Hermann Claudius

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Hermann Claudius, around 1938
Self-portrait 1957 (?)

Hermann Claudius (born October 19, 1878 in Langenfelde near Hamburg ; † September 8, 1980 in Grönwohld near Trittau , Stormarn district ) was a German poet and narrator .

Life

Hermann Claudius was a great-grandson of Matthias Claudius and worked as a primary school teacher from 1900 to 1934, interrupted from 1916 to 1918 by recruit training and his deployment as a gunner on the Western Front during World War I, where he met Hans Grimm . After taking early retirement as a result of a motorcycle accident that gradually led to deafness , he was a freelance writer .

In 1904 he married his first wife, with whom he remained married until her death in 1942 and with whom he had four daughters.

His folk works, often in Low German , revolve primarily around the contrast between big cities and nature , work and leisure . His early works can also be assigned to workers' poetry.

During the First World War he wrote nationalist poems enthusiastic about the war . In the Weimar Republic he was initially involved in the youth work of the SPD and in the social democratic trade unions, wrote social democratic songs and pieces. However, his political stance changed fundamentally in the further course. Claudius was now enthusiastic about National Socialism and published in the Volkischer Verlag Albert Langen-Georg Müller. He was a member of the Nazi-aligned, from Börries Baron Munchausen since the early 1930s, operated and against the section poetry of the Prussian Academy of Arts , founded the German poet academy (with Werner Beumelburg , Hans Grimm , Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer , Agnes Miegel , Hermann Stehr , Will Vesper and others), whose president after 1933 Hanns Johst became.

After the handover of power to the National Socialists and their German national allies, the liberal, left-wing and Jewish members of the Poetry Section in the Prussian Academy of the Arts such as Heinrich and Thomas Mann , Käthe Kollwitz , Leonhard Frank and Ricarda Huch were forced to resign. Hermann Claudius was one of the new members who took their place.

In October 1933 he was one of 88 German writers who signed the pledge of loyal allegiance to Adolf Hitler . He was a board member of the Eutin poets' circle founded in 1936 , one of the most famous groups of authors in National Socialist Germany. He also took part in the 1934 “Lippoldsberger Dichtertage” (Lippoldsberger Dichtertage) of conservative, ethnic and National Socialist authors founded by the völkisch writer Hans Grimm (“People without space”) . His publications under National Socialism ranged between pathetic piety and clear literary support for the Nazi regime, for example in a prayer for Adolf Hitler. It appeared in 1940 under the title Germany : "Lord God stand by the Führer / That his work is yours". Because of their propagandistic value, his texts were often included in mass media literature, including daily newspapers. For this z. B. The song of the new empire : "For this we march, I and you / And hundreds of thousands to it / And want to die for it". Claudius was represented with more than 50 texts in the Krakauer Zeitung, the leading Nazi organ in the Generalgouvernement .

In 1944 he married his second wife Gisa von Voigt.

After the end of National Socialism, Claudius again took part in the Lippoldsberg writers' meeting, which was re-founded by Hans Grimm in 1949. There were above all authors who were Nazi-polluted, such as Wilhelm Pleyer or Will Vesper , "who wanted to justify National Socialism in retrospect".

Although Claudius was still perceived and valued by the Low German home milieu, he was no longer received by serious literary criticism and literary studies, except in the context of “Literature in National Socialism”. Old and new texts hardly found any publishers. After 1945, he continued to receive positive recognition from right-wing media and authors. He is still accepted today in the right-wing extremist milieu.

In retrospect, Werner Bergengruen characterized Claudius individually, psychologically and in terms of internal literature as “a weak, fluffy, self-satisfied half-talent, a rhyming plumber with flat morals”. Criticism, which Claudius sees in the context of his public role in National Socialism and its propaganda significance, evaluates him as a "Nazi party poet" or as a "Nazi bard" and "old comrade".

Honors

During National Socialism Claudius received numerous literary prizes . In 1942 he was awarded the Lessing Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg . He was honored repeatedly even after 1945. In 1956 he received the Klaus Groth Prize from the Hamburg FVS Foundation, and in 1958 the Lornsen chain of the Schleswig-Holstein Heimatbund. In 1978 he was made an honorary member of the Heimatbund Lower Saxony .

In 1973, Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt congratulated him on his 95th birthday with a telegram statement that has been passed on without context: "Your extensive work is one of the best literary possessions of our people."

A primary school in Wasbek is named after Hermann Claudius . A secondary school named after him in Marl was closed due to school mergers in August 2016. In contrast to many other cases of school naming after writers exposed to Nazism, there were no name-critical discussions. At the Hamburg U-Bahn station Jungfernstieg there is a plaque with a Claudius poem, placed there in 1932/33.

Settings

Several of Claudius' poems were set to music. The best known is probably his song, when we stepped from his social-democratic phase, When we step from 'an Seit' ... The new time is moving with us (1914/15). This song is often sung at the end of SPD party conferences. His Christmas carol Do you remember how it happened? from 1939 can be found in the present Evangelical Hymnbook (No. 52). The first songbook of the Bundeswehr in 1958 included texts by other Nazi-polluted authors as well as those by Hermann Claudius.

Fonts (selection)

  • Mank Muern . Grotstadtleeder , 1912
  • Don't you hear the iron step Zeitgeichte , 1914
  • Light must come back. Songs , 1916
  • People! Faces and stories behind the philosophical curtain , 1916
  • Songs of the balance , 1920
  • Hamburger Kinnerbok , 1920
  • Light. Solstice. A solstice game , 1921
  • Bridge in time. Self-selection from my time poems since 1914 , 1922
  • Krup Unner. Kinnerriemels , 1923
  • The silver ship. The story of a longing , 1923
  • Bodderlicker, sett di! Kinnerriemels , 1924
  • Stub. En Vertelln , 1925
  • Homecoming. Songs of God, Marriage and Poverty , 1925
  • Human will. Dramatic game for large movement speaking choir including the song around the earth for speaking choir , 1926
  • Vorsmack. Oles un Nies , 1926
  • Master Bertram van Mynden, painter from Hamburg. A Hanseatic diary practically set in around 1400 , 1927
  • Rumpelstiltskin. A fairy tale game , 1928
  • The eternal gate. New poems , 1928
  • The vagabond. A summer night play (music by Friedrich Weigmann), 1928
  • Greetings! 2 choruses for youth consecrations “Greetings!” And “Come!” , 1929
  • The Wonderful Bird , 1934
  • Armantje. Stories from my childhood , 1934
  • That your heart be firm. New poems , 1934
  • Speeldeel for boys and kids. Dre Speelstücke , 1936
  • And God and the world continue to grow. New poems , 1936
  • Master Bertram van Mynden. Painter from Hamburg , 1937
  • My cousin Emil and other stories , 1938
  • The sun rises every morning. New poems , 1938
  • When we step. Poems from the "Songs of the Unruh" and the "Ewigen Toren" , 1939
  • At home. New poems , 1940
  • Eschenhuser Elegy , 1942
  • Aldebaran. Sonnets , 1944

Anthologies

  • Meine Laterna magica , 1955 (Selected poems, compiled by Carl Budich )

literature

  • Norbert Fischer : Claudius, Hermann . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 84-85 .
  • Liselotte Greife: And yet melody. For the 125th birthday of the poet Hermann Claudius. In: Between Elbe and Weser , Vol. 22 (2003), pp. 2–3
  • Numbers Numbers: Hermann Claudius. Langen / Müller, Munich 1938
  • Claus Schuppenhauer: Hermann Claudius: about a great Low German poet. In: Quickborn, Vol. 89 (1999), pp. 28-64
  • Joachim Wergin: Hermann Claudius died twenty years ago. In: Yearbook of the Alster Association , Vol. 75 (2001), pp. 11-14

Web links

Commons : Hermann Claudius  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Loewy: Literature under the swastika: The Third Reich and its poetry. A documentation , Europ. Verl. Anst., 1977, p. 314.
  2. hamburgerpersoenlichkeit.de .
  3. a b vimu.info .
  4. ^ Helmuth Kiesel: History of literary modernity. Language, Aesthetics, Poetry in the Twentieth Century , Munich 2004, p. 239. See hermann-claudius.de ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hermann-claudius.de
  5. Joseph Wulf, Literature and Poetry in the Third Reich , Sigbert Mohn Gütersloh 1963, p. 96, with reference to the source Schleswig-Holsteinische Zeitung of October 26, 1933 , and Ernst Klee : Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 98.
  6. Uwe Danker, Astrid Schwabe: Schleswig-Holstein and National Socialism. Neumünster 2005, p. 88.
  7. a b c Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 98; Heinrich Schleichert (ed.), Lippoldsberg [location of the Hans Grimm Archive], Lippoldsberg 1972, with photos by Hermann Claudius.
  8. a b Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 99.
  9. ^ Siegener Zeitung, January 29, 1938.
  10. Alexander Reck: Correspondence between Paul Ernst and Will Vesper, 1919-1933 . Würzburg 2003, p. 8.
  11. ^ Natalie Krentz: Hans Grimm. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
  12. See e.g. B .: Heinrich Schleichert (Ed.): Lippoldsberg . Klosterhaus-Verlag, Lippoldsberg 1972, pp. 29–31. Hans Friedrich Blunck : Light on the reins. Life story . 1. Vol., Kessler-Verlag, Mannheim 1953, pp. 200, 202, 218, 329, 331. ders .: Impassable times. Life story . 2nd volume, Kessler-Verlag, Mannheim 1952, pp. 165, 196. dr-hk .: The soldier and his home. A memorial sheet for Hermann Claudius . In: German soldiers newspaper , No. 47, November 19, 1953, p. 7. Reinhard Pozorny: Hermann Claudius . In: Klüter Blätter , Berg / Starnberger See. 28 (1977), H. 11. p. 39/40; Brigitte Pohl: Hermann Claudius - 100 years. For his birthday on October 24th . In: German soldiers newspaper , October 1978. Karl Götz: "I like German". Stories of the splendor and misery of our language . Hohenstaufen-Verlag, Berg am Starnberger See 1981, pp. 145–148.
  13. ^ Deutscheslied.com accessed May 1, 2011.
  14. Jean Amery : Beyond Guilt and Atonement . Coping attempts of an overwhelmed . Stuttgart 1977, p. 121f.
  15. Susann Witt-Stahl : "Yes, we are masters of the world". Nazi traces in the songbook of the Bundeswehr , part I. In: Neue Musikzeitung , 50 (2001), No. 10.
  16. hermann-claudius.de ( Memento of the original from October 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hermann-claudius.de
  17. Honorary members in the Heimatbund Lower Saxony ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 6, 2010.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heimatbund-niedersachsen.de
  18. As evidenced by a Hermann Claudius estate HP ( hermann-claudius.de ( Memento of the original from October 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this reference. ) and with the following reference to the source: Bremer Nachrichten, October 25, 1973. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hermann-claudius.de
  19. Hermann Claudius School, Wasbek
  20. Local compass , accessed on May 18, 2017
  21. See: Eichenpfahl at the Jungfernstieg underground station or: “The Seven Jungfern” , accessed on May 18, 2017
  22. The song does not come from the year 1916, as is often stated by Claudius himself: The poem was already published in June 1914 in the monthly supplement Die Arbeitende Jugend  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was created automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Hamburger Echo published, Michael Englert wrote the melody in the spring of 1915 (see the main article and the sources there).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hermann-claudius.de  
  23. Susann Witt-Stahl , "Yes, we are masters of the world". Traces of Nazi Germany in the Bundeswehr songbook, Part I, in: Neue Musikzeitung, 50 (2001), No. 10.