Günter Scholdt

Günter Scholdt (* 1946 in Neu Kaliss , Mecklenburg ) is a German literary scholar .

Live and act

After graduating from high school in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , Scholdt studied German , history , theater studies and later law at Saarland University . In 1973 he passed the first state examination for teaching at grammar schools. Between 1975 and 1985 he taught at various Saarland schools. In 1976 he received his doctorate on the writer Norbert Jacques . In 1992 he completed his habilitation with authors about Hitler , a study of the Hitler image of German-speaking writers between 1919 and 1945.

Frank Schirrmacher praised the book in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as "an unprecedented source that provides information on the relationship between intellectuals and National Socialism, a new, extremely stimulating and far-reaching standard work that destroys many legends and is also extremely topical." The historian Burkhard Jellonek attested to the meticulousness of the study and that exile research had to reassess some of its earlier results. At the same time, he criticized the fact that Scholdt had not carefully taken note of the results of serious historical studies, which "led to a number of results that were crude woodcut-like". The Canadian German scholar Hans Eichner called the book a “milestone in the history of exile research”. The reading, however, is "unpleasant". Eichner criticized the fact that Scholdt could not do without an argumentum ad hominem with Thomas and Heinrich Mann , for example, and he described a comparison Scholdt made between Winston Churchill and Hitler as "embarrassing".

From 1990 to 1996 Scholdt worked at the State Institute for Education and Media in Saarbrücken-Dudweiler . From 1996 to 2011 he was in charge of the Saar-Lor-Lux-Alsace literature archive in the same place . In 1998 he was appointed associate professor . He is now retired. Between 2007 and 2011 he edited the magazine “The newest Melusine”. The Friends of the Evangelical Academy Baden spoke to Scholdt for his lecture on German literature and “Third Reich” - a sketch of the problem that he had given in 1995 on the occasion of a Werner Bergengruen conference, the interdisciplinary bathroom Herrenalber Academy Award too.

His research and publications focus on regional and border literature in the Saarland , Lorraine , Luxembourg , Alsace area ; Literature in the Third Reich : Inner Emigration and Exile; Questions of literary evaluation (formation of canons); current social developments. In addition to various radio, literature and history didactic works as well as (co-) editorships - u. a. Gustav-Regulator-Werkausgabe (15 vol .; 1994ff), Dr. Mabuse: Medium of Evil (3 vols., 1994); Collection Bücherturm (so far 12 volumes, 2002 ff) - Scholdt has published numerous scientific publications on German-language literature since the end of the 19th century.

Scholdt is politically involved in the New Right . He published in the edition Antaios of the publisher Götz Kubitschek and writes for his magazine Sezession as well as for the Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung and the Junge Freiheit . He gave lectures at the Institute for State Policy and the Intermediate Day , a small fair for extremely right-wing publishers and organizations. At the end of 2013, at the invitation of the Thuringian Alternative for Germany (AfD), he gave a programmatic lecture on The historical mission of the AfD from the perspective of a conservative . He complained about “rampant anti-Germanism”, recommended “cultivating classic conservative virtues”, criticized immigration policy and the welfare state and demanded “once again to allow historiography beyond current historical-political opportunities”.

Publications (selection)

• The Norbert Jacques case. About the rank and decline of a narrator (1880-1954). Akademischer Verlag Heinz, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 978-3-88099-021-0 .
• with Dirk Walter: Hourly papers “Captain von Köpenick”. Klett, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 978-3-12-927131-5 .
• Gustav Regulator 1898–1963. Saarlanders - world citizens. Exhibition catalog. With a foreword by Oskar Lafontaine . Hempel, Lebach 1988, ISBN 978-3-925192-28-9 .
• Authors about Hitler. German-speaking writers 1919-1945 and their picture of the “Führer”. Bouvier, Bonn / Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-416-02451-6 .
• Border and region. Literature and literary history in the Saarland Lorraine-Luxembourg-Alsace border region since 1871. Gollenstein, Blieskastel 1996, ISBN 3-930008-29-7 .
• with Hermann Gätje (ed.): Gustav Regulator: Works, Vol. 6: Son from No Man's Land. Diaries 1940-1943. In: Gerhard Schmidt-Henkel , Ralph Schock , Günter Scholdt, Hermann Gätje, (Eds.): Gustav Regulator, Works. Stroemfeld, Basel / Frankfurt / M. 1994, ISBN 3-87877-434-6 .
• Gustav regulator. Odysseus in the labyrinth of ideologies. A biography in documents. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1998, ISBN 3-86110-182-3 .
• Between world and angle. Alfred Gulden's work and reading book. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2004, ISBN 3-86110-352-4 .
• Adrienne Thomas. Records from the First World War. A diary. In: v. Alf Lüdtke, Hans Medick, Jan Peters, Claudia Ulbrich and Winfried Schulze (eds.) Testimonials from the modern age. Vol. 14. Böhlau, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-412-07704-6 .
• Ten years of the Saar-Lor-Lux-Alsace literature archive. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2006, ISBN 3-86110-418-0 .
• The conservative principle. Edition Antaios, Schnellroda 2011, ISBN 978-3-935063-95-1 .
• Forget Broder! Are we still anti-Semites? Verlag Antaios, Schnellroda 2013, ISBN 978-3-944422-36-7
• with Erich Baunach (ed.): Voices from the Saar state: Ten authors reflect the first post-war decade. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2015, ISBN 978-3-86110-579-4 .
• The great author battle. Weimar's writers argue about the First World War. Institute for State Policy, Schnellroda 2015, ISBN 978-3-939869-65-8 .
• with Hervé Atamaniuk (Ed.): From Bitche to Thionville: Lorraine dialect poetry of the present. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2016, ISBN 978-3-86110-593-0 .
• Literary examination. Why we have to reread Kohlhaas, Don Quixote and other classics. Verlag Antaios, Schnellroda 2017, ISBN 978-3-944422-29-9 .
• Anatomy of a republic of informers. About clean men, clean women and filthy children. Natalia Lichtschlag Buchverlag, Grevenbroich 2018, ISBN 978-3-939562-83-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Günter Scholdt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Günter Scholdt  in the German Digital Library
• Günter Scholdt's website
• Book tower collection

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Frank Schirrmacher : Writing m does he si Hitler. Günter Scholdt's monumental study on authors and the Nazi state. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 14, 1993.
2. ↑ Burkhard Jellonnek: Günter Scholdt, Authors about Hitler, Bonn 1993 [review] . In: Archive for Social History , 34 (1994), pp. 703–707, quoted in. P. 706 ( PDF ).
3. ^ Hans Eichner: Günter Scholdt, authors about Hitler. German-speaking writers 1919 - 1945 and their picture of the “Führer”. In: Arbitrium , 13, H. 2 (1995), pp. 254-258 ISSN  1865-8849 Online; ISSN  0723-2977 Print DOI: 10.1515 / arbi.1995.13.2.254 , August 2009, cit. P. 258.
4. ↑ Issues of "Neuesten Melusine" since 2007. Accessed on February 11, 2013  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Günter Scholdt: German literature and 'Third Reich' - a sketch of the problem . In: Frank-Lothar Kroll (ed.): The totalitarian experience: German literature and the Third Reich (= literary landscapes, 5th ed. Cultural foundation of the German expellees ). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003 ISBN 3-428-11277-6 , pp. 13-36
6. ^ Overview of the publications by Günter Scholdt. Retrieved February 11, 2013
7. ↑ Alexander Häusler, Rainer Roeser: The »Alternative for Germany« - An answer to the right-wing populist loophole? In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right. Background - analyzes - answers . 2nd edition, Springer, Wiesbaden 2016, p. 122.