Helene Voigt-Diederichs

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helene Voigt-Diederichs around 1907

Helene Theodora Voigt-Diederichs (born May 26, 1875 at Gut Marienhoff, Thumby parish near Eckernförde , † December 3, 1961 in Jena ) was a German writer .

Life

Grave of Helene Voigt-Diederichs in the north cemetery in Jena

Helene Voigt was born as the fifth child of the landowner Christian Theodor Voigt (1835–1887) and Marie Louise Brinckmann (1844–1922) on Gut Marienhof. She spent her childhood and youth on the estate with her eight siblings and returned to her family even after long journeys. During a trip to Italy , Voigt met the publisher Eugen Diederichs in Florence , whom she married in 1898. They lived in Leipzig and moved to Jena in 1904. The marriage, from which the children Ruth (1899–1984), Jürgen (1901–1976), Niels (1902–1972) and Peter Diederichs (1904–1990) came, ended in divorce in 1911. This was preceded by Voigt-Diederichs' affairs with Max Scheler and Erich Kuithan . The latter illustrated her work Aus Kinderland , for example .

After the divorce, in which the four children were awarded to their husband, Voigt-Diederichs first moved to Weimar and in the same year to Braunschweig , where she lived for almost two decades. With her English partner Stafford Hatfield, she undertook a journey through the Pyrenees and England in 1911 , which she processed in her report Wandering Days in England in 1912 and in Between Heaven and Stones in 1919 . After Hatfield was interned as an Englishman at the beginning of the First World War , Diederichs left the sons Jürgen and Niels to his divorced wife. From 1931 until her death in 1961 Voigt-Diederichs lived again in Jena, with her only daughter Ruth at her side. Voigt-Diederichs died in Jena at the age of 86 and was buried in the Jena North Cemetery (field 11).

Act

As early as 1897 Voigt-Diederichs had presented Schleswig Holstein's country people with their first publication, "Pictures from People's Life" , the fourth edition of which was printed in 1908. Numerous other stories from popular life followed, as well as short stories, volumes of poetry and writings for young people. Her novel Dreiviertel Stund 'vor Tag was awarded the Lower Saxony Culture Prize in 1905. From 1897 she was in correspondence with Hermann Hesse . She also corresponded with Wilhelm Holzamer and Nina Mardon .

Numerous works by Voigt-Diederich belong to the local literature and portray the rural life of the farmers and the idyllic life in nature. As early as 1907 she was praised for her clear, naturalistic descriptions:

“How does she know how to draw landscapes that are truly suggestive? With just a few strokes she establishes the basic lines from which the morning, noon or evening mood in question grows with inimitable certainty. "

- Theodor Klaiber, 1907

The situation of the farmer's wife, who finds her fulfillment in life in the family and in work in the country in faith in God, was one of the central themes in Voigt-Diederich's work. Her novels and stories were very well received during the Nazi era , as the characters in her works were in line with Nazi ideology. "[T] he National Socialists [praised] their art and gave them the opportunity to publish in newspapers and speak on the radio." Although Voigt-Diederichs was considered liberal and was never a member of the NSDAP , her political position during the Nazi era is still today controversial. Among other things, she was a member of the Eutin poets' circle founded by Johann Heinrich Böhmcker in 1936 and in 1944 she was included as one of two authors in the so-called “ God-gifted list ” of Adolf Hitler .

Works (selection)

Helene Voigt-Diederichs' From Kinderland with a drawing by Erich Kuithan
Three quarters of an hour to the day , title by Emil Rudolf Weiß
Schleswig-Holstein country people , title by Emil Rudolf Weiß
  • Schleswig-Holstein country people , Leipzig 1898
  • Abendrot , Leipzig 1899 (under the name Helene Voigt)
  • Regine Vosgerau , Leipzig 1901
  • Unterstrom , Leipzig 1901
  • Life without noise , Leipzig 1903
  • Three quarters of an hour before the day , Jena [u. a.] 1905
  • Between Lipp 'and Kelchesrand , Wiesbaden 1905
  • The balms. Midday hour , Wiesbaden 1906
  • Early spring , Leipzig 1906
  • From Kinderland , Jena 1907
  • Just a parable , Jena 1909. ( digitized version )
  • Hiking days in England , Munich 1912
  • Luise , Munich 1916
  • We at home , Heilbronn 1916
  • Between heaven and stones , Munich 1919
  • Man and woman , Jena 1922
  • To Marienhoff , Jena 1925
  • Five stories from Schleswig-Holstein , Berlin 1925
  • Four stories , Jena 1925
  • Schleswig-Holstein blood , Jena 1926
  • Ring around Roderich , Jena 1929
  • Parents and Child , Berlin [a. a.] 1932
  • Young Fru int Hus , Jena 1932
  • The green parrot , Jena 1934
  • But the forest is alive , Jena 1935
  • Guest in Transylvania , Jena 1936
  • Sonnenschot , Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1936 ( Insel-Bücherei 491), with woodcuts by Josua Leander Gampp
  • From the old breed , Jena 1937
  • Kinderland , Jena 1938
  • World of the Child , Jena 1940 (together with Otto Herbig )
  • The engagement , Jena 1942
  • In the Osterwald , Braunschweig 1944
  • Bouquet in the window , Jena 1944
  • The magic potion , Hamburg 1948
  • The amber chain , Düsseldorf [u. a.] 1951
  • Scales of Life , Düsseldorf 1952
  • Two author portraits in letters , Düsseldorf [u. a.] 1971 (together with Hermann Hesse )

literature

  • Diederichs, Helene . In: Franz Brümmer : Lexicon of German poets and prose writers from the beginning of the 19th century to the present . Volume 2. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1913, p. 16. (Scans on archive.org)
  • Voigt, Helene . In: Elisabeth Friedrichs: The German-speaking women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. A lexicon . Metzler, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-476-00456-2 , (Repertories on the history of German literature 9), p. 321.
  • Helene Voigt-Diederichs . In: Theodor Klaiber: Poetic women of the present . Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1907, pp. 225-243.
  • Helene Voigt-Diederichs . In: International Biographical Archive, No. 4, January 15, 1962.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Meike G. Werner: Modernism in the Province. Cultural experiments in the Fin de Siecle Jena . Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, p. 111.
  2. ↑ Klaiber, p. 229.
  3. ↑ see in addition Bernhard Zeller (ed.): Hermann Hesse - Helene Voigt-Diederichs. Two author portraits in letters . Diederichs, Cologne 1971.
  4. ↑ Klaiber, p. 230.
  5. ↑ See vimu.info
  6. ↑ Cf. Oliver Rathkolb: Faithful to the Führer and god-gifted. Artist elite in the Third Reich . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1991, p. 176.
personal data
SURNAME Voigt-Diederichs, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Voigt-Diederichs, Helene Theodora; Voigt, Helene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienhoff estate, Thumby parish near Eckernförde
DATE OF DEATH 3rd December 1961
Place of death Jena