Guido Zernatto

Memorial plaque, poet stones in Zammelsberg, Weitensfeld

Guido Zernatto (born June 21, 1903 in Treffen , † February 8, 1943 in New York City , USA ) was an Austrian writer and politician .

Life

Guido Zernatto - son of a farmer and businessman - attended the Benedictine high school in Sankt Paul im Lavanttal . After participating in the Carinthian defensive struggle in 1918/19, he worked as a hiking teacher. From 1926 he studied law for several semesters at the University of Vienna and also worked as a journalist. In 1928 he joined the Styrian Homeland Security and in 1929 became secretary of the federal leadership of the Heimwehren , then from 1930 to 1931 of the home block . In 1934, Guido Zernatto was appointed to the Federal Culture Council, which was followed by the position of State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery under Kurt Schuschnigg from May 1934 and from May 1936 he was Secretary General of the Fatherland Front .

From 1936 to 1938 Zernatto negotiated with the National Socialists . From February 1938 he was a non-party federal minister , but after the “Anschluss” of Austria he and his wife had to flee to Hungary with false passports , from where he came to France . In 1940 he came to the USA , where he held an assistant professorship for political science at Fordham University from 1941 . Zernatto suffered particularly from his fate as an emigrant; his early death was not least due to emotional causes. He died of a heart attack - not yet 40 years old .

Guido Zernatto was also the author of various works of poetry , a novel and a number of prose writings of political content. Half a century later, his great-nephew Christof Zernatto became governor of Carinthia .

Publications

• Praise be to all creatures . Poems. The young series, Jess, Dresden 1930
• The sundial . Poems. Staackmann, Leipzig 1933
• I am an Austrian! (Appendix to all Austrian reading books of the 8th grade). Austrian Bundesverlag, Vienna 1935
• Pointless city. Novel of a simple man . Staackmann Leipzig 1934
• The truth about Austria . Longmans, Green, New York, et al. a. 1938
• Le dossier de l'Europe centrale. (The dossier of death.) Xerography, Paris 1939
• The future of nations. Manuscript, New York n.d. (ca.1943)
• Poems . Complete edition, Leon, Klagenfurt, Vienna 1950
• "... announces the time loudly." Works, ed. v. Hans Brunmayr. (= The Austrian word . Stiasny-Bücherei . 98) Graz & Vienna 1961
• The sundial . Complete edition of the poems, ed. v. Hans Brunmayr, Otto Müller, Salzburg 1961
• Mild traffic light, cool star . Poems, ed. v. Eugen Thurnher, Stifterbibliothek at Verlag Anton Pustet, Salzburg 1983
• That wind of the foreign continents . Poems, ed. v. Hans Brunmayr. Pustet, Salzburg 1988
• Of the nature of the nation. Questions and answers about the nationality problem. Edited by Wolf in the Maur . Holzhausen, Vienna, 1966 (first publication of the written in German manuscript The problems of nationalism - The problem of nationality )

literature

• Otmar Drekonja: Guido Zernatto: Poetry and Politics. Diss. Univ. Salzburg 1971.
• Otmar Drekonja: Memories of Guido Zernatto. Unknown things from the desk drawer of an Austrian from Carinthia. Edited by Josef Friedrich Perkonig Society, Heyn, Klagenfurt 1981.
• Walther Pembaur: In the last battle for Austria. Günther, Vienna / Leipzig 1939.
• Karlheinz Rossbacher: Poetry and politics with Guido Zernatto. In: Franz Kadrnoska (Ed.): Aufbruch und Untergang. Austrian culture between 1918 and 1938. Europaverlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1981, ISBN 3-203-50785-4 , p. 536 ff.
• Daniela Strigl: Strangers. Austrian poetry from the interwar period: Jakob Haringer, Theodor Kramer, Wilhelm Szabo, Guido Zernatto. In: Primus-Heinz Kucher (Hrsg.): Literature and culture in Austria in the twenties. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89528-582-0 , p. 179 ff.
• Daniela Strigl: Demanding Poverty? On the poetry of Theodor Kramer and Guido Zernatto . In: Elke Brüns (Hrsg.): Economies of poverty, social conditions in literature. Fink: Munich a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-7705-4447-9 , p. 173 ff.
• Ingeborg Zimmer: Guido Zernatto, life and poetic work. Diss. Univ. Graz 1966, Carinthia Verlag, Klagenfurt 1970, extended new edition 1993
• Walter Wiltschegg: The Home Guard. An irresistible popular movement? (= Studies and Sources on Austrian Contemporary History, Volume 7), Publishing House for History and Politics: Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-7028-0221-5 .
• Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur 1980, p. 844

Web links

• Entry on Guido Zernatto in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Guido Zernatto on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Literature by and about Guido Zernatto in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Guido Zernatto  in the German Digital Library
• Newspaper article about Guido Zernatto in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Works by Guido Zernatto in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ René Geoffroy: Hungary as a place of refuge and place of work for German-speaking emigrants (1933 - 1938/39) . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 98.