Herbert Böhme (writer)

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Herbert Böhme (born October 17, 1907 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † October 23, 1971 in Lochham ) was a German National Socialist cultural functionary, poet , writer and publicist . After the Second World War , he became a right-wing extremist cultural functionary who founded the German Cultural Association of European Spirit (DKEG) in 1950 .

biography

Before 1945

Böhme was the son of a teacher and commercial school director and grew up in Frankfurt / Oder. After graduating from high school, he studied German and philosophy in Munich and Marburg from 1928 to 1932 , where he joined the Chattia Landsmannschaft . With his work Tuberkulöse Dichter der S1 structure - A contribution to integration typology, which referred to the typology according to Erich Rudolf Jaensch , he intended to do a doctorate. After Böhme failed the Rigorosum and did not take the opportunity to repeat it, six years later, as SA-Sturmhauptführer, he managed to repeat the oral doctoral examination on December 13, 1939. From 1933 he lived in Lochham near Munich.

On May 1, 1933, he became a member of the NSDAP . On September 1, 1933, he joined the SA , within which he was promoted to Obersturmführer in the spring . After 1933 he became acting department head for poetry at the Reichssender Berlin . In 1935 he advanced to the position of chief editor in the Reichsleitung of the NSDAP and was head of the department for poetry of the Reichsschrifttumskammer (RSK). One of his tasks was to edit the HJ series of publications, Junge Volk , published by the NSDAP's central publishing house, and to write literary texts for special occasions. In an assessment of the SA it says about the Böhme, who was appointed to the culture group of the Supreme SA Leadership (OSAF): “Ability and knowledge in the individual areas of the SA service can only be assessed in relation to the cultural matters dealt with by him has good judgment and is open to criticism of his own works, tries very hard to give his poems SA-like forms. ”In addition, his character is stable, his physical disposition meets the requirements and he is“ intelligent, active in his mental behavior “And he got a quick idea. His behavior and appearance are flawless. In 1936 he was a co-founder and member of the Albert-Leo-Schlageter Munich comradeship and became a member of the Arminia Munich fraternity in 1938 (and of the Arminia Zurich European fraternity in 1971).

Böhme began his service as a soldier in the Wehrmacht on May 1, 1940; in March 1942 he was promoted to private. After he had recovered from a head injury, he tried in 1943 to teach philosophy at the University of Munich. From the winter semester of 1944/45 onwards, Böhme was there as a lecturer for "military education" responsible for the mental "military detention" of German youth. The questions whether and when Böhme was also active at the University of Posen and whether he completed his habilitation there, as he stated in 1960, cannot be answered with certainty.

Writer in National Socialist Germany

Böhme was a member of a group of party poets founded in 1930, which called itself the Young Team and which included Heinrich Anacker and Baldur von Schirach , among others . In addition to short stories, novellas and plays, he wrote the two novels Sommersonnenwende (1939) and Andreas Jemand (1939). Above all, however, the "poet of the Prussian Ostmark" had devoted himself to poetry. Many of his poems, interspersed with Nazi ideologues, were set to music and included in the HJ songbooks . Böhme wrote countless poems in honor of Adolf Hitler , with titles such as “Confession to the Führer”, “To Adolf Hitler” or “Adolf Hitler”. But the best known is his drum poem “Der Führer”, which verifiably first published in 1934 and was printed in almost all important magazines and newspapers in the Nazi state . "It praises unconditional loyalty and blind allegiance and portrays the" Führer "as a charismatic figure and supreme judge chosen by fate, as a personified hope for a new Germany:"

The leader

A drum goes around in Germany / and the one who beats it, who leads, / and those who follow him follow silently, / they are chosen by him. // You swear the flag oath to him, / allegiance and judgment, / he whirls the trace of their fate / with a brazen face. // He walks hard towards the sun / with tense force. / His drum, Germany, that's you! / People, become passion!

The anthology Rufe in das Reich (1934), edited by him, received particular attention . Well-known National Socialist authors such as Hanns Johst , Agnes Miegel , Will Vesper , Hans Friedrich Blunck and many more published their poems in calls to the Reich .

In 1936 the Brockhaus referred to him as a "leading poetical designer of National Socialist ideas". In Meyers Lexikon from 1936 Böhme is described as a "passionate herald of the ideals of the Third Reich".

After 1945

After Böhme was released from the Hohenasperg internment camp on July 12, 1946 for health reasons after a year in prison , denazification proceedings against him were initiated that same month . During which "he declared again and again to have been hijacked by the Nazis against his will and that he would have been beyond in an inner and outer conflict with those in power." Finally, he was - not least because of a " Persil certificate " by the former SA Brigadefuhrer Joachim Klähn - assigned to Group IV of the “fellow travelers” in August 1948.

Because of his fame as an “SA lyricist”, Böhme was one of the most important right-wing extremist cultural officials in the young Federal Republic after 1945. In 1949 he was the founder and director of Türmer Verlag . Böhme was a member of the Witikobund and founded the Deutsche Kulturwerk Europäische Geistes (DKEG) and its sub-organizations, the German Academy for Education and Culture and the Schiller Youth, in 1950 to maintain nationalistic cultural assets . He was President of the DKEG until his death in 1971. In 1971 he received the Schiller Prize awarded by the DKEG . In 1951 he was co-founder and publisher of the DKEG's publication organ, the Klüter Blätter magazine , which was renamed German monthly magazine in 1982 and merged with Nation Europa in 1990 , a magazine that Böhme founded together with Arthur Ehrhardt in 1951 .

During his imprisonment as a prisoner of war , Böhme was involved in religious matters. In the Hohenasperg internment camp in 1947 he helped found a group of the Free Protestants - German Unitarians - led by Rudolf Walbaum . In 1947, Walbaum appointed Böhme as the first speaker of the “Klütkreis” (working group for fundamental issues). He held this position until the beginning of 1955. At the general meeting of the German Unitarians in 1950 he was involved in the renaming and amendment of the statutes to German Unitarian religious community. Until the end of 1954 Böhme was the first spokesman for the German Unitarians. The main reason for his resignation in 1955 was the growing resistance within the community to him and his claim to leadership. In an obituary in 1971, Eberhard Achterberg attested that Böhme had "decisively shaped and determined the beginning and the first years of our religious community."

Herbert Böhme was the founder of the German Unitarian Youth. In 1952 it merged with the Reichsjugend and the Vaterländischer Jugendbund to form the right-wing extremist Wiking-Jugend , which saw itself as the keeper of the legacy of the Hitler Youth. In 1955, Böhme founded the “Schillerbund deutscher Jugend”, which was the first to be joined by the Wiking-Jugend as a corporate member. In 1961 he was a co-founder of the Society for Free Journalism . In 1965 he became a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany and co-founder of the working group of people loyal to associations . In 1970 he was one of the founders of the Resistance Campaign and the "German Citizens' Community". He is considered a member of the outer circle of the Naumann Circle .

In the Soviet occupation zone , many of his writings were placed on the list of literature to be segregated.

Awards and honors

Works (in selection)

  • Poems , 1931
  • Dawn , 1933
  • Leader and Fanfare , 1933
  • Summer solstice. Labor camp novel , 1933
  • The Blood's Chants , 1934
  • People set out , 1934
  • Chants under the flag , 1935
  • Faith lives. Calls of Time , 1935
  • German prayer , 1936
  • People of Work (music by Erich Lauer), 1936
  • Flag, stand up! New songs for the celebration , 1936
  • Going to church for the Großwend farmer , 1936
  • Struggle and Confession , 1937
  • The solution. A consecration game , 1937
  • Night of the Conspiracy , novella, 1938
  • Summer turn of the year. A celebration , 1938
  • The Greater German Reich. An appeal for the liberation of Austria with songs , 1938
  • Poems of the People , 1938
  • Call of the SA. An appeal with songs , 1938
  • Men, fighters, soldiers. A morning party , 1938
  • Andreas Jemand , Roman, 1939
  • The good stars are united with us. Poems , 1944
  • Pen and sword , 1944
  • The German Unitarians. Way and instruction. Festschrift for the 75th anniversary , 1951
  • The stone wave , story, 1952
  • With loosened wings , poems, 1953
  • A life won , novella, 1955
  • Escape , novella, 1956
  • Call and Song , Poems, 1957
  • Confessions of a Free Man , 1960
  • On the bridge. Merry, contemplative stories , 1960
  • Prussian ballads , 1964
  • At the abode of the gods. Ballads, poems and a dramatic draft to meet the soul of Greece , 1964
  • We tied the bouquet of immortelles. Poems and songs , 1966
  • Speeches and essays , 1967
  • The order of values. Speeches, Articles, Confessions , 1967
  • Legacy and Mission. Last speeches, essays, sayings, poems , 1973, ISBN 3-87829-044-6

literature

  • Kurt Fischer: Herbert Böhme. Deutscher Volksverlag, Munich 1937.
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Heidelberg 1996, pp. 111-112.
  • Herbert Böhme (1907–1971). In: Jürgen Hillesheim , Elisabeth Michael: Lexicon of National Socialist Poets. Biographies, analyzes, bibliographies. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 1993, ISBN 3-88479-511-2 , pp. 75-83. On-line
  • Hans-Dietrich Kahl : currents. In: Unitarian Hefte, Heft 4, Verlag Deutsche Unitarien, Munich 1989.
  • André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 83–113.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 85.
  2. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 87f.
  3. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 91.
  4. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Second updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 59.
  5. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 92.
  6. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 92f.
  7. ^ Joseph Wulf : Literature and Poetry in the Third Reich. Sigbert Mohn Verlag, 1963, p. 429.
  8. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Heidelberg 1996, p. 111.
  9. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 94.
  10. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 95f.
  11. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 97.
  12. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 97–99.
  13. ^ Walter Hinderer : History of Political Poetry in Germany , Königshausen & Neumann, 2007, p. 312.
  14. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 100f.
  15. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 92, 102f.
  16. ^ André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 104.
  17. ↑ Herbert Böhme (Ed.): Calls in the Reich . Berlin: Junge Generation 1934, p. 119. Quoted in Schaper (2018), p. 104.
  18. ^ A b André Schaper: Herbert Böhme - the poet of the "Prussian Ostmark" . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 108.
  19. ↑ Deutschland-Jahrbuch 1953. Edited by Klaus Mehnert and Heinrich Schulte. Rheinisch-Westfälisches Verlagkontor, Essen 1953, p. 482.
  20. ↑ The youth advisor Wilfried Wallbach is quoted as saying “You are the Pope of the Unitarians?” (1955). (see Hans-Dietrich Kahl : Strömungen , p. 39)
  21. ↑ Eberhard Achterberg in Glaube und Tat 1971, p. 372.
  22. ↑ Documentation of the time 1957 (136), p. 24
  23. ↑ Helmut Blazek: Men's Associations. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 204; see also article on MDR.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www1.mdr.de  
  24. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-b.html
  25. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-k.html
  26. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-b.html
personal data
SURNAME Böhme, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION National Socialist poet and lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1971
Place of death Lochham near Munich