Georg K. Glaser
Georg K. Glaser (born May 30, 1910 as Georg Glaser in Guntersblum ; † January 18, 1995 in Paris ) was a German-speaking writer with initially German and then French citizenship.
Life
Glaser was the son of a craftsman who rose to be a post clerk after the First World War . He grew up in Dolgesheim ( Rheinhessen ) and from 1916 attended an elementary school in Worms . His youth was marked by the authoritarian upbringing and the physical abuse of his father. Glaser was considered a rebel early on and lived through times in educational institutions. He sought connection to anarchist and communist youth organizations. In 1929 he was arrested for violating the peace .
At the beginning of the 1930s, the first literary works were created. At times Glaser was a court reporter for the KPD and published in prestigious newspapers, among others. a. the Frankfurter Zeitung ; but he also worked as a factory worker in various industrial companies.
After the Nazis seized power in 1933 acted Glaziers in anti-fascist resistance from the then still by France managed Saar went out. In 1935 he was arrested again but was able to escape to France. There he lived in Normandy until 1939 and was employed by the French State Railways.
Since he had become a French citizen by marriage - after his expatriation from Germany - he was drafted into the French army in 1939. In 1940 he was taken prisoner by Germany . In 1943 he managed to escape from the prison camp near Görlitz ; However, he was caught near Strasbourg and interned again in various German camps.
After the end of World War II , Glaser went back to France. He worked on the assembly line in the Renault factories and in a sugar factory and was involved in the French labor movement . In 1949 he founded a workshop for copper and silversmiths in the Paris district of St. Germain-des-Prés . From 1968 he lived with his family in the Marais district. Glaser later added the intermediate initial "K." to his name, as he put it as a "cross" for his deceased mother Katharina.
His ashes were scattered in the Père Lachaise cemetery .
Literary development
Glaser is the author of highly autobiographical influenced prose . In the early 1930s he was considered a representative of proletarian revolutionary literature loyal to the KPD. In the course of his pre-war exile, however, Glaser increasingly distanced himself from the ideology of communism and reflected on his personal anarchist beginnings.
His main work “Mystery and Violence” could initially only appear in French translation, as German publishers refused to publish it. Although it garnered the highest critical praise in France as in Germany, it was - u. a. because of the chaotic publication history with several, partly shortened and very incorrect editions - not a great success.
Awards and meaning
In 1992 Glaser received the Order of Merit of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Prize of the German Schiller Foundation , in 1994 the Johanna Kirchner Medal of the City of Frankfurt am Main and the Palatinate Prize for Literature from the District Association of the Palatinate .
The author is still considered one of the great outsiders and unknowns of German literature of the 20th century. In his memory, the SWR and the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Culture award the Georg K. Glaser Prize for Literature every year .
The Berlin filmmaker Harun Farocki portrayed Glaser in the 1988 TV film Georg K. Glaser - Writer and Blacksmith . In 2010, SWR television dedicated an episode to Georg K. Glaser in the series Auf der Spur ... the episode ... of a Rhenish Hessian rebel .
In the meantime, a street has been named after him in his birthplace, Guntersblum. The information board under the street sign incorrectly mentions Karl as a middle name.
Works
- Schluckebier , Berlin [among other things] 1932, new edition, ed. by Walter Fähnders and Helga Karrenbrock. Klaus Guhl, Berlin 1979 [With a preliminary remark by Georg Glaser: Foreword. To the possible reader ]
- Schluckebier , Berlin [among other things] 1932, new edition (also Volume 1 of the new work edition published by Michael Rohrwasser), Frankfurt am Main and Basel 2007
- Mystery and Violence , Frankfurt am Main and Basel, 1989
- Vol. 1 (1951)
- Vol. 2 (1951)
- The history of woe , Hamburg [among others] 1968
- From the Chronicle of Rosengasse and other small works , Berlin [among others] 1985
- Beyond the borders , Düsseldorf 1985
- Marinus van der Lubbe , Drama (unpublished)
literature
- Michael Rohrwasser (Ed.): Symposium, Georg K. Glaser - Einar Schleef . Frankfurt / Main 1989
- Michael Rohrwasser: Georg Katharina Glaser: The party and writing . In: Exil, Vol. 8 (1989), pp. 65-84
- Reinhard Fanslau: Georg Glaser. Life and work . Master's thesis University of Osnabrück 1989
- Michael Rohrwasser: Stalinism and the renegades. The literature of the excommunists . Stuttgart 1991 (including a chapter on glaziers)
- Georg K. Glaser, witness of his time, blacksmith and writer, Guntersblum 1910-1995 Paris . Basel 1997
- Matthias Mader: The rhetoric of the decision as a structure-forming element in "Mystery and Violence" by Georg K. Glaser , Master's thesis University Mainz 2004 (PDF; 454 kB)
- Michael Rohrwasser: Georg K. Glaser's "Schluckebier" . In: Petra Josting and Walter Fähnders (eds.): “Laboratorium Verseitigkeit”. On the literature of the Weimar Republic . Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89528-546-3
Web links
- Literature by and about Georg K. Glaser in the catalog of the German National Library
- Literature Lexicon Rhineland-Palatinate: Georg K. Glaser
- University of Mainz: Glaser works
- Kulturverein Guntersblum about Georg K. Glaser
- “Georg Glaser, a forgotten comrade and his book“ Mystery and Violence ”” on syndikalismus.wordpress.com
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Glaser, Georg K. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German and French writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 30, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Guntersblum |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 18, 1995 |
| Place of death | Paris |