Guido Keller

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Guido Keller , actually Guido Baron Keller von Kellerer and Wolkenkeller (born February 6, 1892 in Milan , † November 9, 1929 in Magliano Sabina ) was an Italian soldier , publicist and political adventurer .

Life

Guido Keller comes from a Lombard patrician family , originally from the Swiss canton of Graubünden . As a child he attended boarding school in Switzerland after primary school, but was excluded there for lack of discipline.

In 1912 he acquired his pilot's license in Turin, joined the Italian aviation troops on June 1, 1915 and was used on biplanes for reconnaissance flights. On December 1, 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant and was initially stationed in Verona . His extraordinary flying qualities - which are the subject of numerous anecdotes - qualified him for service as a fighter pilot, for which he received his license on December 22, 1916. From February 28, 1917 in the 80ª Squadriglia caccia, he switched to the 91ª Squadriglia aeroplani da caccia on November 1, 1917 under Francesco Baracca , an elite fighter squadron in which several Italian fighter aces from the First World War flew. For this unit, Keller created the official coat of arms, a lion with an eagle's head as an expression of the connection between the dominant earthly and heavenly animal. On October 29, 1918, he was repeatedly hit by anti-aircraft fire during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto during a mission near Godega di Sant'Urbano , injured in the leg and captured, but was freed a few days later by advancing Italian troops. During his war career, Keller was involved in dogfights more than 40 times, shot down seven enemy aircraft and an observation balloon and received three silver medals for bravery . His flight suit was usually gray pajamas that he wore under his aviator's coat, instead of the mandatory headgear he wore a fez . He carried a tea set on the plane itself. A real skull, which was attached to the fuel gauge, completed the flight equipment. Keller was a supporter of naturism , walked naked around the barracks with a tamed eagle on his shoulder, lived in caves on the edge of the airfields and read classical and philosophical literature.

When Gabriele D'Annunzio took advantage of the unresolved political situation on September 12, 1919 and occupied Fiume with around 1000 legionaries (" Arditi ") , he was picked up in Venice in a motorboat and taken to Ronchi . Guido Keller accompanied him and organized 40 trucks in Ronchi for the further transport of the Arditi. He was promoted to action secretary D'Annunzios, was responsible for securing the necessary stocks of weapons, food and material and formed “La Disperata”, an elite group of volunteers, an “army of madness” from the uprooted. Keller also planned to implement Marinetti's idea that madmen would build a new world and wrote to madhouses to send him harmless madmen. He signed letters with "Cavaliere del Ideale" or "Zarathustra". Marinetti was soon complimented out of Fiume and Keller was sidelined there too. He attacked the D'Annunzios area and participated in the futuristic magazine "La Testa di Ferro" published by Mario Carli , which appeared on February 1, 1920. Keller and Giovanni Comisso temporarily left Fiume, but returned and staged a " yoga movement" inspired by Mino Somenzi (the symbol of which was the swastika and the five-petalled rose) with a fixed caste system, which lasted briefly - from November to December 1920 published its own magazine "Yoga: Unione di spiriti liberti tendenti alla perfezione". The movement aimed to counteract the elements that were perceived as moderate and conservative that surrounded D'Annunzio and to open up to free love, orgies, thieves and prostitutes. In the group's proclamations, the need to “teach the science of love, that is, of transformation, is theorized. Love as sensation, as feeling, as idea; [...] philosophy not as love of science, but as science of love ”. The Fiume experience was lived "as an everlasting moment," like an ongoing party. Keller and Comisso also designed a "Castello d'amore", a costume party with a medieval backdrop for the Carnival of 1920, which was rejected by D'Annunzio. Umberto Sbacchi describes two factions in Fiume: the legalists and the crazy. He counts Keller and his followers among those crazy people for whom Fiume “is the first step because even in Italy there is a new and better world. For them the annexation of Fiume is not the only goal. ”“ Futurists, Dadaists and anarchists experiment in the laboratory of Fiume and discuss topics such as the liberation of women, drugs, the abolition of money and prisons. ”The movement's nightly activities included discussions under a fig tree in the Piazza del Fico , where Keller wore pajamas and fez. He bathed without clothes, went for walks with an eagle or a one-eyed donkey, did gymnastic exercises. Imitating Zarathustra , he also owned a snake. Cocaine was consumed and the ritual included night rides and excursions in a boat. Wrapped in sheets at night, people gathered screaming in a cemetery. Keller lived on the fruits of the trees, ate vegetables, honey, rose petals and sugar. He planned to travel to Russia to bring about a renewal of the occidental spirit.

On November 14, 1920, Keller flew to Rome in a double-decker in protest against the Treaty of Rapallo , dropping leaflets, a white rose over the Vatican and seven roses for the Queen over the Quirinal Palace , over the Montecitorio , the Chamber of Deputies as a sign of contempt , a chamber pot filled with carrots and beets. On the way back he crashed and had to land in San Marino . During the bombing of Fiumes in December 1920, Keller refused to shoot Italian soldiers and, disguised as a medieval knight, plunged into the fray, armed with a sword.

Disappointed and bitter by the defeat in Fiume, but also weakened by cocaine consumption, he traveled to Turkey , where he tried to set up his own pilot school, which was unsuccessful. Back in Italy, he joined fascism and took part in the March on Rome in October 1922 . In 1923 he returned to military aviation and became aviation attaché at the Italian embassy in Berlin . He later asked to be transferred to active service and was sent to Benghazi in 1925 , where he took part in insurgent operations. After a short stay in Germany, he went back to Italy and finally embarked on an expedition to South America - with the aim of uniting the republics there. He visited Venezuela , traveled up the Orinoco , tried to install a line for seaplanes and finally went to Peru as a gold digger . In 1928 Keller returned to Italy, suffered another plane crash as a pilot while transferring a seaplane to Sanremo and dreamed of projects such as an air show "Conquista del sole" (= conquering the sun ). in collaboration with the painter and pilot Fedele Azari and a “Città di vita” (= city ​​of life ). a place where artists live and reproduce the idea of ​​the life festival experienced in Fiume. Temporarily in a Franciscan monastery in Fiesole , he finally lived in poverty in Ostia and died in a traffic accident at the age of thirty-seven on November 9, 1929 near Magliano Sabina . Keller received a state funeral as a "hero of fascism". At the behest of D'Annunzio, he was later reburied on the Colle delle Arche in the Vittoriale degli italiani in Gardone Riviera .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ G. Berghaus: Futurism and politics. 1996, p. 137.
  2. ↑ Ferdinando Gerra: L'impresa di Fiume. 1974.
  3. ↑ Umberto Sbacchi: Vita Militare del Capitano del Regio Esercito Umberto Sbacchi, Capitolo IV: Fiume 1919–1920. P. 81.
  4. ↑ Claudia Salaris: À la Fete de la Révolution. Artistes et Libertaires avec D'Annunzio à Fiume. Éditions du Rocher, Monaco 2006, p. 11.

literature

  • Günter Berghaus: Futurism and Politics. Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909–1944. Berghahn Books, Providence / Oxford 1996, ISBN 1-57181-867-7 , pp. 137-143.
  • Alberto Bertotto: L'uscocco fiumano Guido Keller from D'Annunzio e Marinetti. Sassoscritto, Firenze 2009, ISBN 978-88-88789-81-1 .
  • Giovanni Comisso: Le mie stationi. Ed. di Treviso, Treviso 1951.
  • Marco Cuzzi, Andrea Vento: Alla conquista del sole: la parabola impossibile di Guido Keller. Il Saggiatore, Milano 2009.
  • Daniele Del Pozzo: Gay: la guida italiana in 150 voci. Mondadori, Milano 2006, ISBN 88-04-54386-8 .
  • Atlantico Ferrari: L'Asso di Cuori. Guido Keller. Roma: Cremonese Editore, 1933.
  • Ferdinando Gerra: L'impresa di Fiume. Longanesi, Milano 1974-1975.
  • Dieter M. Gräf: Fiume . o. J. (pen.hr)
  • Kersten Knipp: The Fascist Commune. Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Republic of Fiume and the extremes of the 20th century. wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2018, ISBN 978-3-8062-3914-0 , pp. 183, 202-207.
  • Cristoforo Mercati [Krimer]: Incontro con Guido Keller. Tip. Mantero, a. XVI, Tivoli 1938.
  • Donato Novellini: Guido Keller, l'ingestibile che fece della sua vita un capolavoro . 2015. (barbadillo.it) .
  • Sandro Pozzi: Guido Keller: nel pensiero, nelle gesta. Mediolanum, Milano 1933.
  • Claudia Salaris: À la Fête de la Révolution. Artistes et Libertaires avec D'Annunzio à Fiume. Éditions du Rocher, Monaco 2006, ISBN 2-915854-04-1 , p. 11.
  • Bettina Vogel: Guido Keller - the mystic of futurism. In: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht u. a. (Ed.): The poet as commandant. D'Annunzio conquers Fiume. Fink, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7705-3019-5 , pp. 117-132.
personal data
SURNAME Keller, Guido
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guido Baron Keller von Kellerer and Wolkenkeller
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian soldier, publicist, political adventurer
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1929
Place of death Magliano Sabina , Italy