Hans Ludwig Hero

Hans Ludwig Held (born August 1, 1885 in Neuburg an der Donau , † August 3, 1954 in Munich ) was a German librarian and writer .

Life

Hans Ludwig Held's father, Marcellus Held, was an archive officer who came from farmers in Upper Bavaria, and his mother came from a Franconian miller family. Held, who was very musical, learned the piano, violin, viola and organ as a child. After moving from Neuburg an der Donau to Munich, Held attended the Ludwigsgymnasium , but already after seven school years entered the middle administrative service of the city of Munich and in 1909 passed the “city and market clerk examination”. It was then that he began writing poetry and novels. In 1911, Held founded the Association of German Writers together with Thomas Mann and Frank Wedekind . In 1919 he became a member of the USPDMunich City Council .

Library career until 1933

On January 3, 1921, Hans Ludwig Held became the first full-time library manager of the "City Council Library", the forerunner of the Munich City Library and in 1925 its director. Under his direction, the largest musical public library in Europe was built and, since the public education system was particularly close to his heart, he set up a traveling library in the tram, he spanned a network of public libraries and even set up children's reading rooms. In 1921 he founded the Monacensia Library. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he and 87 other writers signed a pledge of loyal allegiance to Adolf Hitler in October 1933 . Nevertheless, he was dismissed from the service of the city of Munich on October 27, 1933 due to the “ Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service ”. Held's biographer Helmut Hanko attributes the dismissal to Held's political commitment to democracy two decades earlier, which is precisely why Held was prohibited from any further writing in 1938 by the Reich Chamber of Literature. Held then moved to Unterhaching , south of Munich , where he developed into a passionate gardener, not without documenting all of his gardening experience in writing. Held had married the pianist Margarethe Zurlinden. During Held's unemployment in the Third Reich, it was she who mainly earned a living with piano lessons.

Post-war years

Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Hans Ludwig Held was again appointed director of the Munich library in May 1945 and appointed cultural representative of the city of Munich in September 1945. On September 6, 1945, an attack was carried out on Held and his wife Margarethe. Three men broke into the couple's bedroom at 4 a.m. and fired several shots. Margarethe was shot in the stomach and had to undergo seven operations. In the same month there was an all-destructive arson, in which Held had hidden valuable incunabula, early prints and his Hebrew library from the Nazis, along with other politically disagreeable items. All of this was not without its effects on Held's health. In 1953, the year before his death, he retired. During the last years of his life, Held lived with his wife Margarethe at Sankt-Anna-Platz 10, under one roof with the writer Georg Britting . In his ground floor apartment he housed his 17,000-book library with fiction, but also literature on Buddhism, Kabbalah and Hebrew mysticism. Because of the weight, additional iron girders had to be drawn in between the basement and the ground floor for static protection. In the large circle of friends, which included many Munich writers and artists, such as Eugen Roth and Franziska Bilek, Held was briefly called "HaLuHe". Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting, who knew Held well in his last years, wrote about him: For the Munich culture of the first post-war years his work was a salvation and a blessing! He was able to help many. Held died of a stroke and is buried in the Ostfriedhof (Munich) .

Quotes about Hans Ludwig Held

Thomas Mann commented on Held's signature in 1947 under the pledge of the most loyal allegiance : “That HL Held and Loerke are also on it makes me very upset. The rest of the people are completely in their place. "

Helmut Hanko describes Hans Ludwig Held's services to Munich as follows: The Munich library system, as the largest municipal library system in the Federal Republic of Germany, can attribute its successful existence to Hans Ludwig Held - even if he was not a 'trained' librarian.

Works (selection)

• Twilight hours. A book of poems , Dresden 1906
• James. From the life of a young priest , Munich / Leipzig 1907
• Salome. A mystery , Munich 1907
• Maria Fried. A novel from the Holledau . Munich / Leipzig 1910
• Buddha, his gospel and his interpretation , Munich 1911
• Tamar. A tragedy in four acts . Munich / Leipzig 1912
• The idea of ​​Buddhism, a contemplation , Munich / Leipzig 1913
• War hymn , Munich / Leipzig 1914
• (Ed.) Angelus Silesius . Complete poetic works in three volumes , Munich, 2nd edition 1924
• The ghost of the golem, a study from Hebrew mysticism with an excursus on the nature of the doppelganger , Munich 1927
• Festive play on words by Goethe , Munich 1932
• Munich , 1946

literature

• Andreas Bauer (Hrsg.): Festschrift for Hans Ludwig Held. A gift of friendship and gratitude. Offered for the 65th birthday. August 1, 1950 , Munich, Alber 1950
• Marita Krauss: Hans Ludwig Held (1885-1954). An extraordinary representative of Munich culture . Exhibition of the Munich City Library Am Gasteig. Munich, Munich City Library Am Gasteig 1985.
• Helmut Hanko: “Great initiate in the garden realm of written works”. Hans Ludwig Held - a biography. Munich, Allitera-Verlag 2005. ISBN 3-86520-126-1 Reading sample (PDF; 204 kB)
• Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 231.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Ludwig Held in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hans Ludwig Held in the Bavarian literature portal (project of the Bavarian State Library )
• Article in the blog of the Munich City Library on Hans Ludwg Held , accessed on August 17, 2020

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting: Sankt-Anna-Platz 10. Memories of Georg Britting and his Munich circle of friends. Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1999, p. 25 .
2. ↑ Helmut Hanko: "Great initiate in the garden realm of written works". Hans Ludwig Held - A biography . In: edition monacensia . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86520-126-1 , p. 80 ff .
3. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 231.
4. ↑ Helmut Hanko: "Great initiate in the garden realm of written works". Hans Ludwig Held - Like a biography . In: edition monacensia . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86520-126-1 , p. 22nd ff .
5. ↑ Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting: Sankt-Anna-Platz 10. Memory of Georg Britting and his Munich circle of friends. Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1999, p. 29 .
6. ↑ Helmut Hanko: "Great initiate in the garden realm of written works". Hans Ludwig Held - A biography . In: edition monacensia . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86520-126-1 , p. 29.101 .
7. ^ Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting: Sankt Anna-Platz 10. Memories of Georg Britting and his Munich circle of friends. Buchendorfer Verlag. Munich 1999, pp. 25-32
8. ↑ Ingeborg Schuldt-Britting: Sankt-Anna-Platz 10. Memory of Georg Britting and his Munich circle of friends. Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1999, p. 31 .
9. ^ Letter of September 17, 1947 to Alexander Moritz Frey , quoted by Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 231, 275.
10. ↑ Helmut Hanko: "Great initiate in the garden realm of written works". Hans Ludwig Held - A biography . In: edition monacensia . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86520-126-1 , p. 43 .