Felix Salten

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Felix Salten, ca.1910, photograph by Ferdinand Schmutzer
Felix Salten signature.svg

Felix Salten (until 1911 Siegmund or Zsiga Salzmann ; born September 6, 1869 in Pest , Austria-Hungary , † October 8, 1945 in Zurich ) was an Austro-Hungarian writer and became Bambi through his animal story . A life story from the forest ( 1923 ) world-famous.

Life

Siegmund Salzmann was born on September 6, 1869 as the son of the Hungarian Jewish engineer Philipp Salzmann (1830–1905) in Pest. His mother was his wife Marie Singer.

When he was four weeks old, the family moved to Vienna. Until around 1890 there are only a few biographical data. Initially the family lived in the middle-class Alsergrund , later in Währing . At the age of 16 Siegmund left the Wasagasse high school without a qualification and worked for an insurance company. The reasons for the family's financial plight are not entirely clear. His father is later described by Salten as an assimilated Jew and dreamer.

The first verifiable publication was a poem on January 15, 1889 in the literary magazine An der Schönen Blauen Donau , already under the nom de plume "Felix Salten".

In 1890 he met the representatives of Jung-Wien in Café Griensteidl and made friends with Arthur Schnitzler , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Richard Beer-Hofmann , Hermann Bahr and Karl Kraus . In contrast to these authors, he was the only one who did not come from a middle-class background and had to live from his writing work. His early novels from this period depict the experience of the big city. Within Jung-Wien he is more likely to be assigned to the Impressionist faction. The first differences with his friends appeared as early as 1893, when Hofmannsthal and Schnitzler criticized his inaccuracies. Nevertheless, he went on long bike tours with Schnitzler, and their love life was similar. For example, Salten tied up with Adele Sandrock in order to give Schnitzler an opportunity to end his relationship with her.

A lover of Salen at this time was Lotte Glas , the role model for the figure of Therese Golowski in Schnitzler's The Way to the Free . Salten met Glas in 1894 through Karl Kraus. In 1895 Glas gave birth to a daughter who - as was customary at the time - was given to a food woman in Lower Austria. During this time there was a falling out with Kraus, who then began his literary attacks on Salten and his friends. Shortly afterwards, the baby died and Salten ended his relationship with Glas. On December 14, 1896 there was a public scandal: Salten slapped Kraus after he had made Salten's relationship with Ottilie Metzl public. (Salten was fined 20 florins on February 25, 1897. )

In the fall of 1894 Salten had become editor of the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung and worked there as a theater advisor. In this role he encouraged his friends through reviews, especially Schnitzler. As an abbreviation, he occasionally used "–x.–n.". In 1898 Salten made the acquaintance of Archduke Leopold Ferdinand and thus gained an insight into the family and court life of the Habsburgs.

In 1902 Salten moved to the Vienna newspaper Die Zeit . His reports on the court scandals now made him known far beyond Vienna. Among other things, he reported on Archduke Leopold's resignation from the imperial family because of a prostitute; about the affair of Leopold's sister Luise with André Giron . He also helped Luise from Toscana to flee to Paris. These works, as well as the work Josefine Mutzenbacher ascribed to him, are today considered a “plea for the naturalness of lust and desire”.

1903 to 1905 Salten published a series of portraits of the crowned heads of Europe under the pseudonym "Sascha" in the time . He described the German Emperor Wilhelm II as follows: "History will definitely allow him one thing, and this will not shake posterity even with complainers: namely that under his reign the mustaches had a fabulous upswing." However, Salten stayed skeptical of modern mass democracy. The main reason for this was the Christian Socials under Karl Lueger and their political anti-Semitism .

Because of his articles in the time , Salten was one of the top journalists of his time. In 1902 he married the castle actress Ottilie Metzl, best witnesses were Arthur Schnitzler and Siegfried Trebitsch . In 1903 the son Paul was born, in 1904 the daughter Anna Katharina . The subject of marriage now also took an important place in his novellas and plays, for example in artist women .

As early as 1901, Salten founded the young Viennese theater "Zum liebe Augustin" , inspired by Ernst von Wolzzen's cabaret Überbrettl . Salten wanted to create "modern moods" by combining music, poetry, dance and spatial art. However, the first event on November 16, 1901 in the Theater an der Wien was unsuccessful and led, at least in the Neue Freie Presse , to cutting criticism of Salten. Frank Wedekind failed on this occasion at his first appearance in Vienna. The last performance took place on November 23, the company ended with a loss of 6,000 crowns. It was not until 1906 that the next attempt at cabaret was to take place in Vienna ( night light ).

Despite his high debts (60,000 kroner at his wedding), Salten maintained a lavish lifestyle. In 1904 he went on a trip to Egypt , vacationed regularly on the Baltic Sea and in Venice , and in 1909 he rented a villa in the cottage district .

In 1906 Salten went to Ullstein as editor-in-chief of the BZ am Mittag and the Berliner Morgenpost . A hussar piece in this activity were improvised reports about the earthquake in San Francisco , which, although written in Berlin, were extremely realistic. After a few months, however, Salten returned to Vienna because he did not like the political and social climate in Berlin. From then on he worked again for the time .

Hoping for financial success, he wrote the libretto for the operetta Reiche Mädchen in 1909 based on music by Johann Strauss (son) . Neither with this nor with two subsequent librettos did the hoped-for success come about. From 1913 Salten also wrote scripts for the film . On October 16, 1913, his first film The Shylock of Krakow premiered in Berlin. Until 1918 Salten was intensively active in the film industry and was involved in at least eleven films.

In 1899 he wrote the play Der Gemeine , which was only allowed to be performed in Austria in 1919 due to its anti-militarist stance. In 1934 it served Werner Hochbaum as a template for Vorstadtvarieté , one of the most time-critical and formally exposed films of the time. Salten was also an admirer of Theodor Herzl . In 1899/1900 he wrote several articles for Herzl's magazine Die Welt . Salten's increased interest led to a trip to Galicia and Bukovina in 1909 . In the decade before 1914, Salten was “in demand, famous, incredibly productive”. In 1912 he switched to the foreign paper. He also worked for Pester Lloyd (from 1910), for the Berliner Tageblatt and, from 1913, for the Neue Freie Presse .

From the outbreak of war Salten was thrilled. The slogan of the Neue Freie Presse came from him : “It has to be!” During the war, Salten was the editor of the foreign newspaper, the foreign ministry's newspaper. It should have a positive effect on neutral countries. In the Neue Freie Presse and the Berliner Tageblatt, on the other hand, Salten published patriotic moods and polemics against Western European culture and literature. Soon, however, the disillusionment followed. In 1917 he described the war as a "catastrophe".

After the war, Salten wavered "between a conservative, tactically hesitant and a combative attitude with great sympathy for the radical political movements". In 1923, for example, he published a praise for Karl Marx , Victor Adler and Leon Trotsky , and in 1927 he called for the election of the Social Democrats. In addition, however, he also flirted with the Catholic conservative center. He vacillated between a retreat into salon culture and public engagement.

Felix Salten in Hunting Gear with Janker , Hat and Gamsbart ( ca.1910 )

After the foreign paper was discontinued in 1919, Salten took over the Sunday column of the Neue Freie Presse . From the 1920s onwards, he published some popular novels. With the help of the Zsolnay publishing house , he became a successful author. He also worked as a sponsor of unknown Zsolnay authors, for example through forewords and reviews. In 1923 he published the two animal stories The Dog of Florence and Bambi. A life story from the forest , both of which were later filmed by Walt Disney - as was The Youth of the Squirrel Perri . Salten himself was a hunter and had his own hunting ground 15 kilometers outside Vienna.

In 1927 Salten took over the presidency of the Austrian PEN Club from Arthur Schnitzler . In 1930 he took part in a trip to the USA with a European delegation of writers and journalists, from which the book Five Minutes America emerged in 1931 .

As PEN president he was drawn into the dispute with Nazi Germany and showed "little ingenuity". He made an unfortunate figure at the famous conference in Dubrovnik on May 21, 1933. He then resigned at the Austrian General Assembly on June 27, 1933, at the same time the right-wing extremist PEN members split off. After that, Salten withdrew more and more from public life. In 1935 his books were banned in Germany . Because of this and because of a guarantee for a loan from his son, he got into financial difficulties.

Before that time, 1930 to 1933, Salten had worked on five sound films, including Scampolo, a child on the street (1932) with Billy Wilder and Schnitzler's Liebelei (1933) by Max Ophüls . From 1933, animal stories and memories of his writing and journalistic activities increasingly dominated his work. After the February fights in 1934 , he sided with the authoritarian government, which earned him criticism from abroad, particularly from Joseph Roth in Paris.

After the Anschluss in 1938 he was spared personal reprisals. The reason for this may have been its international reputation and especially the protection provided by the American Consul General Leland Morris. His daughter Anna Katharina Rehmann-Salten , married in Switzerland first to Hans Rehmann and later to Veit Wyler , obtained a residence permit for her parents in February 1939, but subject to the official condition not to do any journalistic work. Salten's last years of life were marked by financial problems, he was dependent on royalties from the USA. There were also special disputes over the rights to Bambi , which he had sold for $ 1,000.

Felix Salten died on October 8, 1945 in Zurich . He is buried in the Israelite cemetery Unterer Friesenberg in Zurich. In 1961, Saltenstraße in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

family

Hermann Bahr and Felix Salten in Altaussee , July 1903

In 1902 he married the actress Ottilie Metzeles (pseudonym: Metzl) (1868–1942). The couple had two children. The son Paul Jakob (1903–1937) worked as an actor, editor and stuntman in film in Vienna. The daughter Anna Katharina (Katja) (1904–1977) also worked as an actress and later as a translator in Zurich. She married the actor Hans Rehmann (1900–1939) and later the Zurich lawyer Veit Wyler (1908–2002).

Salten was the uncle of the cabaret artist Karl Farkas .

Works (selection)

Single issues
  • The common one. (Volksstück, WP 1901)
  • The cry of love. Novella (1905)
  • Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Whore told by herself. Appeared anonymously in 1906. As early as 1909, in the German anonymous lexicon Salten or Arthur Schnitzler, authorship was assumed, with only Schnitzler denying it. Salten never denied or confirmed the authorship. Today the work is more likely to be ascribed to him in literary studies. - text online.
  • Herr Wenzel auf Rehberg and his servant Kaspar Dinckel. (1907) - text online .
  • The Austrian face: essays . 2nd edition (1910) - text online .
  • Olga Frohgemuth: story. (1910)
  • Wurstelprater. (1911)
  • Emperor Max the last knight. (1912)
  • Figures and Apparitions (1913)
  • The ringing bell. (1914), preprint in the Berliner Tageblatt
  • Children of joy. Three one-act plays. (1917) - text online.
  • Bambi. A life story from the forest . (1923, translated into English by Whittaker Chambers in 1928)
  • The dog of Florence . (1923)
  • Bob and baby . Drawings by Anna Katharina Salten. Berlin – Vienna – Leipzig: Zsolnay 1925
  • New people on the old earth: A trip to Palestine. (1925)
  • Martin Overbeck: The novel of a rich young man. (1927)
  • Fifteen hares: fates in forest and field. (1929)
  • Five minutes of America. (1931)
  • Friends from all over the world: novel of a zoological garden. (1931)
  • Florian: The emperor's horse. Novel (1933)
  • The youth of the squirrel Perri. With numerous pen drawings by Hans Bertle . (1938)
  • Bambi's children: A family in the forest. With 18 full-page pen drawings by Hans Bertle. (1940)
  • Währinger Memories (1928–1932). Duck press 2019.
Work editions
  • Collected works in individual editions . 1928-1932. 6 volumes.

Movie

literature

  • Andreas Brandtner:  Salten, Felix. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 396 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jürgen Ehneß: Felix Salten's narrative work. Description and interpretation. Lang, Bern / Frankfurt am Main / Berlin a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38178-6 . (= Regensburg Contributions to German Linguistics and Literature Studies , Series B, Studies, Volume 81, ZDB -ID 193546-x ; also: Dissertation at the University of Regensburg 2001).
  • Beverley Driver Eddy: Felix Salten: Man of Many Faces. Ariadne Press, Riverside (Ca.) 2010, ISBN 978-1-57241-169-2 .
  • Michael Gottstein: Felix Salten (1869–1945); a writer of Viennese modernism. Ergon, Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89913-585-5 (= Classical Modern Volume 4, also a dissertation at the University of Freiburg 2004).
  • Siegfried Mattl (ed.), Werner Michael Schwarz: Felix Salten. Writer - Journalist - Exile (catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna from December 5, 2006 to March 18, 2007). Holzhausen, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-85493-128-7 (= Viennese personalities , volume 5, ZDB -ID 2049681-3 ).
  • Siegfried Mattl (Ed.), Klaus Müller-Richter, Werner Schwarz (Ed.), Emil Mayer (Photographer): Felix Salten: "Wurstelprater". A key text on Viennese modernism. Promedia, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85371-219-3 . (A contemporary reflection of the original Wurstelprater book by Felix Salten and Emil Mayer (photographer) (1870–1938) from 1911, which is one of the most important texts of Viennese Modernism ; German and English).
  • Ernst Seibert (Hrsg.), Susanne Blumesberger (Hrsg.): Felix Salten - the unknown acquaintance. Children's and youth literature research in Austria, Volume 8, ZDB -ID 2071428-2 . Edition Praesens, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7069-0368-7 .
  • I (lse) Stiaßny-Baumgartner:  Felix Salten. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 9, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-7001-1483-4 , p. 394 f. (Direct links on p. 394 , p. 395 ).
  • Hermann Bahr, Arthur Schnitzler: Correspondence, records, documents 1891–1931. Edited by Kurt Ifkovits, Martin Anton Müller. Wallstein, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3228-7 . ( Presentation by the publisher ) Several letters from Salten to Hermann Bahr and Arthur Schnitzler and vice versa
  • Wills, John: Felix Salten's Stories: The Portrayal of Nature in Bambi, Perri and The Shaggy Dog. In: Mermock Jackson, Kathy / West, Mark I .: Walt Disney, from Reader to Storyteller, 2015.
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 435 f., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lehmann. 1892, Retrieved December 17, 2016 .
  2. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 21.
  3. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 24
  4. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 29.
  5. ↑ ANNO, Deutsches Volksblatt, 1897-02-25, page 22. Accessed on July 10, 2019 .
  6. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 32.
  7. ↑ See the interview that can be proven from him: –x. – n .: With Hermann Sudermann. In: Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 4977, October 13, 1894, pp. 2–3. For the attribution see: Letter Schnitzler to Richard Beer-Hofmann, October 15, 1894.
  8. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 35.
  9. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 36.
  10. ↑ —da .:  theater and art news. Jung-Wiener-Theater “Zum liebe Augustin”. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 13374/1901, November 17, 1901, p. 7, center right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  11. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 42.
  12. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 42.
  13. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 45.
  14. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 49.
  15. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 52.
  16. ↑ Boria Sax: The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature . ABC-CLIO, 2001, ISBN 978-1-57607-612-5 , p. 146 .
  17. ↑ Joachim Radkau: The era of ecology: A world history . CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61902-1 , p. 414 ( google.de [accessed February 1, 2019]).
  18. ↑ Norbert Jessen: Israel: A visit to the heirs of Bambi. In: WORLD. February 26, 2012, archived from the original on December 18, 2018 ; accessed on December 18, 2018 .
  19. ^ S. Mattl, WM Schwarz: Felix Salten. Approaching a biography. In: Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 60.
  20. ^ Claudia Liebrand: Josefine Mutzenbacher: The Comedy of Sexuality . Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 87; List of works , in: Mattl, Müller-Richter, Schwarz: Felix Salten: Wurstelprater. Promedia, Vienna 2004, p. 248. ISBN 3-85371-219-3 ; Ulrich Weinzierl : Josefine Mutzenbacher . In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Ed.): 1900 - 1918. Novels from yesterday - read today , Volume 1. Fischer, Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 3-10-062910-8 , pp. 64–71.

Remarks

  1. ^ Vienna, XVIII ., Cottagegasse  37; Before that he lived in Vienna, XIX ., Armbrustergasse  4. - See each time Salzmann, Siegmund in Lehmann's General Apartment Gazette , year 1911, p. 1079 and Lehmann's General Apartment Gazette , year 1910, p. 1038 .
  2. ↑ "In a conversation with Stefan Zweig, Salten, when asked by Mutzenbacher , replied with a meaningful smile: If he denied it, Zweig wouldn't believe him, and if he revealed the secret, you'd think he was joking." Claudia Liebrand: Josefine Mutzenbacher: The comedy of sexuality . Mattl, Schwarz: Felix Salten , p. 87.

Web links

Wikisource: Felix Salten  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Felix Salten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Salten, Felix
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Salzmann, Siegmund (original name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Pest , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1945
Place of death Zurich