Fritz Spiesser

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Fritz Spiesser (born August 23, 1909 in Mainz , † May 1971 in Windhoek ) was a German writer . He mainly wrote colonial novels in the 1930s and 1940s .

Life

Fritz Spiesser was born in Mainz as the son of Heinrich Spiesser, who came from the Allgäu .

In 1910 his parents emigrated to Windhoek in what was then German South West Africa , where his father founded and ran a pastry shop . From 1923 to 1929 Spiesser attended a grammar school in Munich and passed the Abitur . In 1929/30 he was back in German South West Africa and hired himself out as a volunteer or mechanic on various farms, but returned to Munich to study economics there. After completing his studies with a diploma, he was employed as a manager's secretary from 1935 to 1938 at Adam Opel AG in Rüsselsheim . Spiesser married in 1936. In 1938 a son was born and in the same year he began to write. His family lived in Fürstenfeldbruck in 1938/39 and then in Geitau ( Bayrischzell ). In July 1942 he moved to Bernried near Weilheim .

In 1940 Spiesser served in the Air Force . From January 1942 he was employed in the press office of the Colonial Political Office , where he primarily worked on economic policy issues. In February 1943, after this position was terminated, he had to do front service again.

After the end of the war and separation from his wife, he returned to Windhoek in 1950 (according to other sources in 1963). Here he worked as a newspaper correspondent and sales representative, but could no longer build on his literary successes before the war. He finally committed suicide in May 1971 at the age of 62.

Writing activity

Spiesser wrote works about the country of his childhood, Africa, in the tradition of the colonial writers Hans Grimm , Adolf Kaempffer , Gustav Frenssen , Adda von Liliencron and others. He was best known for the novel “The Concentration Camp” published in 1940 , which was published in the Franz-Eher- Verlag , the party official publisher of the NSDAP appeared and experienced several editions. The novel is set in South Africa at the time of the Boer War and is about English imperialism and the concentration camps set up for the first time , which served to oppress the civilian population by interning women and children. The description of the novel by the publisher said: “122,000 children, women and old people, almost half of the Boer population, languished in such camps. Of these, more than 26,000 died a miserable death. The shocking tragedy of such human deaths serves Spiesser as a reproach (sic) for his story. ” Although there was no official impetus for this novel, it was received very positively by the Nazi propaganda , as it was able to invalidate or refute the western one and especially English criticism of the German concentration camps. The cinematic implementation of this counter-propaganda in the film " Ohm Krüger " (premiere April 4, 1941) certainly contributed to the popularity of Spiesser's novel.

The novel “The Second Generation” can be seen as Spiesser's main work. It is about the story of a young German from the German protected area Deutsch-Südwestafrika, who, as a farm student in English-dominated South Africa, is discriminated against because of his belief in his Germanness .

Strangely enough, despite repeated applications, Spiesser was not accepted into the Reich Chamber of Literature , although he had been a member of the NSDAP since 1941. For the publication of his works he therefore required an individual permit.

Spiesser's works were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .

Works

• The second generation. Novel of a Colonial Youth , 1938
• Fate Africa. A colonial novel , 1939
• The concentration camp. An invention of the English during the Boer War , 1940
• Western Robinsonade. From the notes of the ship's doctor of the "Progreß" Dr. O'Cannagan , 1940
• Orlog and Safari. Ten stories from Africa and a bonus from New Guinea , 1941
• Homecoming. South African Germans' novel . Awarded one of the main prizes in the 1941 book and film competition of the Reichskolonialbund and the UFA, 1943
• South Africa. Weißen Mannes Land , information brochure (together with his father Heinrich Spiesser), 1949

literature

• Wolfgang Benz : Reality - Metaphor - Symbol. Dealing with the concentration camp in Dachauer Hefte 22. 2006, ISBN 978-3-9808587-7-9
• Timm Ebner: National Socialist Colonial Literature. Colonial and anti-Semitic traitor figures "behind the scenes of the world theater" . Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink 2016, pp. 233–276 u. a.

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Spiesser in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
2. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html