Franz Hammer (writer)

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1st DSV annual conference, November 2, 1966 Berlin: Bruno Apitz (left) in a break with Franz Hammer (right) and his wife from Tabarz

Franz Hammer (real Hammel , born May 24, 1908 in Kaiserslautern , † April 10, 1985 in Tabarz ) was a German writer, publicist, editor, literary critic and cultural functionary.

Life

Hammer was the son of a metal grinder who fell in the First World War in September 1914. His mother raised him and his younger brother Kurt on her own by making a makeshift living as a cleaning lady and as a worker; in addition, as a "war widow" she had a small pension. Hammer was noticed as a very good student and therefore received a vacancy at a secondary school, which he finished without a high school diploma. He joined the youth movement and became a member of the "Association of Free Socialist Youth". From 1925 to 1928 he worked as a child welfare worker in a home for “mentally weak” children. The files of his protégés there, most of whom came from socially disadvantaged, broken families, inspired him to write the pamphlet Ein Blick in einer Idiotenanstalt (1926), with which he polemicized against alcohol abuse. His literary role models included Upton Sinclair , Ernst Toller , Maxim Gorki and Martin Andersen Nexö .

From 1928 to 1930 he studied philosophy, German studies, economics and theater studies at the Berlin University with the help of his savings and a scholarship on the so-called " small matriculation " . There he was on the board of the Red Student Group . He also wrote his first two novels on the side, but they were never published. From 1930 he lived in Eisenach and was active in the Red Sports Movement and in the Red Front Fighter League . He became an employee u. a. the New Book Show by Gerhart Pohl , the Weltbühne and the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung . In 1932 he joined the protest against the intended reintroduction of general conscription, published by the Weltbühne .

In 1933 he was arrested by the Gestapo and taken into protective custody . After that, he lived off odd jobs. From 1937 to 1943 he was also active as an editor of literary works and published his own stories. He was supposed to be expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer at the beginning of the 1940s because of political unreliability, but successfully filed an objection with reference to his poor health - he had pulmonary tuberculosis . The illness also saved him from military service. In 1945 he became a member of the KPD . In 1946/47 he founded and led the first working group for young authors (Thuringia). Authors such as Hanns Cibulka , Günther Deicke , Wolfgang Held , Walter Stranka , Harry Thürk and Walter Werner emerged from this working group, which he continued to lead .

From 1946 to 1950 he worked as the state secretary of the Kulturbund and as a publishing editor in Leipzig. In 1952/53 he was dramaturge at the State Theater in Eisenach. Finally, he became a freelance writer.

Hammer made a particularly good contribution to promoting young authors. From 1948 to 1950 he was the Thuringian state chairman of the Association of German Authors and from 1957 to 1971 chairman of the Thuringia working group in the GDR Writers' Association . In 1971 he became general secretary of the German Schiller Foundation . His correspondence shows contacts etc. a. to Martin Andersen Nexø , Kurt Hiller , Heinrich Mann , Ludwig Renn , Anna Seghers , Gustav von Wangenheim , Erich Weinert , FC Weiskopf , max zimmering and Arnold Zweig out. Hammer was married - his second wife Helga outlived him by fourteen years - and had no children. His estate is in the Berlin Academy of the Arts .

In 1978 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in gold. In 1983 he received the gold medal for the VVO.

Works

(until 1933 under the name Franz Hammel)

  • 1926 or 1927: A look into an idiot institution. Pamphlet ( German Workers' Abstinents Association )
  • 1929: departure. Choirs from the years 1925-1926 (Signal-Verlag)
  • 1929: Remarquism or Activism? In: Die Neue Bücherschau 7 (1929) p. 393.
  • 1930: (with Kurt Deutsch) The worker has the floor (Kleist-Verlag)
  • 1930: Youth accuses. Pamphlet. (Volume 2 of The Worker Has the Floor)
  • 1935: The Stick (Nov.)
  • 1937: Spring is coming ... (Erz.)
  • 1938: Judgment Day (Nov.)
  • 1944: The little violin (Erz.)
  • 1946: phosphorus
  • 1947: The unveiling
  • 1947 or 1948: We rise: We break the fetters (choir song, set to music by Ottmar Gerster ) ( Thuringian Volksverlag Weimar)
  • 1949: The tasks of the poet in the present (Ed. Vd State School for Applied Arts)
  • 1955: Free State of Gotha in the Kapp Putsch : According to documents and memories of old combatants ( Verlag Neues Leben Berlin)
  • 1956: Theodor Neubauer - A fighter against fascism (biography, revised in 1967 under the title: Theodor Neubauer. From his life)
  • 1958: Around the Inselsberg (series: Deutsches Land - Heimatland ).
  • 1959: Thuringian Forest. Illustrated book.
  • 1963: In the Erbstromtal. Report.
  • 1963: Martin Andersen Nexö : his life in pictures (Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig)
  • 1963: The Ducked (radio story)
  • 1968: May 1929 (self-published)
  • 1975 and 1982: Dream and Reality: Story of a Youth (autobiography)
  • 1984: Time of probation: a life report ( Tribüne Verlag Berlin) (autobiography)

editor

swell

  • Kürschner's German Literature Calendar
  • GDR writer. VEB Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1975

literature

  • Dieter Fechner : Personal encounters with Thuringian authors in the 20th / 21st Century . Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2014, ISBN 978-3-86777-718-6 , Franz Hammer (1908–1985), pp. 66-73 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Die Weltbühne: Volume 28, Part 2, 1932.
  2. ^ Writer of the GDR. Leipzig 1975.
  3. ↑ Neues Deutschland , April 29, 1983, p. 4.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hammer, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, publicist, editor, literary critic and cultural functionary
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaiserslautern
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1985
Place of death Tabarz ( Gotha district , GDR )