Hermann Broch

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Hermann Broch, 1909

Hermann Broch (born November 1, 1886 in Vienna , † May 30, 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut ) was an Austrian writer . With the novel trilogy Die Schlafwandler on the decline of values and personality, he wrote one of the most important works of the European modern novel in the early 1930s . During his emigration Broch dealt with political issues such as human rights, totalitarianism and economism , which he called “total economy”. He was posthumously proposed for the Nobel Prize for Literature .

Life

Hermann Broch, son of Josef Broch (1852–1933) and Johanna (1863–1942; née Schnabel), studied textile technology at the Technical University in Vienna as well as textile engineering in Mulhouse after graduating from high school at the Schottenbastei . Then in 1907 he joined his father's textile factory in Teesdorf near Vienna. In 1909 he converted from Judaism to Catholicism and married Franziska von Rothermann; the marriage was divorced in 1923. After the factory was sold (1927) he studied mathematics , philosophy and physics at the University of Vienna and then became a freelance writer .

After the " Anschluss " to the National Socialist German Reich, he was imprisoned on March 13, 1938 by self-appointed law enforcement officers for 18 days in the Bad Aussee district prison. James Joyce and Stephen Hudson helped get a visa for Great Britain, which Broch arrived on July 24th. With the support of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein , he was able to emigrate to the USA . He arrived in New York on October 9, 1938.

In 1949 Hermann Broch and the painter Annemarie Meier-Graefe married.

plant

His work is characterized by the introduction of new stylistic elements (e.g. inner monologue ) as well as by the reflection of scientific knowledge, research or dreams in his work. He dealt u. a. intensely with James Joyce , on whom he wrote the essay James Joyce and the Present (1935).

In the romantic trilogy Die Schlafwandler (1930/32) he portrayed the decay of values and personality. Broch shows typical reactions to the loss of religion and meaning in modern society . In the first part of the trilogy (Pasenow or the romanticism) the romantic-nostalgic view (with denial of factual reality) is designed; in the second part (Esch or the anarchy) the hero staggers disoriented from one value system to another without being able to find a support for his religious longings; the third part (Huguenau or the objectivity) shows an objective-cynical behavior: all value systems are subordinated to the highest maxim of commercial profit. The book is one of the most important works of the European modern novel and is often placed in a row with Joyce ' Ulysses , Heinrich Manns Kaiserreich-Trilogie, Thomas Manns Zauberberg , Döblins Berlin Alexanderplatz , Musils Mann ohnehaben , Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer and Gides Les Faux -monnayeurs . In its wealth of allusions, its complexity and poetic symbolic strength, it is always a challenge for the performers. While the novel, which is Broch's most successful and internationally most popular work, has long been considered a typical book of classical modernism , more recent research is increasingly emphasizing the echoes of postmodern writing styles.

Broch had this first work followed by a smaller novel entitled The Unknown Size (1933). There questions of the rational coping with life in an irrational world are discussed, whereby the upheavals in theoretical physics of the 1920s and new findings in mathematics (Broch was familiar with both areas of knowledge) play a major role.

Broch's dramas also belong to the works of the early 1930s : the tragedy The Atonement (social conflicts during the Weimar Republic ) and the comedy Out of thin air or The Business of Baron Laborde . Both portray the tragic and comic aspects of a society that has come under the dominance of economic powers. Broch's lyrical work from the 1930s, seen in connection with contemporary natural poetry , has so far been largely ignored.

In the so-called mountain novel (the title proposed by Broch: Demeter or the Enchantment ), which was never fully completed , Broch described the incursion of an irrational power into an Alpine mountain village, which led to ritual murder and mass madness . The book, the first version of which was completed at the end of 1935, is an example of the symbolic- parabolic anti-fascist novel of the thirties. In addition to the political level, the book also contains a mythical-religious level. “Mother Gisson”, the counter figure to the dictatorial “Marius Ratti”, wears Demeter trains.

Broch had interrupted work on the novel in 1936/37 to write his League of Nations resolution . He wanted to call on the League of Nations to stand up for the defense of human dignity and human rights in order to put a stop to the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin. Broch tried to get a number of humanitarian organizations to support the resolution, but failed. In his work on international human rights while in exile in America, he resorted to this resolution, which he had not published at the time.

Broch wrote a total of three versions of the mountain novel. The first, the rough version, was completed in 1935. Heinrich Eduard Jacob (1889–1967) had taken over the typescript from Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) on his way to emigration in July 1939 in London and took it with him to New York . On August 16, 1939, Jacob handed the manuscript to Broch. The fragment of the second version of the novel, on which the author had worked with interruptions from 1936 to 1938, was given to Frank Thiess before Broch fled Austria. In the summer of 1938, Thiess sent it via Switzerland to Broch, who was then living for two months with his translators Edwin and Willa Muir in St. Andrews / Scotland . Eventually Broch took up work on the subject again in 1951, but was unable to finish it. The novel was first published in 1953 by Felix Stössinger - philologically highly contestable - using these three versions, of which Broch had discarded the first two, as volume 4 of the collected works (Rhein-Verlag Zurich) from the estate, title Der Versucher . The first version appeared in 1967 under the title The Enchantment . She gave Barbara Frischmuth the inspiration for her Demeter trilogy .

In 1937 the first version of the novella of the later Virgil novel with the title The Homecoming of Virgil was written (as a radio broadcast ) . When Broch was arrested in March 1938, he was already working on the third version of this novella under the working title Tale of Death . It was not until he was in exile in America that he worked out the project for an extensive novel ( The Death of Virgil , 1945). Broch drew a "parallel between the cultural upheaval of the Augustan era and its present". As then, Broch said, an old culture was coming to an end, and the contours of a new one (with a recurring religious center) were beginning to emerge. In the monologues of the dying Virgil, he reckons with the culture of the declining epoch . His dream visions float through images that strengthen his hope for the beginning of a new human era. As far as the style of the book is concerned, scenes of rough realism (description of the "Elendsgasse") alternate with political discussions (conversation with Emperor Augustus ) and hymn-lyrical passages ( elegies and dream sequences). The Gestapo detention threatened Broch's very existence. It was a state of affairs, he wrote, “which compelled me more compellingly and compellingly to prepare for death, to prepare for death privately, so to speak. The work on Virgil developed into one of these ... "

Above all, it was an inner psychological work that Broch had to do in order to cope with the threats to life that he had not been able to avert - even with the help of a long psychoanalysis . Psychological reflections on this overwhelming work have tried to trace the paths of this intrapsychic work, which ultimately lead to the individuation of the protagonist ( Aniela Jaffé ). The psychoanalyst Gerhard Dahl also describes a process of inner maturation when Broch in his novel depicts the breakdown of the defense against pregenital fears (the “Elendsgasse” as a symbol of archaic fears in the primal scene ), a breakdown at the same time as the protagonist Virgil Enables a development process “step by step”. At the end of the novel, death no longer has to be experienced as an unreasonable offense to narcissism , but can be fantasized as a happy union with the All-Mother (The Homecoming).

In exile in America, Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein were friends. Both encouraged Broch to pursue the work he had already begun in Austria on a mass psychology (compare his theory of mass delusions ). This large work remained fragmentary and was only published from his estate after his death. During the period of emigration Broch dealt intensively with questions of democracy , totalitarianism, “total economy” (see economism ) and international human rights, topics on which he wrote essays that are still relevant today.

The book Hofmannsthal und seine Zeit, on which he wrote mainly in 1947 and 1948, is one of his brilliant essays . In it he analyzes the culture of old Austria in the late 19th century, the time of liberalism and Viennese modernism , in which he coined the term “happy apocalypse ”. Hofmannsthal's life and work are outlined against the background of this declining culture. Broch compares Hofmannsthal's work with that of Karl Kraus and makes it clear that he sympathizes with the absolute satire of Kraus.

Shortly before his death, his last novel, The Guiltless , appeared in 1950 . In this novel in eleven stories , he takes a critical look at the decades between 1913 and 1933 in Germany. The book contains the legendary story of the maid Zerlina, whom Hannah Arendt called one of the most beautiful love stories in world literature when the novel was published. Performed as a one-act play in Paris since 1986 with Jeanne Moreau in the lead role, the story achieved world fame.

reception

In the year of his death, Broch was suggested for the Nobel Prize by some friends and literary societies . The numerous intellectuals who valued Broch's work and have written about him include Maurice Blanchot , Erich von Kahler , Hannah Arendt , George Steiner , Villy Sørensen , Milan Kundera , Elias Canetti . In Thomas Bernhard's novel Eradication , Broch's Esch or The Anarchy is one of five books that the narrator recommends to his pupil.

Memorial plaque for Hermann Broch

honors and awards

  • 1942: Literature Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
  • 1941: Guggenheim Prize
  • 1942 and 1944: Rockefeller Foundation Prize at Princeton University
  • 1962: Unveiling of a memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Vienna 1, Franz-Josefs-Kai 37 (April 26th)
  • 1970: Hermann-Broch-Gasse was named after him in Vienna- Meidling (12th district) .

Total expenditure

Hermann Broch: Collected Works . 10 volumes, Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1952–1961.

  • GW 1: Poems, Zurich 1953, ed. and a. by Erich von Kahler
  • GW 2: The sleepwalkers, Zurich 1952.
  • GW 3: The Death of Virgil, Zurich 1952.
  • GW 4: Der Versucher, Zurich 1953, ed. from the estate and included. by Felix Stössinger
  • GW 5: The guiltless, Zurich 1954, incl. by Hermann J. Weigand
  • GW 6: Densifying and recognizing. Essays I, Zurich 1955, ed. and a. by Hannah Arendt
  • GW 7: Recognize and act. Essays II, ed. by Hannah Arendt
  • GW 8: Letters, Zurich 1957, ed. and a. by Robert Pick
  • GW 9: mass psychology. Writings from the estate, Zurich 1959, ed. and a. by Wolfgang Rothe
  • GW 10: The unknown quantity. Early and medium essays. Letters to Willa Muir, Zurich 1961, ed. and a. from Ernst Schönwiese (letters to Willa Muir: Eric W. Herd)

Hermann Broch, annotated work edition , ed. by Paul Michael Lützeler . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1974–1981.

Radio play adaptations

See also

literature

Correspondence

  • Jeffrey B. Berlin : The unpublished correspondence between Antoinette von Kahler and Hermann Broch taking into account some unpublished letters from Richard Beer-Hofmann, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. In: Modern Austrian Literature. Journal of the International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association , Vol. 27, No. 2, 1994. Riverside, CA (USA) 1994, pp. 39-76. ISSN  0026-7503
  • Hannah Arendt - Hermann Broch. Correspondence 1946–1951 . Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 1996 (2nd edition: 2000) ISBN 3-633-54113-6 (only a few Arendt letters have survived).
  • Hermann Broch - Letters about Germany 1945–1949. The correspondence with Volkmar von Zühlsdorff. Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, ISBN 3-518-02587-2 .
  • Hermann Broch: "Women's Stories". The letters to Paul Federn 1939–1949. Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 3-518-41890-4 .
  • Hermann Broch - Ruth North. Transatlantic correspondence. Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-518-41675-8 .
  • Hermann Broch - Daniel Brody . Correspondence 1930–1951 . Edited by Bertold Hack and Marietta Kleiss. With a preliminary remark by Herbert G. Göpfert and a brochure bibliography by Klaus W. Jonas, Frankfurt a. M. 1971, ISBN 3-7657-0387-7 .
  • Hermann Broch - Annemarie Meier-Graefe. Death in exile. Correspondence 1950–51. Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 2001, ISBN 3-518-41218-3 .
  • Prodigal Son? Hermann Broch's correspondence with Armand . Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-42192-5 .
  • Hermann Broch - Frank Thiess. Correspondence 1929–1938, 1948–1951 . Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3269-0 .

Secondary literature

  • Elena Agazzi, Guglielmo Gabbiadini and Paul Michael Lützeler (eds.): Hermann Broch's Virgil novel: literary intertext and cultural constellation . Tübingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95809-325-6 .
  • Hannah Arendt: Hermann Broch. In: people in dark times . Essays including texts 1955–1975, edited by Ursula Ludz, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-492-23355-4 (original version: Men in Dark Times , New York 1968), first published in 1955 as an introduction to the collected works.
  • Graham Bartram, Sarah McGaughey, Galin Tihanov (Eds.): A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch . Rochester, NY 2019. ISBN 978-1-57113-541-4 .
  • Fransisco Budi Hardiman: The rule of equals. Mass and totalitarian rule. A critical review of the texts by Georg Simmel , Hermann Broch, Elias Canetti and Hannah Arendt. Frankfurt a. M. u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-631-37929-3 (Diss.phil., Munich 2001).
  • Gerhard Dahl : Hermann Broch: "The Death of Virgil". A psychoanalytic study. In: J. Cremerius: Psychoanalytische Textinterpretation. Hamburg 1974.
  • Stephen D. Dowden (Ed.): Hermann Broch. Literature, Philosophy, Politics . The Yale Broch Symposium 1986. Columbia, SC (USA) 1988, ISBN 0-938100-50-5 .
  • Manfred Durzak: Hermann Broch. Reality books for Germanists, department of literary history. Stuttgart 1967.
  • Thomas Eicher, Paul M. Lützeler, Hartmut Steinecke (eds.): Hermann Broch. Politics, Human Rights - and Literature? Oberhausen (Rhld) 2005, ISBN 3-89896-236-9 .
  • Patrick Eiden: “The empire will be limitless.” Imperial design in Hermann Broch's “The Death of Virgil”. In: Uwe Hebekus / Ingo Stöckmann (ed.): The sovereignty of literature. On the totalitarianism of Classical Modernism 1900–1933. Munich u. Paderborn 2008, pp. 259-287, ISBN 978-3-7705-4104-1 .
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'Ancient and modern in Hermann Broch's "Death of Virgil". About poetry and science, utopia and ideology. Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-8233-5033-1 .
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'New myth or game of characters? Hermann Broch's literary aesthetic engagement with James Joyce. ' In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 72.3 (1998), pp. 512-530.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'A Farewell to Art. Poetic Reflection in Broch's "The Death of Virgil". In: Hermann Broch. Visionary in Exile. The 2001 Yale Symposium. Edited by Paul Michael Lützeler. Rochester 2003. ISBN 1-57113-272-4 , pp. 187-200.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'Poetry versus Empire in Broch's "Death of Virgil".' In: Hermann Broch - Politics, Human Rights and Literature? Edited by Thomas Eicher, Paul Michael Lützeler, Hartmut Steinecke. Oberhausen 2005. ISBN 3-89896-236-9 , pp. 255-270.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'Mass medium: Hermann Broch and the film.' In: Hermann Broch and the arts. Edited by Alice Staskova et al. Paul Michael Lützeler. Berlin-New York 2009. ISBN 978-3-11-020955-6 , pp. 75-92.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'The Death of Virgil.' In: Hermann Broch Handbook. Edited by Michael Kessler u. Paul Michael Lützeler. Berlin-Boston 2016. ISBN 978-3-11-0200713 , pp. 167-197.
  • Jürgen Heizmann: 'Late style. Hermann Broch's "The Death of Virgil" and James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake". In: Hermann Broch's Virgil novel. Literary intertext and cultural constellation. Tübingen 2016. ISBN 978-3-95809-325-6 , pp. 107–121.
  • Jürgen Heizmann, Bernhard Fetz, Paul Michael Lützeler (Eds.): 'Hermann Broch and the Economy.' Wuppertal 2018. ISBN 978-3-938375-74-7 .
  • Daniel Hoffmann : Broch, Hermann. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature. Edited by Andreas B. Kilcher, Stuttgart 2000, pp. 88-90 ISBN 3-476-01682-X (as TB 2003, ISBN 3-518-45529-X ).
  • Michael Kessler, Paul Michael Lützeler (Eds.): Hermann Broch. The poetic work. Tübingen 1987, ISBN 3-923721-35-8 .
  • Michael Kessler with the collaboration of Marianne Gruber, Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer, Christine Mondon and Friedrich Vollhardt: Hermann Broch. New studies. Festschrift for Paul Michael Lützeler on his 60th birthday. Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-86057-161-3 .
  • Michael Kessler, Paul Michael Lützeler (Eds.): Hermann Broch Handbook . Berlin u. Boston 2015. ISBN 978-3-11-029556-6 .
  • Thomas Koebner : Herrmann Broch: Life and Work. Bern u. Munich 1965.
  • Rudolf Koester: Heads of the 20th Century Volume 109. Hermann Broch. Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-7678-0687-8 .
  • Carsten Könneker : Hermann Broch's reception of modern physics. Quantum Mechanics and “Unknown Quantity”. In: Journal for German Philology, special issue 1999, pp. 205–239.
  • Carsten Könneker : Modern Science and Modern Poetry. Hermann Broch's contribution to the settlement of the "basic crisis" of mathematics. In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft and Geistesgeschichte, Vol. 73, No. 2, 1999, pp. 319–351.
  • Paul Michael Lützeler . Hermann Broch - Ethics and Politics. Munich 1972, ISBN 3-538-07806-8 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler. Hermann Broch. A biography. Frankfurt a. M. 1985, ISBN 3-518-03572-X .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler (Ed.): Hermann Broch. A reader. Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-04427-3 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler, Michael Kessler (Ed.): Broch's theoretical work. Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-38590-9 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler (Ed.): Hermann Broch - The Teesdorfer Diary for Ea von Allesch. Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-40674-4 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler: The entropy of humans. Studies on the work of Hermann Broch. Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1896-6 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler (editor): Hermann Broch 1886–1951. A chronicle . Marbacher Magazin 94/2001. Marbach am Neckar 2001, ISBN 3-933679-44-3 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler, Culture Break and Faith Crisis. Broch's “Sleepwalker” and Grünewald's “Isenheimer Altar”. Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-7720-2529-3 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler (Ed.): Friendship in Exile: Thomas Mann and Hermann Broch. Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-465-03312-4 .
  • Paul Michael Lützeler: Hermann Broch and the Modern. Novel, human rights, biography . Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7705-5101-9 .
  • Ruth Norden: Transatlantic Correspondence. Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-41675-8 .
  • Barbara Picht: Forced way out. Hermann Broch, Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Kantorowicz in Exile in Princeton. Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-20794-7
  • Monika Ritzer: Hermann Broch and the cultural crisis in the early 20th century . Stuttgart: 1988.
  • Giulio Schiavoni: Hermann Broch. Florence 1980.
  • Hartmut Sommer: The Happy Apocalypse - Hermann Broch and the Viennese Bohème. In: Revolte und Waldgang - The poet philosophers of the 20th century , Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-650-22170-4 .
  • Christian H. Stifter: Longing for knowledge and for spirituality. Hermann Broch and the science-centered popular education in Vienna. In: Hermann Broch. A committed man between literature and politics. Edited by the Austrian League for Human Rights. Innsbruck, Vienna a. Bozen 2004, pp. 83-104.
  • Egon Vietta : Hermann Broch. In memoriam. In: The month. An international magazine. Volume 3, issue 36, Berlin-Dahlem 1951, pp. 616-629.
  • Friedrich Vollhardt : Hermann Broch's historical position. Studies of early philosophical work and the trilogy of novels "Die Schlafwandler" (1914–1932) . Tuebingen 1986.

Entries in reference books

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b By “total economy” Broch understood the dominance of economic thought and action, which is called “ economism ” in today's parlance : “The modern human brain is economically contaminated”. Compare: Theory of mass consciousness. 1939 to 1948. Part 3, Chapter 5.8. ISBN 3-518-37002-2 ("Total economy and total slavery").
  2. ^ Munzinger-Archiv GmbH, Ravensburg: Hermann Broch - Munzinger Biographie. Retrieved February 20, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors, Vol. 4, 1996, pp. 73–85, p. 73.
  4. ^ Paul Michael Lützeler (arr.): Hermann Broch 1886–1951. Eine Chronik (Marbacher Magazin 94/2001), ISBN 3-933679-44-3 , p. 52.
  5. ^ Lützeler: Hermann Broch. A Chronicle , p. 53.
  6. ^ Lützeler: Hermann Broch. A Chronicle , p. 54.
  7. ↑ Broch's letters to Zweig on July 27 and August 18, 1939 and to Wolfgang Sauerländer on July 28, 1939.
  8. ↑ Walter Weiss , in: Handbook of German-language contemporary literature since 1945. Munich 1990, p. 105.
  9. ^ Paul Michael Lützeler, in: Die Zeit . Hamburg 2001, No. 22.
  10. ↑ Hermann Broch: Letters . Ed. U. a. v. Robert Pick, Zurich 1957.
  11. ↑ Aniela Jaffé : Hermann Broch. The death of Virgil. A contribution to the problem of individuation. In: Studies on analytical psychology C. G. Jungs. Volume 2. Zurich 1955.
  12. ↑ Gerhard Dahl : Hermann Broch "The Death of Virgil". A psychoanalytic study. In: J. Cremerius: Psychoanalytische Textinterpretation. Hamburg 1974.
  13. ↑ Broch. On the double ladder . In: Der Spiegel, April 27, 1960.
  14. ↑ See Rudolf Flotzinger : Happy Apocalypse. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Broch, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1951
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut , United States