Gerd Gaiser

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Gerd Gaiser in Amsterdam (1960)

Gerd Gaiser (born September 15, 1908 in Oberriexingen , † June 9, 1976 in Reutlingen ) was a German writer .

Life

Gaiser, son of a Protestant pastor, initially attended the Protestant monastery schools in Schöntal and Urach after passing the state examination - together with Albrecht Goes . After graduating from high school there, he studied painting and art history in Stuttgart, Königsberg and Dresden. In 1933 he joined the NSDAP and the NS teachers' association . In 1934 he received his doctorate from the University of Tübingen with a thesis on the sculpture of the Renaissance and early Baroque in New Castile . He worked in school as an art teacher and wrote for the magazines Das Innere Reich and Das Reich .

Gaiser was an air officer during World War II. In 1941 his collection of poems, Reiter am Himmel , was published, according to Germanist Reinhold Grimm , a "disgusting, thoroughly Nazi product". A second volume, Gesang von Osten , was due to appear in 1943 . Towards the end of the Second World War, Gaiser was captured in Italy.

In the post-war period Gaiser worked as a painter, from 1947 again as a teacher and from 1962 until his retirement in 1973 as a professor of art education at the Reutlingen University of Education .

Gaiser was married to the painter Irene Widmann (1919–2011) since 1959 .

meaning

Gaiser had success as a writer after the war and was also valued by conservative literary critics such as Hans Egon Holthusen and Friedrich Sieburg . Like Gaiser, they were entangled in the Nazi system, but lost influence as Group 47 gained in importance . Leading literary critics from this group, including Walter Jens and Marcel Reich-Ranicki , openly campaigned against the possible establishment of the Nazi-charged and in their eyes little literary Gaiser as a figurehead of German post-war literature and instead specifically promoted Heinrich Böll , whom she considered the considered politically and literarily more suitable author for this role. Gaiser's stories were to be found in numerous anthologies and school reading books until the 1970s, until 1990 ( Schlußball bei Fischer ) books by him appeared regularly in paperback editions. Since then he has been forgotten.

The verdict of Marcel Reich-Ranicki is typical of the changeable economy of the writer Gaiser. In 1963, in Der Fall Gerd Gaiser, despite all the criticism, he still attested that “in [...] fragments, especially in some episodes of the dying hunt , as well as in a number of smaller stories [...] the portrayal was extraordinarily intense he said in 2008 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung : “In any case, after 42 years I won't read these mostly hideous books by Gaiser again.” In 2010 he wrote in the same newspaper that “[...] this Gaiser a National Socialist ", and spoke of" his [s] unfortunately not entirely untalented books ". Hans Egon Holthusen was too optimistic when he titled his laudatory obituary Scripta manent (for example: "Written remains.").

Awards

Works (selection)

  • Horsemen in the sky (poems). Albert Langen / Georg Müller, Munich 1941.
  • Zwischenland (stories). Hanser, Munich 1949.
  • A voice lifts up (novel). Hanser, Munich 1950.
  • The dying hunt (novel). Hanser, Munich 1953.
  • The ship in the mountain (novel). Hanser, Munich 1955.
  • Once and often. Stories. Hanser, Munich 1956.
  • Gianna from the shadows. Novella. Hanser, Munich 1957.
  • Aniela (narration). Hanser, Munich 1958.
  • Schlußball (Roman), Munich, Hanser, Munich 1958.
  • Be careful in Domokosch (stories). Hanser, Munich 1959.
  • Revenge (stories). Reclam, Stuttgart 1959.
  • Sicilian notes. Hanser, Munich 1959.
  • At the Nascondo pass (stories). Hanser, Munich 1960.
  • with Konrad Helbig : Temple of Sicily. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1963.
  • Gazelle, green. Stories and records. Hanser, Munich 1965.
  • The person I shot. (Stories). Goldmann, Munich 1965.
  • Strange mutton eating. (Short stories), Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg, Fischer, 1971.
  • The motorcycle accident. (Stories). Heyne, Munich 1972.
  • Local knowledge. (Home descriptions). Hanser, Munich 1977.

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Gerd Gaiser  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See: Klaus Johann : Limit and Halt: The individual in the "House of Rules". To German-language boarding school literature. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2003, p. 112 f.
  2. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 172.
  3. ↑ Reinhold Grimm: Gerd Gaiser's "Reiter am Himmel" - remarks on his novel "Die derbende Jagd". in: Ursula Heukenkamp (Ed.): Guilt and Atonement? War experience and interpretation of war in the German media of the post-war period (1945–1961). Rodopi, Amsterdam / Atlanta (GA) 2001, pp. 21–33, here p. 22.
  4. ↑ The volume was announced, but contrary to Klee's statements, it was not published. See Bernhard Karl Vögtlin: Gerd Gaiser, a poet in his time. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2004, p. 15.
  5. ↑ In the Soviet occupation zone was riders in the sky to the list of auszusondernden literature set [1] .
  6. ↑ Otto Paul Burkhardt : Irene Widmann on her 90th birthday ( memento from June 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), in Südwestpresse , December 3, 2009.
  7. ^ Gallery Veronika Burger: Irene Widmann .
  8. ↑ Walter Jens: Against the overestimation of Gerd Gaiser. In: Die Zeit , November 25, 1960 (accessed December 12, 2012); also in: Hans Mayer (Hrsg.): Deutsche Literaturkritik. Vol. 4: From the Third Reich to the Present (1933–1968). slightly approved edition. Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, pp. 604–611.
  9. ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki: The case of Gerd Gaiser. In: The Month , No. 180, 1963, pp. 68-84; also in: ders .: German literature in East and West. 3rd, new through. Dtv, Munich 2003, pp. 52–76.
  10. ↑ “We, who have contributed to Böll's fame, saw no other way out. There was no other. Gerd Gaiser wanted to make conservative criticism the figurehead of literature. The anti-Semitic , ex-Nazi writer. We couldn't let that happen. We agreed on Böll as the opposing candidate. There were others who were better. But they were not suitable. ”Marcel Reich-Ranicki, quoted from: Stephan Wackwitz , thinking about MRR. In: taz , May 29, 2010 (accessed August 3, 2010).
  11. ↑ “Only I wrote very critically about Böll, which he resented me, but I always thought he was a very important figure. And at the same time I wrote against an author who was very popular at the time and is almost forgotten today: Gerd Gaiser. [...] You must not forget that there were important critics in this country who wanted to make Gaiser the figurehead of the German novel. I wanted to make another figurehead: Wolfgang Koeppen . Unfortunately I didn't succeed. ”Marcel Reich-Ranicki in: Rolf Becker u. Hellmuth Karasek : I manipulated, of course! Critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki on his role in the literature business and his departure from the "FAZ". In: Der Spiegel , 1/1989, January 2, 1989, pp. 140–146, here pp. 141 f.
  12. ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki: The case of Gerd Gaiser (first 1963) in: ders .: German literature in East and West. 3rd, new through. Dtv, Munich 2003, pp. 52–76, here p. 58.
  13. ↑ Ask Reich-Ranicki: At least: He quarreled with Thomas Mann. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , February 17, 2008.
  14. ↑ Ask Reich-Ranicki: Many of his poems were bad and angry. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , January 24, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Gaiser, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberriexingen
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1976
Place of death Reutlingen