Ernst Schertel

Ernst Schertel (born June 20, 1884 in Munich ; died January 30, 1958 in Hof (Saale) ) was a German writer and publicist, scholar of antiquity and religion, a pioneer of nude culture and a specialist in occultism and remote areas of sexuality with special attention to the Sadomasochism .

biography

Study and first novel

His older brother Wilhelm Schertel (1883–1930) became a chemist and artist, the younger Fritz Schertel (1890–1945) became a cellist.

While studying history and philosophy in Jena, he met the poet Stefan George in the house of his doctoral supervisor Rudolf Eucken . Between 1909 and 1917 he visited the poet several times. Although Schertel cannot be assigned to the George circle , this encounter has lifelong meaning for him. In 1911 he received his doctorate magna cum laude .

Another turning point was Schertel's first novel, The Sin of the Eternal or This is My Body , which he wrote in 1912 and 1913: “[…] one summer morning I jumped out of bed and began to write pages as if under someone else's dictation to pages without knowing what it was going to be. [...] And when I had put the period behind the last line, it fell from me like heavy iron chains - I was free. "

Through the novel, Schertel, previously plagued by contact poverty, depression and thoughts of suicide, can free himself from his "terrible tension": "I plunged into life like an unleashed predator, unrestrained, in a frenzy of enjoyment and real activity."

Dance pedagogy

In 1914 Schertel became a teacher of German, ancient history and the history of religion at the reform school Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf, founded by Paul Geheeb and Gustav Wyneken . Schertel developed so-called mystery games inspired by Asian dance festivals, accompanied by suggestive music composed by Schertel without key. With these events, however, he reached the limits of what was possible even at a reform school influenced by the ideas of the youth movement . In particular, the fact that he made his students understand the "conviction of the human-building and culture-promoting power of male-male love" led to the end of his work in Wickersdorf. However, he continued his dance pedagogical work: from 1918 at the Herion School for Dance and Physical Culture in Stuttgart and from 1924 to 1927 at the Schertel Dream Stage for somnambulistic dance .

In order to achieve the effects he intended and the corresponding states in the participants of the dances, Schertel used a combination of different techniques (among other things he developed a gymnastic system, the "Schertel method") and aids (lighting, music, incense, hypnosis and Alkaloids ).

Parthenon Publishing House

Intensive literary, journalistic and scientific production began in the mid-1920s. In 1926 Schertel founded the magazine Soma together with Joseph Krömer , from 1927 to 1931 Asa appeared , with a focus on erotic and occultism adapted to Schertel's interests.

The Parthenon-Verlag published a series of nude art books , the introductions of which were mostly written by Schertel. The recordings from these and other works published by Schertel are also largely made by Schertel.

Delivery works appear in parallel, including his main work The Flagellantism as a Literary Motif and The Erotic Complex .

Together with his publisher, he opposed the law to protect young people from trash and dirty writing . They were supported in their fight against legal restrictions on their publishing activities by the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and the bibliophile Fedor von Zobeltitz . During this time Schertel corresponded with leading psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Stekel , spoke at congresses and fought for the deletion of paragraph 175 and paragraph 218 of the Reich Penal Code .

All these scientific and journalistic activities ended with the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933.

Exile and late years

Schertel fled to Paris, but returned to Germany in 1934. There, he was tried for distributing indecent literature and sentenced to seven months in prison.

Another reprisal in 1937 was the revocation of the doctorate by the University of Jena. Until the end of the National Socialist era , Schertel worked for Joseph Krömer's publishing house as an editor and proofreader of rather harmless fiction.

After the end of the war, like many other writers exiled or marginalized during the Nazi era, Schertel was unable to build on the journalistic successes of the prewar period. His publications from this period deal mainly with religious-historical and esoteric topics. At least he was able to achieve the expanded new edition of his major work The Flagellantism in Literature and Sculpture .

His efforts to publish works with explicit sadomasochistic content failed because of the publishers who were caught in the spirit of the 1950s. In the 1930s a work in this direction ( Das Mädchenschloß ) was published as a private print.

On January 30, 1958, Ernst Schertel died of a heart attack.

Works

• The night walker. Drama. 1909.
• Schelling's Metaphysics of Personality. Dissertation. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1911.
• The catacombs of Ombos. Novel. J. Engelhorn's descendants, Stuttgart 1917.
• The Sin of the Eternal, or This is my body. Novel. The turning point, Berlin 1918.
• The Sister's Blood - Occult sensational film in 5 acts. Wende Film, Munich 1922.
• Magic - history, theory, practice. Anthropos-Verlag, Prien 1923.
• François Grillard [pseudonym]: The girls' castle . Private print, ca.1930.
• Flagellantism as a literary motif. 4 vols. 1929-1932.
• Flagellantism in literature and sculpture. 12 vols. Decker Vlg., Schmiden b. Stuttgart 1957. (extended new edition of Flagellantism as a literary motif )

literature

• Gerd Meyer: Ostracized nights pale son - A first look at Ernst Schertel. In: Michael Farin (ed.): Phantom pain. Source texts on the conceptual history of masochism. Belleville Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-936298-26-2 , pp. 488-505.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Schertel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Film "Blood sister" in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The Art of Dr. Ernst Schertel

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} Quoted from: Gerd Meyer: Ostracized nights pale son. P. 496.
2. ↑ Quoted from: Gerd Meyer: Ostracized nights pale son. P. 498.