Günther Schwab

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Tanzstattkapelle Wölzer Tauern
Forester's house in Pusterwald, Styria

Günther Schwab (born October 7, 1904 in Prague , † April 12, 2006 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian writer . Schwab excelled particularly as a narrator and essayist, but also as a script writer and radio play writer . He campaigned for active environmental protection early on in his books (e.g. The Dance with the Devil , 1958).

Life

Before 1945

Schwab first grew up in Prague. His father was a wholesale merchant. In 1918 his family moved to Vienna. There he completed his training at the commercial academy and worked for a short time in banking. He then studied forestry and entered the forestry service briefly in 1923. This was followed by seven years abroad in Italy, Spain, France, Corsica, Algeria, Morocco, Germany and Poland. In 1930 he returned to Austria. There he worked as a forest manager in Lower Austria and Styria in Pusterwald .

On October 1, 1930, he became a member of the NSDAP, which was temporarily banned in Austria ( membership number 441.909). In 1931 he also joined the SA , where he last held the rank of storm leader . In 1935 he published the novel Mensch ohne Volk in Speidel-Verlag , which appeared in 1939 as a licensed edition in the German cultural book series of Franz-Eher-Verlag , the central publishing house of the NSDAP.

On November 3, 1941, Schwab was drafted into the Wehrmacht and fought as a reserve lieutenant on the Eastern Front until 1945. At the end of May 1945 he returned to Austria.

After 1945

In 1949 the author founded the magazine Glücklicher Leben - der stille Weg , an "impartial, non-denominational and international magazine for the protection of life", which later became the official organ of the World Association for the Savings of Life (WRL) under the title of Lebensschutz . The WRL was founded in 1960 on Schwab's initiative, later renamed the World Association for the Protection of Life (WSL). Schwab was elected President. The WSL and its magazine Lebensschutz , published by Schwab, were accused of racism from various sides .

From 1951 he lived as a freelance writer in Salzburg. As early as 1949 was adventure on current published a revised edition of the novel human without a people by 1935. The book has in pads before 1945 nationalist tendencies that were slightly modernized or in the post-war issues in their choice of words completely eradicated: missing in the new editions u . a. the national principles of species conservation.

In 1958 his book Der Tanz mit dem Teufel was published , in which Schwab laid down "völkisch-biologistic views" according to the extremism researcher Klaus Schönekäs.

In 1970 Schwab became an honorary member of the Deutscher Kulturwerk Europäische Geist . Between 1970 and 1986 he was a member of the scientific advisory board of the right-wing extremist society for biological anthropology, eugenics and behavioral research . From 1974 to 1991 it was listed as such in the imprint of the journal of the Society New Anthropology .

In a 1992 contribution, Schwab lamented that culture would gradually decline because the “borderline cases of the disturbingly weak normal” and the “limited” would multiply more than the gifted. The consequence would be "the loss of validity of the white race all over the world".

Günther Schwab died on April 12, 2006 at the age of 101 in Salzburg. His estate contained a collection of National Socialist writings in which Schwab had made notes well into the 1970s.

Awards

In 1954 Günther Schwab received the "Gold" badge of honor from the Austrian Nature Conservation Union and in 1980 the Culture Prize of the City of Salzburg . In 2004, on the occasion of his 100th birthday , the second President of the State Parliament Michael Neureiter (ÖVP) presented him with the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art 1st Class and the personal honorary cup from Governor Gabi Burgstaller (SPÖ).

Literary work

Schwab's best-known works include Adventure on the River, the novel The Dance with the Devil and the dog novel, Sieben Dackel und Marisa, and Der Forster vom Silberwald, which are among his youth books . This book was published in 1956 in the wake of the homonymous homeland film of the same name, launched in February 1955 .

In the novel The Dance with the Devil , he portrays nuclear fission as a criminal conspiracy of the secret society of devils through which humanity is to be corrupted. In particular, he describes the propaganda methods used to make nuclear power plants appear harmless to the public. As a dramaturgical tool he uses the experiences of a young couple who happened to be able to glimpse behind the scenes of this secret organization. Joachim Radkau sees the novel as a “combat script” which at an early stage “brought an astonishingly wide range of arguments against nuclear technology”. At the same time, she shows "how the scientifically distant situation at that time led the nuclear power critics to present reasonable arguments themselves in a demonological guise". According to Jan Grossarth , The Dance with the Devil is “a political pamphlet disguised as a novel, but peppered with footnotes like a doctoral thesis”. Schwab's “ conspiracy literary major work” is about “that social Darwinist- saturated natural kitsch that was the spiritual basis of the blood-and-soil ideology ”.

With the novel The People of Arauli Günther Schwab wrote perhaps the most mature of his works. The secluded high mountain valley of Arauli (Pusterwald) is the last refuge for those existences who otherwise have no place in the world: No outsider is allowed to penetrate this confused community, which tries to keep away any foreign influence - even if it is violent . The unprecedented harshness of existence, brutal egoism and resentment have almost killed off any sense of the good in the people here.

Screenwriter

Schwab was one of four writers of the script for the Austrian film Echo der Berge . This film was shown in Germany under the title Der Förster vom Silberwald . Originally, the film was supposed to present a positive image of the hunter's profession and was ultimately shot on behalf of the Austrian Federal Hunting Master Franz von Mayr-Melnhof . Mayr-Melnhof initially drafted a script himself and had the text revised by Schwab. Similar to Schwab's novel, Abenteuer am Strom , individual townspeople were “carriers of the hunting idea” and a closeness to nature, while the locals wanted to sacrifice their silver forest Keeper of the animal world appeared. ”In the years that followed, conservationists adopted the style of this and other Heimat films . In 1990, Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz referred to the work in the lexicon "Films on TV" as the "Umweltschnulze of the early years".

Works (excerpt)

  • Man without people. Vienna, Verlag W. Scheuermann 1935.
  • The wind over the fields. Vienna, Leipzig: Tieck Verlag 1937.
  • Comrade with the hairy face . Vienna: Wilhelm Frick Verlag 1941.
  • Luck on the edge . Vienna: Walther Scheuermann Verlag 1949.
  • Adventure on the river . 1949, slightly modified version of the novel Mensch ohne Volk .
  • Land of grace . Vienna: Kremayr u. Scheriau 1952.
  • The forester from the Silberwald . Bonn, Munich, Vienna: Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsverlag 1956.
  • The sacred inheritance . Screenplay based on an idea by Franz Mayr-Melnhof, directed by Alfred Solm, 1956
  • The dance with the devil - an adventurous interview . Hanover: Adolf Sponholtz Verlag 1958.
  • The devil's kitchen . Hanover: Adolf Sponholtz Verlag 1959.
  • 7 Dachshunds and Marisa . Salzburg: The Bergland Book 1965.
  • The people from Arauli . Vienna: Kremayr u. Scheriau 1976.
  • Today you can laugh about it . Vienna: Sensen-Verlag 1978.
  • Difficult to be human . Vienna: Sensen-Verlag 1981.
  • Don't gamble away the future . Salzburg: Verlag "Das Bergland-Buch" 1984.

literature

Web links

Commons : Günther Schwab  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Monika Harand: The dropouts as beginners. Fictional heroes fleeing civilization in volkish literature (1931-1944) (Stuttgarter Arbeit zur Germanistik 205), Stuttgart 1988, pp. 153–174
  2. ↑ Karl Frings, Marchfelderzählungen. Studies on the proseepic representation of a landscape , Dissertation Vienna 2009, p. 99
  3. ↑ a b Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08278-6 , p. 317.
  4. ↑ a b Klaus Schönekäs: Federal Republic of Germany , footnote 32, in: Franz Greß, Hans-Gerd Jaschke, Klaus Schönekäs: New rights and right-wing extremism in Europe: Federal Republic, France, Great Britain , Opladen 1990, p. 322
  5. ↑ Monika Harand, Die Aussteiger als Einsteiger , p. 165
  6. ^ Ludwig Elm: University and Neofascism . Akademie-Verlag 1972, p. 75
  7. ↑ for the first time: Imprint Neue Anthropologie , Volume 2, Issue 2, April – June 1974; For the last time: Imprint Neue Anthropologie , Volume 19, Issue 3–4, July – December 1991
  8. ^ Günther Schwab: Humanity at a new beginning . In: Gesundheitsberater, January 1992, p. 11f; quoted in Jutta Ditfurth, Relaxed in barbarism: esotericism, (eco) fascism and biocentrism . Konkret Literatur Verlag 1996, p. 39
  9. ^ A b Jan Grossarth: Forest soul. Günther Schwab was a pioneer in environmental protection: He fought against nuclear power and ready meals. Nobody resented his love for National Socialism. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , May 24, 2015, p. 6.
  10. ^ Joachim Radkau: Rise and Crisis of the German Nuclear Industry 1945–1975. Replaced Alternatives and the Origin of the Nuclear Controversy. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1983, ISBN 3-499-17756-0 , p. 445.
  11. ↑ Jens Ivo Engels : Natural Policy in the Federal Republic. World of ideas and political behavior in nature conservation and the environmental movement 1950–1980. Paderborn 2006, p. 238 f.
  12. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on TV" . (Extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, p. 243
personal data
SURNAME Schwab, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 2006
Place of death Salzburg