Heinrich Meyer (literary historian)

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Heinrich Meyer as a young teacher at the reform pedagogical school by the sea on the East Frisian North Sea island of Juist

Heinrich Karl Ernst Martin Meyer (born May 17, 1904 in Nuremberg ; † October 10, 1977 in Bellingham, Washington ) was a German-American literary historian , Germanist and author . His research focused on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and German literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. His teaching focused on language teaching, rapid reading, stylistics, German literature of the 18th and 19th centuries and the methods of literary studies. Meyer also published under the pseudonyms John Anderson , Robert O. Barlow , Hugo Cartesius and HK Houston Meyer .

Youth and family

Heinrich Meyer was born as the son of the senior teacher Wilhelm Karl Meyer († 1952) and his wife Anna, née Ulmer, who worked in Nuremberg. On May 10, 1936, he married Mary Louise Dinsmoor, whom he had met while studying at the Rice Institute . However, the marriage did not stand the challenges of legal proceedings and was divorced on December 19, 1942. On February 19, 1945, he married the Canadian Doris Hoag Clark (* 1923), also a former student of the Rice Institute. The divorce took place in 1955. In 1957 he married a third time - Sybille Hommel (* 1932), the daughter of the Tübingen classical philologist Hildebrecht Hommel .

education

Heinrich Meyer first attended primary school in Nuremberg for four years, then from Easter 1914 to spring 1923 the local old grammar school . After obtaining the school- leaving certificate , he first studied at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen with Franz Saran from the summer semester of 1923 , then switched to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich for the winter semester of 1923/24 and to the Albert-Ludwigs- University to Freiburg im Breisgau . He studied English , German , Romance studies , Latin and philosophy with Friedrich Brie , Alfred Götze , H. Heiß, Hans Jantzen , R. Kapp, F. Wilhelm, Philipp Witkop and Heinrich Wölfflin . He received his doctorate in 1927 on the subject of the German shepherd novel of the 17th century and passed his state examination in Baden in 1928 .

emigration

On June 11, 1930 he boarded the "Crefeld" of North German Lloyd in Bremen to Galveston and emigrated to the USA . On November 6, 1935, he was granted US citizenship on a quota visa .

After the USA entered the war in 1941, he was suspected of a pro-German (from the point of view of the USA hostile) attitude after meeting the German Consul General Edgar von Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim in New Orleans several times . That was what the FBI noticed. The US Federal Police therefore sent informers, disguised as students, to Meyer's lectures and seminars. As a result, the FBI set up a case against Meyer. In September 1942 a petition (petition under section 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940) was to be reached to revoke his US citizenship.

The accusation against Meyer was that he had obtained the naturalization fraudulently and thus illegally in order to enjoy the associated rights and privileges as well as their protection, without fulfilling the related obligations (here: patriotic behavior in favor of the USA) want. The US central bank ( Federal Reserve ) confiscated all of his assets, so that Meyer felt compelled to defend himself in the matter without professional legal assistance. He contradicted the charge, which brought the civil case to court on February 23, 1943.

Federal Judge Allen B. Hannay found Meyer guilty of believing that Meyer did not want to be permanently in the United States. He was still of the opinion that Meyer felt a secret loyalty to the Third Reich . After this ruling, the Rice Institute terminated the employment contract with Meyer. On March 8, 1943, he was taken into custody by the FBI and transferred to the Immigration and Naturalization Department. Meyer was interned for three months in a Department of Justice internment camp in Kenedy, Bee County , Texas . In April 1944, Meyer obtained the lifting of all restrictions by submitting an application to the Court of Appeal in New Orleans . This court held that a naturalized person had the same right to freedom of speech and thought as a person born in the United States. Meyer's US citizenship was thus retained.

Professional development

After completing his studies he was, according to the textbook registration card, formally until Easter 1931 a teacher for Latin , German , history and English at the reform pedagogy school on the North Sea island of Juist founded and led by Martin Luserke . There he made friends with his young Swiss colleague Fritz Rittmeyer , a contact that remained lifelong. The rural education home was strongly musically influenced by Luserke, Eduard Zuckmayer and Kurt Sydow and also ran a gardening facility supervised by Rudolf Aeschlimann . Luserke was a very accomplished storyteller. These influences made a lasting impression on Meyer and are reflected in his later work.

After his emigration, Meyer was initially employed by Max Freund as an Instructor of German at the Rice Institute in Houston , Texas . During this activity he published the novel Konrad Bäumler's long journey - A Novel about Germans in Texas , which was published uncensored in the German version in the German Reich - unusual during the Nazi era , as the author was now considered an American. Meyer used the author's fee to plan the purchase of a Texas ranch .

He traveled to Germany two more times before the November pogroms initiated by Joseph Goebbels in 1938. In 1938 he wrote directly to Adolf Hitler and asked for a personal appointment at the Reich Chancellery . He wanted to warn of how much the anti-Semitic actions in Germany are affecting the mood in the United States. His request was rejected. The letter was used against him in his later trial in the United States.

In 1939 he made it possible for the literary scholar Eduard Berend to flee the German Reich and thus protected him from deportation and concentration camps . During the Second World War , he supported him from the USA with food parcels and by sending scientific publications. The correspondence between the two has been preserved and has been published as a book.

After his internment, Meyer lived in Houston, Texas until 1945. There he wrote and published under the pseudonym Robert O. Barlow on horticulture and actively helped set up a farm cooperative with Jerome Irving Rodale . His wife Doris helped Rodale plant one of the first organic gardens in the United States and the publication of his periodical Organic Farming and Gardening and Prevention . Meyer taught at Muhlenberg College in Allentown (Pennsylvania) as an Associated Professor of German until 1947 . There Meyer made friends with the old Norse Sten Gunnar Flygt .

In 1953 he was appointed professor at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Tennessee , as a full professor (where he from 1959 full professor ) worked. During this time he acted as editor of the subject-specific periodical German Studies in America . In the meantime, he also taught as a visiting lecturer at Princeton University in New Jersey . In the winter semester 1961/62 he accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Hamburg , in the summer semester 1962 he was visiting professor at Indiana University in Bloomington , in the winter semester 1963/64 he was visiting professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1972 as Professor of German.

In 1972 Meyer retired. He died of a brain tumor at the age of 73.

After Meyer's death, Vanderbilt University acquired Meyer's extensive library.

Memberships

  • American Association of Teachers of German (AATG)
  • Modern Language Association of America (MLA)

Honors

Works

Meyer wrote, also under pseudonyms, both scientific and literary works. As a passionate gardener and flower grower, Meyer also published individual writings on horticultural topics.

Essays

He wrote a large number of essays on narrative techniques, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , Leopold von Ranke , Baruch de Spinoza , Ferdinand Tönnies .

Fiction

  • under the pseudonym HK Houston Meyer: Konrad Bäumler's wide path. A Texas-German novel (with autobiographical references). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Berlin, Stuttgart 1938

dissertation

  • The German shepherd novel of the 17th century . Phil. Diss. Freiburg i. Br., Dorpat 1928 (reprint: v. Hirschheydt, Hannover 1978, ISBN 3-7777-0041-X ).

horticulture

  • Leaves and what they do . Organic Gardening, Emmaus, Pa., 1945
  • under the pseudonym Robert O. Barlow: The complete modern garden herbal of Robert O. Barlow . Organic Gardening, Emmaus, Pa., 1948

linguistics

  • German exercise book . New York City 1936
  • The art of storytelling . Francke Verlag, Bern and Munich 1972

Literary studies

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Meyer, Heinrich Karl Ernst Martin . In: Who is who? 12th edition Schmidt-Römhild Verlag, Lübeck 1955
  2. ↑ Doris Meyer Chatham . From: annexgalleries.com, accessed July 1, 2017
  3. ↑ Christoph König et al .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800 - 1950 , Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (Reprint 2011: ISBN 978-3110154856 .) P. 1212.
  4. ↑ Norddeutscher Lloyd: Passenger list of the "Crefeld" from June 11, 1930 - Dr. Heinrich Meyer, Juist . In: State Archives Bremen
  5. ↑ Klaus L. Berghahn, Jost Hermand: Goethe in German-Jewish Culture . Camden House, Columbia, SC 2001, ISBN 978-1571133236 , pp. 125, 138.
  6. ↑ File: Meyer Heinrich 1904-1977 lehrerbuch.png at Wikimedia Commons
  7. ^ Foundation Schule am Meer (ed.): Information sheet of the Schule am Meer, Juist, Nordsee , 1928/29, p. 13.
  8. ^ Sabine De Santiago Ramos: Meyer, Heinrich Karl . In: Texas Handbook Online. Texas State Historical Association. From: tshaonline.org, accessed July 1, 2017
  9. ↑ Doris Meyer Chatham . From: annexgalleries.com, accessed July 1, 2017
  10. ^ Meike G. Werner (eds.): Eduard Berend and Heinrich Meyer - Correspondence 1938 - 1972. (= Marbacher Schriften, volume 10.) Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2013. ISBN 978-3-8353-1222-7 .
  11. ↑ Doris Meyer Chatham . From: annexgalleries.com, accessed July 1, 2017
  12. ^ Entry Meyer, Heinrich. In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar. Vol. 7, 1950
  13. ^ Photo (1953): Heinrich Meyer . On: gf.org, accessed July 1, 2017
  14. ↑ Joachim Günther : Meyer, Heinrich: What remains . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 28, 1967. From: gbv.de, accessed on April 23, 2017
  15. ^ Joachim Günther: Heinrich Meyer (obituary). In: Neue deutsche Hefte, 24 (1977), pp. 885-887.
  16. ^ Vanderbilt University: Grad Student Handbook , accessed July 1, 2017
  17. ^ Heinrich Meyer, Award 1953 . In: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. On: gf.org, accessed July 1, 2017
  18. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anderson, John (pen name); Barlow, Robert O. (pen name); Cartesius, Hugo (pseudonym); Meyer, HK Houston (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American literary historian, Germanist and author
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1977
Place of death Bellingham (Washington)