Hans Franke (Author)

Hans Franke (born September 6, 1893 in Munich ; † October 16, 1964 in Wüstenrot ) was a German publicist and author who, in addition to his own stage works and theater reviews, made a name for himself through his work on the history of the Heilbronn Jewish community and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1958 Was awarded class .

Life

Franke was born in Munich as the son of the book and art dealer Hans Franke and his wife Juliane. He attended the secondary school in Leipzig and was there, interrupted by his participation in the First World War, between 1913 and 1917 as a guest student at the university, and he also worked as a journalist in Berlin, Leipzig and Zwickau. He first appeared as a theater critic in the Zwickauer Latest News . In 1918 his first volume of poetry, Meine Welt, was published .

In 1919 Franke settled in Heilbronn , where he worked as a lecturer and editor at Otto Weber Verlag , wrote theater reviews for the Heilbronner Zeitung and was a co-founder of the Heilbronner Künstlerbund . In 1920 he switched to the Neckar newspaper as editor , whose publisher Viktor Kraemer had become aware of his theater reviews. At Neckar-Zeitung Franke was in charge of the features section until 1934. He added the weekly newspaper supplement Neckar-Rundschau , for which he was able to attract authors such as Walter Hasenclever , Hermann Hesse and Carl Zuckmayer and which appeared over a period of 14 years.

His drama Sacrifice , published in 1919, was premiered at the Heilbronn City Theater in 1920. In April 1920, there was a scandal involving leading actor Albert Johannes in the role of the revolutionary Sebald, who had personal differences on stage with the actress Lotte Preuss. In 1925, Franke's drama Downfall was premiered in Heilbronn .

When the Heilbronn press was brought into line by the National Socialists, Franke was mistreated in his apartment by the Nazis on November 19, 1933, and finally released from the Neckar newspaper on February 2, 1934 . After several years of self-employment, during which he published other works of his own, Franke was again a publisher's editor at Heilbronn's Eugen-Salzer-Verlag from 1938 and in 1941/42 at Heyne Verlag in Dresden, where he wrote works by Charles Sealsfield , Friedrich Gerstäcker , Max Eyth and issued to others.

In 1944 Franke was drafted into the Wehrmacht and in the spring of 1945 he became an American prisoner of war, from which he was released in June 1945 in the Böckingen camp. In the post-war period, Franke lived temporarily in Güglingen before moving back to Heilbronn in 1950, where he was again editor at Salzer Verlag in 1945, along with other activities. In 1949 he went to Heilbronner Neckar-Echo as an editor and was a co-founder of the Heilbronn cultural ring . In 1950 he was one of the co-founders of the Small Theater Heilbronn. From 1946 to 1953, four volumes of poems and novels were also published.

Franke worked as an editor at Neckar-Echo until his retirement in 1958. On the occasion of his 65th birthday, the Heilbronn Theater organized a Franke recitation evening, and he was also awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class for the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic, which he received on October 21, 1958 was presented by the Mayor of Heilbronn, Paul Meyle .

From 1960 to 1962 Franke devoted himself to the history and fate of the Jews in Heilbronn - From the Middle Ages to the time of the National Socialist persecution 1050–1945 , which was finally published in 1963 by the Heilbronn City Archives and, according to the Stuttgart Archives Directorate, the first comprehensive documentation of the history of the nationwide Jewish inhabitants of a city from the beginning to the present. Following the publication, a joint trip to Israel with the Mayor of Heilbronn was planned, but this could no longer be realized because Franke died unexpectedly on October 16, 1964 in his 1962 rented apartment in the Hasenhof near Wüstenrot as a result of a heart attack.

Franke was married to Maria Hohbach (* March 26, 1897 - December 4, 1944), with whom he had two children: Renate Franke (* 1921) and Peter Franke (* 1924 - January 28, 1945) ). In 1950 he married the actress Dely Brahm (Marie-Adele Muhs).

Works (selection)

• My world (poems), Stuttgart and Heilbronn 1918
• Sacrifice (drama), Stuttgart and Heilbronn 1919
• Downfall (drama), Stuttgart and Heilbronn 1924
• Earth i love you! (Poems), Berlin 1930
• The porcelain painter Fritz von Stockmayer (biography), Selb 1940
• Shape yourself, silence! (Poems), 1946
• Late Encounters (novellas), Heilbronn 1961
• History and fate of the Jews in Heilbronn - From the Middle Ages to the time of the National Socialist persecution (1050–1945) , Heilbronn 1963 (also as PDF , 14 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Administrative report of the city of Heilbronn 1963, p. 32/33

literature

• Gerhard Schwinghammer (ed.): Heilbronn and Hans Franke. Publicist, poet and critic 1893–1964 . Verlag Heilbronner Voice, Heilbronn 1989, ISBN 3-921923-06-9 (Heilbronner Voice / Book Series, 3).
• Walter Hirschmann: "At the same time, the city's cultural conscience" Hans Franke (1893–1964) . In: Christhard Schrenk , Heilbronn City Archives (ed.): Heilbronner Köpfe. Life pictures from four centuries. Volume 4, Heilbronn 2007 (Small series of publications from the Heilbronn Archives, 52), ISBN 9783928990998 , pp. 35–50.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Franke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Günther Emig: Hans Franke - Awaken and lift the cultural forces of the province without falling into provincialism