Herbert Eulenberg

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Signature of Herbert Eulenberg
April 12, 1949 at a meeting of the German PEN Center in Hamburg, fourth from the right
Herbert Eulenberg from "That was my life"
Lovis Corinth : Portrait of the poet Herbert Eulenberg , 1924, Belvedere , Vienna

Max Herbert Eulenberg (born January 25, 1876 in Mülheim am Rhein , † September 4, 1949 in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth ) was a German writer and combative humanist . He successfully resisted the pressure to adapt during the time of National Socialism .

Life

The son of a Rhenish machine manufacturer studied law at the universities of Berlin , Munich , Leipzig and Bonn , where he received his doctorate in 1900. jur. received his doctorate . Even then, his teacher Ernst Zitelmann described him as a “stray lawyer and hidden poet”. Eulenberg began his legal traineeship in Opladen and Cologne. At this time Ferdinand Bonn became aware of Eulenberg through the tragedy Passion and engaged him as a dramaturge at the Berlin theater . This connection resulted in first contacts with the actress Louise Dumont .

In spring 1901 he met his future wife Hedda in Berlin , who was still married to Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and who had already made a name for herself as a translator of Anglo-Saxon and French literature. In 1903 he gave up his daily legal profession and worked as a dramaturge in Berlin and as a freelance writer. In 1904 he went to Düsseldorf with Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann to the new Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf they had created , where he worked as a dramaturge and designer of the Sunday morning parties until 1909 . His Schiller speech from 1909 was highly controversial. The 1911 letter from a modern father, published in PAN magazine , brought him a lawsuit for disseminating lewd literature, which ended in acquittal. In 1912, Eulenberg had the Düsseldorf graphic artist Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke design the extension of his residential building at Burgallee 4 in Kaiserswerth ( Freedom House ). He and his wife found their final resting place in the garden.

In 1913 Eulenberg's most successful drama, Belinde , appeared , for which he was awarded the People's Schiller Prize. However, his stubborn adherence to the neo-romantic style of his pieces brought him increasingly head shakes and baskets, so that he inevitably switched to journalistic work, essays and editing activities. In 1919 he founded the artists' association Das Junge Rheinland together with the painters Arthur Kaufmann and Adolf Uzarski in Düsseldorf . He was in contact with numerous prominent cultural workers, such as Stefan Zweig , Erich Mühsam , Hans Pfitzner , Heinz Rühmann . The painters Lovis Corinth , Otto Dix and Max Pechstein portrayed Eulenberg. The hospitable house of the wine connoisseur on the banks of the Rhine was widely known. In 1923 Eulenberg undertook several lecture tours to North Africa, Palestine and the USA, where he was allowed to speak “as the first German after Einstein” at Columbia University .

Under the rule of the National Socialists , his dramas were banned, and his books were no longer allowed to be printed or sold. He withstood threats from party members who continually denounced the pacifists and democrats as “red-haired Jews”; Probably only his great fame saved him from being sent to a concentration camp. When his glosses, which were written under pseudonyms, were no longer wanted by the Düsseldorf daily Der Mittag , he relied on the financial support of friends in order not to have to ingratiate himself. He wrote new dramas (in the old style) for the drawer.

After the Second World War Eulenberg was a permanent contributor to the magazines Aufbau and Die Weltbühne . In 1948 he received the Heinrich Heine Prize from the Hamburg Heinrich Heine Society for his Heinrich Heine biography . In the Kulturbund for the democratic renewal of Germany he was committed to the development of a cultural program for the bombed Düsseldorf. In 1949 he received (with several other people) the newly created national prize of the GDR .

effect

In 1925, Meyers Lexikon lists Eulenberg as one of the “most fertile and most frequently performed stage poets of the present”. The lexicon of German-speaking writers (from the former GDR) formulates similarly that Eulenberg was "one of the most frequently performed authors on the German stage before 1933". According to Bernd Kortländer , this statement is quite bold. The breakthrough as a dramatist that Eulenberg had longed for was never granted to the fun-loving Rhinelander. “As early as 1911, the critics noted that he would go down in history as the German author with the most premieres and the fewest performances.” With the exception of his three essay volumes Shadow Images , sales of Eulenberg's literary products were largely “mid-1920s” came to a standstill; “The German theaters ignore his dramas; the great successes go back a long time. He earns his living with bread-and-butter work: forewords, editorships, reviews and small feature articles. ”Even as a novelist and poet, he had at best achieved notable successes. In his novel Um den Rhein from 1927, which was largely panned by literary criticism, the characters with the “speaking names” (for example “Unruh” and “Wohlleben”) piled up “cliché upon cliché”.

"Lively imagination and a strong temperament, often with a lack of sense for the strict form and a certain tendency towards the astonishing and grotesque" are the main features of Eulenberg's work, which often reminds "of the poets of the Sturm und Drang times ", says Meyers . The GDR lexicon accuses Eulenberg of “ eclectic choice of tradition ” and “neo-romantic stylization”. He had made “no productive contribution to the further development of realistic drama”. The narrative is also artistically unbalanced. Eulenberg's “lasting achievement” can be seen in the “small masterpieces” that emerged from the Düsseldorf “morning celebrations” and that have been translated into many languages, “which were published under the title Shadows (1910) / New Pictures (1912) / Last Pictures (1915) and in popular form (as well as his extremely productive editorial work) have made a significant contribution to conveying foreign cultures and the humanistic German literary heritage. ”This appreciation is shared by both Kortländer and the Brockhaus Encyclopedia .

According to Kindler's New Literature Lexicon, the “neo-romantic” playwright Eulenberg has a stylized, artificial language and loves “pathetic monologues”. Instead of figures, he often only uses “pale symbols”. "Idyll and bustle scene interpenetrate." It is precisely the lack of time in the actions that conveys Eulenberg's pieces of the fashionable attack on fading naturalism.

“On the other hand, what is undisputed, he is the king of journalists today. For this branch of art, and it is just as good an art as poetry, a novel or a drama - Eulenberg's fluidity and lightness are just the right talent. No journalist far and wide, or even better said, columnist knows how to bring any dead or withered character so close to us, to allow it to re-emerge as this allegedly from fate, i.e. H. from the city of Düsseldorf, hard-hit poets [...] "

- Hermann von Wedderkop , The Book of Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn. Piper, Munich 1928. p. 168.

Silhouettes

Kortländer certifies that Eulenberg has an “art religiosity” which, astonishingly, does not seem to have been reflected in the literary fruits of those Düsseldorf “morning celebrations”. Even the first volume of these portraits, issued as shadow pictures (for example by Goethe , Schubert , Heine ), was unusually successful; to Kortländer he sold 85,000 copies between 1910 and 1927. "Eulenberg saw this genre, even if he continued to cultivate it until the end for commercial reasons, only as a by-product of his work, as an instrument of his cultural mission, as the utterances of a 'popular preacher'."

“And this is how the portraits, usually only 5 to 6 pages long, are laid out: 'It was important to be brief, to be clear, to avoid phrases and to remain understandable to everyone, including the layman in literary matters.' The ways in which he approaches the fate and nature of the characters to be presented are very different and colorful: Sometimes it's anecdotal descriptions, sometimes invented conversations or encounters; sometimes he chooses three days as an example to draw the whole of life, sometimes he gives a complete overview. These sketches always only want to be something like an introit to the real thing, to the reading of the sacred texts themselves, just as the presentation of the original texts actually dominated in the morning celebrations. "

Myths

Despite all the criticism and the gradual disappearance of his work, Eulenberg is "as a personality of German intellectual life, as a spiritual and moral authority, as a lovable incarnation of the Rhenish poet ", as before in the consciousness of an astonishingly large part not only of the Rhenish but of the entire German public Kortländer notes. "Herbert Eulenberg had already become a legend of himself during his lifetime, without noticing it himself and certainly without wanting it." After the end of the war, due to his undoubtedly admirable upright attitude towards fascism, he was "the epitome of the good." People have become an icon of civil resistance ”.

Nobody really noticed that Eulenberg was fighting for his survival as an author in the end. “He had lost this fight before, however. What remains of him is the memory of an artist and person who interfered in his lovable 'Rhenish' way in the struggles of his extremely turbulent time and who was neither morally nor artistically warped. If you look around at your contemporaries and fellow travelers, that's a lot. "

Awards and honors

Works (selection)

As an author

Essay

  • Words of friend . In: Leo Statz : The Sillbund . Drei-Eulen-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1946, pages 11–20 ( obituary for Statz who was murdered by the Nazis)

Autobiographical

  • My life for the stage . Cassirer, Berlin 1919 (former title: stage sets ).
  • That was my life . Verlag die Fähre, Düsseldorf 1948.

stories

  • Allmother Maria (Kleine-Drei-Birken-Bücherei; Vol. 22). Hermann Hübener Verlag, Berlin 1947.
  • Americans. American photographs . Thyrsos-Verlag, Vienna 1924.
  • Casanova's last adventure and other erotic incidents . Carl Reissner, Dresden 1928.
  • The German face. A selection for the field . Cassirer, Berlin 1916.
  • The image of Mary . In: New German Storytellers, Volume 1 . Franke-Verlag, Berlin 1930 (with Max Brod and others).
  • The bankruptcy of Europe. Stories from our time . Gurlitt, Berlin 1919.
  • The peep box. Actor portraits . Desch, Munich 1948 (former title: The peep box. German actor pictures ).
  • The good uncle. Narration . Drei-Säulen-Verlag, Bad Wörishofen 1947.
  • You may commit adultery! A moral story. Dedicated to all good husbands . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1909.
  • Apparitions . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1923.
  • Faith, love, hope . Arnold, Berlin 1949 (EA Berlin 1942).
  • Happy women . Avalun-Verlag, Hellerau 1929.
  • Comedies of marriage . Gurlitt, Berlin 1918.
  • Love stories . Dürr & Weber, Leipzig 1922.
  • Strange stories . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1910.
  • Between two women. A story of fate . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1926.
  • Between two men. A life poem . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1928.

Essays

  • Letter from a father of our time . In: PAN , Vol. 1. (1911), No. 11 of April 1, pp. 358-363.
  • German spirits and masters . Wolff, Berlin 1934.
  • The art in our time. A funeral speech to the German nation . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1911.
  • The Windmill (The Young Day; Vol. 7). German Poet Memorial Foundation, Hamburg 1929.
  • Figures and events . Reissner, Dresden 1924.
  • Wrapped around by the silver ribbon of the Danube. Design from old Austria . Gurlitt, Vienna 1951.

Poetry

Travel books

Novels

  • Halfway there. Novel . Wegweiser-Verlag, Berlin 1928 (EA Stuttgart 1921).
  • Katinka the fly. A contemporary novel . Wolff, Leipzig 1911 (inspired Waldemar Bonsels to his novel The Maya the Bee and Her Adventures ).
  • Man and meteor. Novel . Reissner, Dresden 1925.
  • Mungo and Bungalo are the two super monkeys. A cheerful novel . Verlag, Arnold, Berlin 1948.
  • Around the Rhine. Novel . Späth-Verlag, Berlin 1927.
  • We migratory birds. Novel . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1923.

Non-fiction

  • Anna Boleyn (The New Picture Books). Gurlitt Verlag Berlin 1920 (illustrated by Lovis Corinth ).
  • Fritz August Breuhaus De Groot. With Max Osborn , Hübsch, Berlin 1929.
  • Cicero . Orator, thinker and statesman . Gericke, Wiesbaden 1949 (former title: Cicero. The lawyer, speaker, thinker and statesman ).
  • The Feuerbach family. In portraits . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1924 (deals with Anselm , Henriette and Ludwig Feuerbach , among others ).
  • The Hohenzollern . Bruno Cassirer Verlag, Berlin 1928.
  • The last Wittelsbachers . Phaidon-Verlag, Vienna 1929.
  • The pre-Raphaelites . Verlag die Fähre, Düsseldorf 1946.
  • A Rhenish poet's life (Strombücher; BD. 16/17). Strom-Verlag, Bonn 1927.
  • Ferdinand Freiligrath . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1948.
  • Against Shaw . A polemic . Reissner, Dresden 1925.
  • Heinrich Heine . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1947.
  • Last pictures . Cassirer, Berlin 1915
  • Lovis Corinth. A painter of our time; his life's work . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1917.
  • Master of the early . Verlag die Fähre, Düsseldorf 1947.
  • New pictures. From Horace to Richard Wagner . Cassirer, Berlin 1912.
  • Shadows and photographs . Stuttgart 1926.
  • Selected silhouettes. 20 portraits of musicians . Econ, Düsseldorf 1965.
  • Silhouettes. A primer for those in need of culture in Germany . Cassirer, Berlin 1909. Numerous other issues. 1929 90th edition.
  • Schiller . A speech in his honor . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1910.
  • Schubert and the women . Drei-Eulen-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1946.
  • Sketches from Lithuania, Belarus and Courland; 60 stone drawings by Hermann Struck. Stilke, Berlin 1916

Plays

  • All about money. One piece . 4th edition Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1913 (EA Leipzig 1911).
  • All about love A comedy . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1922 (EA Leipzig 1910).
  • Anna Walewska. A tragedy in 5 acts . Sassenbach Publishing House, Berlin 1899.
  • Belinde. A love piece in five acts . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1913.
  • The end of the Marienburg . An act from history . Gurlitt, Berlin 1918.
  • The green house. A play (RUB; vol. 6215). Reclam, Leipzig 1925 (EA Meiningen 1921).
  • The exchange of women. A game in five acts . Wolff, Leipzig 1914.
  • The maze. A play . Gurlitt, Berlin 1918.
  • The morning to Kunersdorf . A bit of patriotism . Schöningh, Paderborn 1933 (EA Leipzig 1914).
  • The mosquito dance. A game . Engelhorn, Munich 1922.
  • The natural father. A bourgeois comedy . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1909.
  • The red moon. A showpiece . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1925.
  • The dream of the Rhine . Screenplay for the film Herbert Eulenberg and Herbert Selpin 1933.
  • The spy. A comedy in three acts . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1921.
  • The transition. A tragedy . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1922.
  • The island. A game . Gurlitt, Berlin 1918.
  • The night side. Three elevators . Gurlitt, Berlin 1918.
  • The world is sick. A piece of today . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1922 (EA Munich 1920).
  • Doge luck . A tragedy in five acts . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1910 (EA Berlin 1899).
  • Half a hero. Tragedy in five acts (RUB; vol. 4429). Reclam, Leipzig 1928.
  • Serious twists, four one-act plays . Wolff, Leipzig 1913.
  • Europe. A shepherd's piece from the Greek world of legends (between 1940 and 1944) . Verlag die Fähre, Düsseldorf 1949.
  • Dangerous love affair. Four one-act plays . Düsseldorf 1947.
  • Industry. A stage tour of our time . Eulenspiegel-Verlag, Kaiserswerth 1927.
  • Kassandra . A drama . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1913 (EA Berlin 1903).
  • Artist and Katilinarier. A play in four acts . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1911.
  • Passion. Tragedy in five acts (RUB; Vol. 4202). Reclam, Leipzig 1901.
  • Mightier than death. A game of suffering and joy . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1921.
  • Messalina . A conversation about marriage . Wolff, Leipzig 1915.
  • Munchausen . A German drama . Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1925 (EA Berlin 1900).
  • Knight Bluebeard . A fairy tale in five acts . Universal-Edition, Vienna 1920 (music by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek ).
  • Samson . A tragedy and a satyr play (modern stage). Reiss, Leipzig 1910.
  • Ulrich Prince of Waldeck. A play . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1916 (EA Berlin 1907).
  • Turning point. A play in five acts . Wolff, Leipzig 1914.

Work editions

  • Selected works in 5 volumes . J.Engelhorns Nachf. Stuttgart 1925
  1. Lyric and dramatic poems .
  2. Dramas from the youth .
  3. Dramas from manhood .
  4. Shadows and photographs .
  5. Narrative works .

As editor

  • A hiking book about Düsseldorf . Bagel, Düsseldorf 1910.
  • The budding life. From the estate of a young Jewish lawyer . 2nd edition Rowohlt, Leipzig 1911.
  • Self-portraits . Verlag Müller, Stuttgart 1948.

Journal articles (selection)

In: The Socialist Doctor

  • Votes against § 218. 7th year (1931), issue 4 (April), p. 102 digitized

literature

Essays

  • Sabine Brenner: "Heinrich Heine asked me to explain the following on his behalf". The 'Rhenish' poet Herbert Eulenberg and his literary role model Heinrich Heine . In: Bernd Kortländer (Ed.): "... and the world is so lovely and confused" . Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2004, ISBN 3-89528-465-3 , pp. 409-418.
  • Otto Brües:  Eulenberg, Herbert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 678 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Bernd Kortländer : Rhenish internationalism using the example of Herbert Eulenberg . In: Ariane Neuhaus-Koch and Gertrude Cepl-Kaufmann (eds.): Literary Findings (Contributions to the Modern History of Literature; Vol. 188). Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8253-1303-4 , pp. 256-274.
  • Bernd Kortländer : Citizen of the world on the Rhine. Herbert Eulenberg's life and work . In: Joseph Anton Kruse (Ed.): Rheinisches Dichterbuch. The literary Rhine . Heinrich Heine Institute, Düsseldorf 2001, pp. 75–98 (catalog for the exhibition of the same name).
  • Joseph A. Kruse: The writer Herbert Eulenberg (1876-1949). An "honorary citizen of the world" from Kaiserswerth on the Rhine . In: Geschichte im Westen , Vol. 18 (2003), pp. 116–128, ISSN  0930-3286 .
  • Michael Matzigkeit: Herbert Eulenberg: “ Siebenkäs ”, a hidden opposition . In: Wiltrud Niehl (Ed.): Music, theater, literature and film at the time of the Third Reich . Kulturamt, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-924331-13-8 , pp. 89-95.
  • Michael Matzigkeit: Herbert Eulenberg, the prototype of the “Rhenish” author . In: Ders .: Literature on the move. Writer and theater in Düsseldorf 1900–1933 . Verlag der Goethebuchhandlung, Düsseldorf 1990, pp. 57–82; 214-221, ISBN 3-924331-23-5 .

Monographs

  • Sabine Brenner (Ed.): "Ganges Europa, Heiliger Strom!" The literary Rhine 1900–1933 . Heinrich Heine Institute Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 2001 ISBN 978-3-7700-1141-4 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, March 11 to April 22, 2001)
  • Otto Brües : Herbert Eulenberg. Address in his memory on his 80th birthday on January 25, 1956 at the State Art Academy . Society of friends and supporters of the State Art Academy, Düsseldorf 1956.
  • Helgard Bruhns: Herbert Eulenberg. Drama, drama, effect . Academic VG, Frankfurt / M. 1974, ISBN 3-7997-0239-3 (also dissertation, TH Aachen 1974).
  • Rudi vom Endt : The poet Herbert Eulenberg, seen in a very human way . Hans Putty Verlag, Wuppertal-Elberfeld 1946.
  • Hedda Eulenberg : In the double happiness of art and life . Verlag die Fähre, Düsseldorf 1952.
  • Oskar Maurus Fontana : The playwrights of the Rhineland. Herbert Eulenberg and Wilhelm Schmidtbonn (poet and stage). Publishing house Dr. Filser, Augsburg 1921.
  • Julia Geiser: Herbert Eulenberg's "Münchhausen" and the literature around 1900 . GRIN Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-82439-2 .
  • Johann Gottfried Hagens: Herbert Eulenberg (The modern poet; Vol. 4). Borngräber, Berlin 1910.
  • Peter Hamecher : Herbert Eulenberg. An attempt at orientation . Rowohlt, Leipzig 1911.
  • Frank Thissen: "Noble medicine for everyday life". Herbert Eulenberg's Düsseldorf morning celebrations and the romantic reception around 1990 (Forum litterarum; vol. 16). Böhlau, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-412-06691-5 (also dissertation, University of Düsseldorf 1992).
  • Kurt Wolff : The playwright Herbert Eulenberg (communications of the literary historical society; Vol. 7). Publishing house Cohen, Bonn 1912.

Web links

Commons : Herbert Eulenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irene Markowitz, Anja Zimmermann: Herbert Eulenberg and the house of freedom with its garden in Kaiserswerth . In: Wieland Koenig: Düsseldorfer Gartenlust . Catalog of the city museum of the state capital Düsseldorf for the exhibition of the same name, Düsseldorf 1987, p. 57
  2. ↑ Jens Prüss , accessed on July 4, 2011
  3. ↑ in the 7th edition
  4. ↑ Two volumes, Leipzig 1972
  5. ↑ a b c Bernd Kortländer: Herbert Eulenberg , accessed on July 4, 2011
  6. ↑ in the 19th edition, Volume 6 from 1988
  7. ^ Edition Munich 1988
  8. ^ Hermann Struck, Herbert Eulenberg: Sketches from Lithuania, Belarus and Courland; 60 stone drawings . Stilke, Berlin 1916 ( dnb.de [accessed July 23, 2020]).
  9. ^ Treated in addition to Eulenberg Alfons Paquet , Wilhelm Schäfer (writer) a . a.
personal data
SURNAME Eulenberg, Herbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Siebenkäs; Lynkeus; The smiling spectator
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim am Rhein , Germany
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1949
Place of death Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth