Franz Joseph Schneider
Franz Joseph Schneider (born March 3, 1912 in Aschaffenburg ; † March 13, 1984 in Bergen-Enkheim near Frankfurt am Main ) was a German writer, journalist, advertising specialist, member of " Group 47 " and inventor of the city writer's prize .
Schneider was committed to promoting literature in Germany after 1945. Through his ties to the US advertising industry, he donated the Group 47 Prize . In the 1970s he initiated the Bergen City Clerk's Literature Prize .
Life
Franz Joseph Schneider was born on March 3, 1912 in Aschaffenburg as the youngest of four children of a farmer's maid. He was raised in a strict Catholic manner by his mother. In 1934 he went to Frankfurt am Main after graduating from high school. He wanted to be a writer. In the same year he published his first story under the title “Feierabend” in the features section of the Frankfurter Zeitung , made possible by Heinrich Simon and Rudolf Geck . Through Peter Suhrkamp he published further texts in the Neue Rundschau . During this time he took his first job at McCann , a US advertising company. Marcel Reich-Ranicki describes this time as follows:
“He knew exactly what he wanted - to be a poet. The editors took a liking to the somewhat rabid young man with a lot of temperament and imagination and humor. Schneider's stories saw the light of day in the best publications: in the 'Frankfurter Zeitung' in the 'Neue Rundschau', later also in the 'Gegenwart'. That earned him a lot of prestige and little money; so he worked as a proofreader and copywriter. "
He married the daughter of a Protestant pastor. Shortly afterwards he went to war and was used as an infantryman and war correspondent . He was u. a. stationed in Jassy and Galatz in Romania . In the story “ The almond ripens in Brocher's garden ”, Romania is the scene of the action. It shows how the German soldiers were involved in everyday life in the occupied country and marks the beginning of the Russian major attack on Romania, Operation Jassy-Kishinev . As a war correspondent he wrote for central organs of the Nazis and it was not uncommon to see his reports censored by the front.
After his return from British captivity, despite being injured, he quickly got back to work and from December 1945 built up the Frankfurter editorial team of the Neue Zeitung (NZ). In 1947 Schneider's book of stories “ Kind Our Time ” was published; his stories were published in many anthologies of the late 1940s.
After the editing of the NZ moved to Bonn , he went back to the advertising company. As the father of six children, he decided to pursue this money-making job of advertising specialist and built himself a house in Bergen-Enkheim by 1956 . Gert Lobin writes in a portrait from 1977: "His house is a 'casa aperta', and this is where writers come and go."
His fame as a promoter of literature is based on two pillars: On the one hand, he was responsible for the foundation of the Group 47 Prize and, on the other hand, he is considered the inventor of the Stadtschreiberpreis. In the group 47 he initially appeared as a writer, but over time his activity shifted more and more to the organization of the group. From 1949 to 1962 he was a permanent member of the group. The city clerk's idea came to him at the funeral service of Günter Eich , who died impoverished. Schneider wanted to enable talented writers to live and work carefree for a year. In addition, the prize should enrich the cultural life in Bergen-Enkheim and bring literature to the people.
Franz Joseph Schneider died in Bergen-Enkheim in 1984 at the age of 72.
“[He] did not want to hear about polite paraphrases, and he hated big words. He loved the clear and direct and at times also the rough and drastic. And so let’s say straight out: his literary talent was modest. But Franz Joseph Schneider did more for literature than most German-language writers. (Reich-Ranicki, 1984) "
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Journalistic
Franz Joseph Schneider published frequent articles in the Neue Zeitung, especially in the late 1940s. In November 1946, for example, a year and a half after the end of the war, the author took stock of the reconstruction program of the “ Goethe City ” in Frankfurt am Main. Despite the numerous “ short-term needs ”, he praised Frankfurt's sense of responsibility for culture and the intellectual. Schneider continued to publish many reviews of films, art exhibitions, and especially for the theater. He attached great importance to this cultural institution. He wrote in the Neue Zeitung on November 11, 1946:
“If we consider the great importance of theater today as a formative and opinion-forming factor, then more must be asked of it than“ good ”plays are made“ good ”: we need contemporary theater, one that points towards goals and struggles for goals Theater that helps the people to correct their worldview, which has gotten so far out of balance, and gives them the feeling again that they are a spiritual being in the midst of a world and not a marching unit in an area of operation. "
Literary
Franz Joseph Schneider's volume of stories Kind unsrer Zeit was published in the founding year of Gruppe 47 and contains six short stories , all of which deal with the end of the Second World War or the immediate post-war period in Europe .
The title of the " German Stories ", as the subtitle describes the short prose , characterizes the so-called children of this time. According to the narrator, they are “ haphazard, aimless, with no claim to happiness. “Most of the protagonists are Germans, former Wehrmacht soldiers who now want to find their way in destroyed and occupied Germany . The needs of the people - hunger, cold, loneliness - are in the foreground, they make it difficult for the characters to find their families and the long-awaited peace.
There are painful fates that await the reader. In “ The Goat Has a White Skin ”, Stocker, a former Wehrmacht soldier and prisoner of war , waits in the freezing cold at a train station for a train that is supposed to take him and the other people waiting to their next destination. He meets a man who lost his family in the war and who was left with nothing but a white goat. Stocker does not help him to find a warm seat on the train that is finally arriving, although he has the opportunity. The man is taken by the stoker on the coal wagon and throws himself into the open furnace door while driving. When Stocker finds out about this, he leaves his seat in one of the better wagons and goes to the end of the train with the words “I would like to freeze a bit”.
In spite of everything, the stories are not bleak. In " The War Is Over" , the prisoner of war Lehnert escapes from his camp in the American occupation zone of occupied Germany on the eve of Christmas . He meets helpful people in a restaurant that he enters without a penny in his pocket, simply because he was hungry and exhausted and couldn't make it to his home village. A guest gives him a cigarette and a meal with mashed potatoes . After that, Lehnert is even taken to his doorstep in their truck by two American “ Negro soldiers ”, “by the way splendid guys ”. Completely drunk from the schnapps, he is received by his wife and happily hugged.
They are short stories based on the American model. Schneider tells, in accordance with the beginnings and ideas of the early Group 47, conventionally realistic. The narrative attitude is devoid of linguistic ornamentation or ambiguous analogies and gives clear and unpretentious insights into the often discouraging everyday life of the survivors. In the story that gave the title to Deutsche Stories, the first-person narrator describes his situation as follows:
“I suddenly felt very miserable. I let myself fall on the bed, my head in the pillows, and felt the strong urge in me to be able to cry [...] Then I was completely empty of thoughts for a while and then thought [...] that this was all very difficult, this everything: being alone, the work on the route, the whole of life, that it is very difficult and almost unbearable, and that it is completely hopeless [...] to hope for something pleasant. "
Schneider also addresses the war and its ruptures in the very short story “ The almond ripens in Broscher's garden ”, which originated in 1946 but was first published in 1967 in the Friedenauer Presse (in which other authors from Group 47 also published). Stefan is a soldier and stationed in Romania when he heard about the end of the war and had to leave his host family Broscher, in whose garden there was a large almond tree. But he is in love with Fotinja, Broker's daughter, and desires her quite bluntly - especially physically: " Fotinja, gentle white-skinned creature, he thought - just this before the war eats us all ... ".
When the Romanian king speaks on the radio and announces the end of the war, Stefan sadly packs his things. Not that he didn't long for the war to end; but for him it inevitably means separation from the young woman. But before he returns to his company, he decides - despite all the dangers - to turn around and secretly visit Fotinja (who waves from the window) in her room.
For Schneider, literature always contained an enlightening element. Like many authors close to Group 47, he was of the opinion that literature has the opportunity and the task to counteract such cruel events as war and violence. His stories are closely linked to the time they were written and the experiences they had at that time. All of Schneider's protagonists are refined war veterans, not one of them can gain anything more from the fight, they only see victims and suffering - on all sides. Lehnert, Stocker, Stefan, whatever their name is, they are full of rejection, indignation against anything warlike. They have learned lessons from the horrific events and no longer want to be dissuaded from seeking their happiness - even if they believe they have no right to it.
Ursula Seyffarth wrote in the literary monthly Welt und Wort in May 1948 about the Child of Our Time :
"The atmosphere of those days, the paralyzing silence of the grave and the inconspicuously creeping misery, more depressing than all great misfortunes, is completely captured in the snapshots of these stories, in the nihilistic emptiness of which a touch of hope can be felt here and there, slowly, slowly to overcome the paralyzing tired stiffness. - An essential contemporary document. "
Publications
- Child of our time. German stories. Walter Rau, Dietmannsried / Allgäu, Heidelberg 1947.
- The almond ripens in Brocher's garden. A story. Friedenauer Presse, Berlin-Friedenau 1967.
Further publications
- The pioneers are coming. Short story. Published in: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , Volume 82, Berlin, March 1, 1943, p. 3.
- Tomorrow the fear will end. A story. In: HEUTE, Zeitschrift, number 98, Munich, November 23, 1949, pp. 27ff.
- The day came. Published in: Wolfgang Weyrauch (ed.): Tausend Gramm . A German confession in thirty stories from 1949. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1949, p. 152ff.
- The goat has a white fur. Short story. Published in: Richter, Toni (Hrsg.): The group 47 in pictures and texts. Kiepenheuer and Witsch , Cologne 1997. S. 44ff.
- The goat has a white fur. published on www.kulturpass.net (Kultur online / Stadtschreiber), Verein Kultur für ALLE, Frankfurt am Main 2009
literature
- Review of the child of our time. In: WORLD AND WORD. Literary monthly. Issue 5, Drei Säulen Verlag, Bad Wörishofen , May 1948, p. 157f.
- Gerd Lobin : Frankfurt faces: Joseph Schneider . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Local edition Frankfurt (June 4, 1977).
- Marcel Reich-Ranicki : A fellow who helped the poets. On the death of Franz Joseph Schneider . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (March 15, 1984), p. 25.
- Heinz Ludwig Arnold : The group 47. A critical ground plan . edition text + criticism. Boorberg, Munich 2004.
- Heinz Ludwig Arnold: The group 47 . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004.
- Toni Richter (Ed.): Group 47 in pictures and texts . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1997.
- Tobias Wagner: "Tomorrow the fear will come to an end". Studies on the prose work of the writer Franz Joseph Schneider. Master's thesis at the German Institute of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Halle (Saale) 2010.
See also
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schneider, Franz Joseph |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schneider, Franz Josef |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German journalist and advertising specialist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1912 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aschaffenburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1984 |
| Place of death | Bergen-Enkheim near Frankfurt am Main |