Gisela Kleine

Gisela Kleine (* 1926 ) is a German German philologist , art historian and Hesse biographer.

Live and act

Gisela Kleine studied German, philosophy and journalism with Benno von Wiese at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster and received her doctorate with the dissertation “The Problem of Reality with Hermann Hesse” . Co-referee was Joachim Ritter , whose Collegium philosophicum she belonged. Since Hesse liked her doctoral thesis , he invited her to Montagnola , where she also met Ninon Hesse, the poet's third wife, and then exchanged letters with both of them. This encounter had literary consequences around two decades later: Gisela Kleine wrote a biography of a married couple or a couple about Hesse's life with Ninon, in which the history of his life and work was interwoven.

As editor-in-chief of the monthly “Der leitende An Arbeiter” , Gisela Kleine published numerous articles on the operational and social history of this “third group” between entrepreneurs and employees. Questions about the position of senior executives in the works constitution were clarified in the two-volume “Handbook for senior executives” published by the publishing company “Recht und Wirtschaft” mbH, Heidelberg 1962, and Gisela Kleine wrote the “ Sociology ” section (1st volume).

Her publications formed the basis for media science teaching assignments at the Universities of Dortmund, Bochum and the Distance University of Hagen , with the subject of “women in work and society” being another focus for her.

Second degree

Family responsibilities caused a professional turning point, which she used to study archeology and art history at the University of Bochum . Her marriage biography about Ninon and Hermann Hesse, the archaeologist and the poet, published in 1982 by Thorbecke Verlag, opened a new literary genre, it was the first of the couple or double biographies.

Prizes and awards

• For her “women's research”, the basis of the biographies she wrote, she received the 1990 award for women's research and women's culture from the city of Munich .

plant

• Under the aspect of “life as dialogue”, Kleine aimed at completing the conventional image of Hesse as a hermit and loner hostile to society. Inspired by her own impressions of the Hesse couple in Montagnola, she collected Ninon's estate, her correspondence with friends, family documents, diaries, photos, feature pages , poems, travelogues and archaeological works and gained a new perspective on the poet who was responsible for his work needed a meditative space, but could not do without commitment and attention. The tense community with the sensitive and yet independent Ninon Hesse led Hesse out of the steppe wolfish turmoil of the crisis years to the balance of his later work; They lived together for more than 35 years, until his death in 1962. Ninon's previously unpublished letters to Hermann Hesse confirm harmony and self-will, closeness and distance. Gisela Kleine published it under the title “Dear, dear bird” in 2000 in Suhrkamp Verlag and thus offered an intimate, but discreet, inner view of the Hessian marriage, a dialogue that never broke off.
• " Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky - Biography of a Couple" - is the title of a double biography in which Gisela Kleine proves that the riddle of this creatively unleashing relationship can only be resolved and that both works will become clearer. Münter and Kandinsky mutually increased each other to develop a painterly power through which they determined the development of art in the 20th century a few years later in Munich's “ Blauer Reiter ”. In order to present this authentically, Kleine spent four years researching the locations of both life stories from Moscow to Odessa and New York to Texas and also evaluated the entire estate for the first time, especially Münter's correspondence with Kandinsky, which consisted of 900 multi-page letters.

Publications (selection)

• Between the world and the magic garden. Ninon and Hermann Hesse. A life in dialogue. Suhrkamp paperback
• Dear, dear bird. Letters from Ninon Hesse to Hermann Hesse. Suhrkamp paperback
• Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky. Biography of a couple. Insel paperback, ISBN 3458160906
• Gabriele Münter and the children's world. Island paperback
• Ninon and Hermann Hesse. Life as dialogue. Verlag J. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1982, ISBN 3799520163
• Ninon and Hermann Hesse, biography of a couple. Insel Verlag Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-458-36198-5

Web links

• Literature by and about Gisela Kleine in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library
• Short biography and Suhrkamp works