Hans Bürgin

Hans Jakob Bürgin (born April 16, 1904 in Lübeck ; † January 25, 1977 in Kappeln ) was a German teacher ( senior teacher ) as well as researcher, collector and editor of Thomas Mann's works .

Hans Bürgin, 1935

Life

Hans Bürgin was the son of the businessman and HR manager of a large Lübeck department store. He went to the secondary school of the Katharineum there , which Thomas Mann also attended. During the “Nordic Week” in Lübeck in September 1921, he was so fascinated by a lecture by Thomas Mann entitled Goethe and Tolstoy that he began collecting books and writings by the poet. After graduating from high school , he studied history and English as a major and German as a minor at the Universities of Kiel , Berlin and Heidelberg from 1923 to 1929 . In 1928 he completed his doctorate at the University of Kiel. He received his doctorate from the historian Friedrich Wolters with the dissertation The Minister Goethe before the Roman journey. His activity in the road construction and war commission .

After completing his doctorate, he entered the school service as a trainee lawyer in 1929 and at the same time offered Thomas Mann to create a directory of his publications as well as a bibliography of his poetic works and numerous publications. He also offered to work for Mann as a secretary, but this did not happen because of Mann's emigration in 1933. Nevertheless, Bürgin initially continued work on his Thomas Mann biography until he finally had to give up his project for the next ten years in 1936, as the libraries made it increasingly difficult for him to access the literature he needed for his work. He also had to hide his already extensive Thomas Mann collection in the attic during the National Socialist era , especially since he was considered "politically unreliable" due to his SPD past.

From 1933 he lived in Kappeln and worked there as a high school teacher at the Klaus Harms School . In 1939 he got there he was appointed teacher . In 1943, however, he was drafted into military service and was then taken prisoner by the French from June 1944. He returned to his old position in 1946 and resumed his work on Thomas Mann in his free time. So in 1959 “The Work of Thomas Mann” was finally available. With this, Bürgin had created a bibliography that was to remain valid for decades and which critics recognized as a permanent memorial to the poet Thomas Mann.

In 1960, Bürgin, as the main co-editor, published the “Gesammelte Werke” on the fifth anniversary of Thomas Mann's death as the first German edition in twelve volumes. This work was to form the decisive basis for worldwide Thomas Mann research by 2002. Together with Peter de Mendelssohn , Bürgin expanded this edition again in 1974 by publishing an additional 13th volume with a thousand pages from supplements, some of which were unpublished. Together with Hans-Otto Mayer , he wrote the reconstructed autobiography Thomas Mann in 1965 . A chronicle of his life that received so much international attention that it was also published in Japanese and American translation and recognized as a fundamental work and milestone in research. The work had sold 4,000 times by 1967. As the grand finale of his life's work, Bürgin decided, together with Hans-Otto Mayer, to record all 30,000 letters from Thomas Mann that were in private ownership or in archives. Despite much opposition, they completed the work. But Hans Bürgin did not live to see the publication of the five-volume epistolography in 1978.

Publications

• The Minister Goethe before the trip to Rome. His activity in the road construction and war commission . Dissertation, Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Weimar 1933
• with Jakob Nagel: Kappler Heimatspiel , 1951

Publications on Thomas Mann and editions

• The work of Thomas Mann . S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main; Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1959
• Publication of the thematically arranged essay work by Thomas Mann. 1960
• with Hans-Otto Mayer: Thomas Mann - a chronicle of his life . Frankfurt am Main 1965.
• with Peter de Mendelssohn: Thomas Mann: Gesammelte Werke , Volume XIII., S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1974
• Thomas Mann's letters. Regesten and Register , 5 volumes. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1976
• with Hans-Otto Mayer: Thomas Mann's letters . 5 volumes. Frankfurt am Main, 1977–1987

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christian Tilitzki : On the trail of the "magician" Thomas Mann . Ed .: Kappelner Nachrichten. January 25, 2007, p. 15 .
2. ^ Berthold Hamer, Christian Tilitzki: Biographies of the fishing landscape . tape 1 . Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH u. Co. KG, S. 110-115 .

literature

Berthold Hamer, Christian Tilitzki: Biographies of the fishing landscape . tape 1 . Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2007, ISBN 978-3-89876-339-4 , p. 110-115 .