Heinar Schilling

Portrait of Heinar Schilling around 1920

Heinrich "Heinar" Schilling (born October 20, 1894 in Dresden ; † November 13, 1955 in Glücksburg ) was a German poet and writer .

origin

Heinar Schilling, actually Heinrich Schilling, was born in Dresden as the son of the sculptor Johannes Schilling (1828–1910) and his second wife Minna Auguste Natalie Neubert. He came from the noble family of the Schilling , whose tradition shaped him significantly as a writer, as he known in his works, especially the "King's Song". His half-brother was the Dresden architect Rudolf Schilling .

Life

From 1905 to 1910 he attended the Vitzthumsche Gymnasium in Dresden, from 1911 to 1913 the Kgl. Saxon. Realgymnasium in Annaberg in the Ore Mountains and from 1913 to 1914 the Dreikönigsschule in Dresden. In 1914 he signed up as a war volunteer and served in the 1st Kgl. Saxon. 12th Artillery Regiment, where it was buried in Flanders in 1917. He was only able to return to active military service in the early summer of 1918.

Starting in 1918, he had written smaller poems and dramas, some of which he published in 1920 under the title Attempts in R. Kaemmerer-Verlag , but as early as 1917 he oriented himself towards pacifist ideas and gathered young artists and writers in the Dresden Expressionist Working Group and became that way at the center of Dresden Expressionism . In his "Dresdner Verlag von 1917", also founded in 1917, the magazine Menschen was printed, which he published together with Walter Hasenclever . Among other things, he made Otto Dix famous, who also painted him.

During this time he also orientated himself towards socialist ideas and conducted an artistic exchange, for example with the communist writer Rudolf Leonhard , who dedicated a poem to him. In 1919 Schilling published an obituary for the violent death of Karl Liebknecht .

Dedication by the poet Rudolf Leonhard for Heinar Schilling

Exlibri, design by Walter Otto Grimm, with Schilling's signature

After 1920, however, he increasingly moved away from these positions, which neither suited his aristocratic lifestyle, nor were he conducive to his success as an artist. He found his world of ideas of the free, self-determined and ennobled human type neither with the Expressionists, whom he accused of alienation from reality, nor with the Communists. So he increasingly took refuge in a mystical world of ideas of the ancient Teutons , in whose archaic tradition he tried to discover his own ideology. From 1922 until his death, Heinar Schilling wrote over 100 works, most of which revolved around Germanism and early history . He was the first to write, among other things, in 1936 about the recently excavated Viking city of Haithabu . At this point he described himself as a historian, clan researcher and writer.

Since he fled the city and large human gatherings as fatal focal points, he spent more than 143 months traveling alone until 1948 and was an avid sports sailor. He was the first to sail in a sailing boat from Dresden to Sylt , where he lived in Wenningstedt several times a year .

After 1930 he orientated himself increasingly spiritually to the National Socialists , in whose ideology he thought he discovered his own convictions. Although he had resolutely refused to join the NSDAP in 1928 , he welcomed Adolf Hitler's “ seizure of power ” in 1933 and joined the party that same year. Later he also wrote a series of articles for the SS magazine , the Black Corps , which he also published together with Gunter d'Alquen in 1938 under the title “Weltanschauiche Considerungen”. At this time, Schilling tried to distinguish himself as a leading intellectual . He produced a large number of historical works, encyclopedias and also children's books, which, written for a broad audience, were intended to spread National Socialist ideas. However, Schilling rejected the inferiority of other "non-Aryan races" taught by the Nazis and from 1939 onwards increasingly broke away from National Socialism. As a result, he was always denied great recognition. In 1941 he was finally sentenced to one year and seven months in prison in Bautzen for sabotage in the NSDAP . Schilling only had to serve part of this prison sentence because he was released on parole out of consideration for his health and through the intercession of the mayor von Klotzsche . In a report by the Secret State Police it says about Schilling that he never attended a party event or conference and that he only belonged to the NSDAP out of self-interest. He was guilty of sabotage because he conveyed “hostile” ideas in his books. Especially the title Karl XII. - the lion from midnight and Peter the Great - rulers of all Russians would serve the purpose of promoting the idea of ​​monarchy . Schilling's mentality is accordingly classified in the report as "extremely reactionary monarchist". In addition, prohibited contact with Jewish people is mentioned. However, the report also emphasizes that Schilling was a “first specialist” in the field of German prehistory and early history. For his “Weltgeschichte”, published in several editions from 1933 by Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag , he was given the title of professor on February 26, 1945, which he seldom held after 1945 and which was also called into question due to lack of evidence. Evidently, Schilling was excluded from the party on October 9, 1942 by the Gauleiter in Saxony, Martin Mutschmann , on the basis of the expert opinion .

Schilling's rejection of National Socialism was most clearly reflected in the Gastein Elegies , which appeared in a non-public edition of 200 copies. Sporadic contacts with people in the Kreisau district are also known through these elegies .

Since he had transferred his paternal inheritance into the common property of his family association, which was dissolved by a resolution of the Soviet military administration in 1946 , he lost his father's villa and large parts of the archival documents and valuables and other assets stored in it through expropriation and theft. Heinar Schilling himself fled to Sylt in the summer of 1945, where he was able to save a small part of his property until 1946. So financially in dire straits, he earned his living from 1946, among other things, as a librarian at Glücksburg Castle , where he also housed the remains of his own archive. In terms of writing, after 1945, in addition to essays for his family, only a series of penny novels appeared. Before his death, he suffered increasingly from alcoholism, substance abuse, and neglect. In 1955 he died of serious cancer in a retirement home in Glücksburg.

Heinar Schilling was married a total of six times, most recently to the dancer and Gret Palucca student Nuri Creutz. A total of five children were born from his marriages.

plant

Heinar Schilling's extensive work includes around 100 "works" that he wrote between 1908 and 1954 and provided with quasi-opus numbers. These books are encyclopedias, monumental works on history and volumes of poetry. Almost all of his life he wrote about early Germanic history.

The main motivation for his literary work was his drive to preserve, disseminate and research the fabulous tradition of his Schilling family. This is already clear in his early works, published in 1920, in which he processed his family chronicle. Although the family history in particular was without any really well-founded sources, he even allowed this legendary material to flow into his lexica, especially with regard to the anti-king Rudolf von Rheinfelden , from whom Heinar Schilling believed he was descended. He also took his stage name "Heinar" from an old family legend. In addition, he took the pseudonym "Heinar von Lindek", which he never used.

From an expressionist point of view, his early poems were devoted to people. Paul Hindemith set the poem “Through the Evening Gardens” to music.

“Through the evening gardens /
over shiny asphalt /
the fullness of the moon whirls me. /
On the dripped arbor /
candles, moonlight eyes shimmer. /
O, lunar visions. Immersed in gas lanterns /
aperture circles shake the soul . /
The feeling pearles water like duck feathers /
Until friends yellow aureole of the lantern /
brotherly approaches you, waiting eye to eye /
you spellbound arms stretch in night, in night. "

From 1922 he composed his main work, "The King's Song", a song of over 14,000 stanzas, summarized in 14 books, about the Skjöldungen family, a prehistoric Danish royal family, from which Schilling developed the daring thesis of being the ancestors of all Germanic royal houses. Correspondingly, Heinar Schilling combined the legendary circles of the Skjöldungen , Ynglinge , Amelungen , Nibelungen , from Hamlet to Arminius in a gigantic attempt in the “King's Song” . After several years of work, Heinar Schilling finished his King's Song without actually finishing it. Schilling actually implemented only a third of his planned poetry. Presumably he ended his work early after it became clear that sales would be a failure. His publisher Bruno Tanzmann even suffered a heavy economic loss. However, Schilling used the source material gathered for this purpose to publish works on early Germanic history.

Germanic death dragon, illustration to the King's Song by Dr. Friedrich Strüver

Although the King's Song is generally regarded as Heinar Schilling's transition from Expressionism to National Socialism, the dedication written in runes that precedes the King's Song reveals the real concern of this monstrous poem.

"From prehistoric fathers to end-time grandchildren /
I ring - the chain believing link- /
The fathers' crowns, the blood's bond, /
I hid the gem: forfeited in word
. / The rune whispers to you - the sons of Skjöldungen. /
I came from kings, you come from me."

Heinar Schilling regards himself as a descendant of the mystical King Skjöld, who is already mentioned in the old English Beowulf epic, and wrote a family chronicle for his sons with the "King's Song". Motifs from the “King's Song” can already be found in his earliest works from 1913 onwards. The King's Song in particular reveals a kind of ancestral cult and basic religious mood, which Schilling dedicated to his ancestors. The novel "An upright man", published in 1940 by Ein-Tannen-Verlag, is also exclusively dedicated to the medieval world of legends about the Schilling von Lahnstein family.

After the end of the Second World War, Schilling's writings on Weltgeschichte ( Kiepenheuer , Berlin 1935), Little German History (Siegismund, Berlin 1936), The Political Worldview ( Nordland-Verlag , Magdeburg 1937), Philosophical Considerations ( Vieweg , Braunschweig 1938), Germanic Prehistory ( v. Hase & Koehler, Leipzig 1940), Peter the Great (Meinhold, Dresden 1941) and History for All (Vieweg, Braunschweig 1942) placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone . This list was followed in the Democratic Republic of Germans still people and the state. Historical treatises from the “Black Corps” (Vieweg, Braunschweig 1938) and Widukind (Widukind-Verlag, Berlin 1941).

All in all, his works have been published to date with a print run of around 500,000. The Schilling Association, which also administers the Schilling estate, owns the copyrights.

Works

• "Attempts" (Opus 1-40), 1920
• "First Poems", 1919
• "The King's Song", in 4 volumes, 1923–1927
• "World History - Events and Dates from the Ice Age to Today", 1933
• "Haithabu - A Germanic Troy", 1936, new edition 2000
• "Germanic leaders", 1934
• “The rulers of the first empire”, 1935
• "Germanic women", (20 life pictures of Germanic women from history and legend), by Hase & Koehler Verlag, Leipzig 1935
• “An upright man”, 1940
• "History for All", Heinar Schilling Werk 89 (Braunschweig 1940)
• "Widukind - A History", Heinar Schilling Werk 96, 1939 (Berlin 1941)
• "Germanic Life", 1942
• Contributions to the history of the Friedrich Schilling family, died 1373 . Book 5. The line of descendants of the Erik family . (Part 1., The Western Tribe of the Eriks Family 1198–1948 (autobiographical notes)).
• "Sources on the history of the Friedrich Schilling family, died 1373" / H. 7. Hereditary Association and Gender Pactum, 1946

literature

• Caroline Dorn: Heinar Schilling - Career from Expressionism to National Socialism. Grin Verlag GmbH, Munich, ISBN 978-3-638-23416-0 (Student thesis, Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Cultural Studies TU Dresden, Dresden 2003).
• Tilmann Wesolowski: The Expressionist and National Socialist Heinrich (Heinar) Schilling. In: Journal of History. 57, 2009, ISSN  0044-2828 , pp. 702-722.
• To be able to live . In: Der Spiegel , 46/1951, November 14, 1951, p. 28.

Web links

• Website of the Association of the House of Schilling eV
• Literature by and about Heinar Schilling in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to the Schilling family chronicle. This is on permanent loan from the Verband des Haus Schilling eV in the “Alte Pfarrhäuser” museum in Mittweida.
2. ↑ The picture hangs today in the Haus der Heimat, Freital. Fig. In the Deutsche Fotothek no. Df_0185577
3. ↑ Leonhard dedicated the last poem of his volume of poems "Die Insel" to his friend Schilling with the title "An Ostgote dreams on the border of Tuscany". The Ostrogoth is Schilling itself. The original of the dedication is owned by the Association of the House of Schilling eV
4. ↑ First information in issue 5 of the magazine “Menschen” from March 1, 1919.
5. ↑ The judgment, file number I / 1097/42, dated July 2, 1941, according to the discharge papers in the Schilling family archive, no. "Th.9 Gns 1/45"
6. ↑ An unauthorized copy was made by Schilling's defense attorney and is in the family archive. It bears the file number S / Rvv.Chf. 237/42 by Gestapo Section IV, -3; 459/42 i. Sat./1097/42, dated August 21, 1942
7. ↑ Certified copy in the Schilling family archive.
8. ^ Copy of the "Gastein Elegies" in the German National Library.
9. ^ Documents on this in the archive of the Association of the House of Schilling eV
10. ↑ The earliest source was the certificate of the Schilling Hereditary Association of August 15, 1556 in Breslau , in which the legendary descent of the Rheinfelden and the Schilling is described. Printed in 1946.
11. ↑ See u. a. Schilling: history for everyone . Vieweg publisher 1941, pages 347-351
12. ^ According to the note in "Contributions to the history of the Friedrich Schilling family, died 1373 / H. 5. The line of descendants of the Eriks family / [T. 1. The western tribe of the Eriks family 1198–1948] ”.
13. ↑ Cf. recmusic.org ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ According to an unpublished genealogy and source reference for the king's song in the Schilling family archive
15. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
16. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1947-nslit-s.html
17. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html
18. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-s.html