (1914):

Detail:

We will hate you with long hatred,
We will not let go of our hatred [...]
The throttling hatred of seventy million
They love united, they hate united,
They all have only one enemy:
England!

Individual verses were picked up by German war propaganda, achieved enormous popularity and ultimately brought Lissauer the award of the Red Eagle Order by the Emperor.

Postcard from 1916

During the war, the hate song became a battle cry of the German army - " God punish England ". A special greeting was created:

Greeting: "God punish England."
Response to the greeting: "He punishes it."

The end of the World War in 1918 and the waning national euphoria had a negative impact on his career. He was accused of a. by Robert Bodanzky , who wrote the “Hate Song” not as a patriotic text, but deliberately as agitation and war propaganda.

After the First World War

The criticism of his attitude took Lissauer all hope of further recognition as a poet. He now turned to drama and wrote works on historical personalities, including Thomas Münzer , as well as essays and essays on poetry. Nevertheless, he was unable to build on the old successes. Disappointed, he moved to Vienna in 1924. His last work, Zeitenwende , was published there in 1936 . This lyrical volume bore autobiographical traits in that it described topics about being German and the loss of identity as an outcast.

Works (selection)

  • The Field (1907)
  • The Stream (1912)
  • 1813. A cycle , Eugen Diederichs publishing house, Jena (1913)
  • God punish England (1916)
  • Turning point (1936)
  • Flames and Winds (1923)
  • Eckermann , Drama (1921)
  • Yorck , drama (1921)
  • Luck in Austria. Pictures and Reflections (1925)
  • The stones speak (1936)

Awards

On January 27, 1915, the Prussian King and German Emperor Wilhelm II. Ernst Lissauer awarded the Order of the Red Eagle IV class with the royal crown. The same award went to Richard Dehmel , Rudolf Presber , Caesar Flaischlen , Paul Warncke , Richard Nordhausen , Gustav Falke , Ferdinand Avenarius , Will Vesper , Walter Flex and Rudolf Alexander Schröder for their war poetry.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern. Memories of a European, Anaconda, Cologne 2013, p. 309 f.
  2. ↑ Compare this with the habilitation thesis [1] "Jewish intellectuals in the First World War. War experiences, ideological debates and new cultural designs ”by Ulrich Sieg
  3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hschamberlain.net
personal data
SURNAME Lissauer, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet, playwright and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1937
Place of death Vienna