Hermann Gerstner

Hermann Gerstner (born January 6, 1903 in Würzburg , † August 17, 1993 in Grünwald near Munich ) was a German writer and librarian .

Life

Origin and studies

Hermann Gerstner was born as the youngest of four children of Michael Gerstner, the chief technical inspector and his wife Berta, born at the Würzburg State Building Authority as a master builder. Flößa was born in Würzburg, Randersackerer Straße 24. In addition to his sister Lina, who was twelve years older than him, he had two brothers, Valentin and August, who were ten and eleven years older, respectively. His parents lived in a five-room apartment in one of the three apartment buildings they built between Randersackerer and Heidingsfelder Strasse (today's Friedrich-Spee-Strasse).

Gerstner attended the Schiller elementary school from 1909 to 1913 and then until 1922 the old grammar school in his hometown. Gerstner, who grew up sheltered in a middle-class family, experienced his first break into the previous idyll with the death of his brother Valentin, who died on November 30, 1916 in a field hospital on the western front .

His father came from Rimpar , a village not far north of Würzburg, where the masonry trade was traditionally widespread. Both his father and his uncle, who was the district master builder in Marktheidenfeld , followed this tradition. His brother August also became a qualified engineer and, like his father, worked at the Würzburg State Building Office. Gerstner, however, with a remarkable self-confidence, developed aesthetic and above all literary ambitions early on, so that he decided to study philosophy , German , history and geography at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg and later on for the winter semester of 1923 / 24 enrolled at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In Munich he made connections with Wilhelm Weigand and Michael Georg Conrad , who also came from Mainfranken . For his final exam he chose the topic "The experience in the poetry of Julius Grosse ", which was also part of his doctorate on February 24, 1928. phil. was the basis.

Professional beginnings and development

As a student trainee, Gerstner completed his practical training at the secondary school in Würzburg. During this time, the Würzburg Society for Literature and Performing Arts created the “Young People's Circle”, whose founding members included Ludwig Friedrich Barthel , Wilhelm Grimm, Alo Heuler, Rudolf Ibel and Oskar Kloeffel. At the age of 26 he passed his assessor exam. However, there was no prospect of soon taking over the civil service for a teaching position, so that Gerstner initially devoted himself to his dissertation and in 1928 took up a private teaching position at the Ursuline Realgymnasium for girls in Berlin . There he taught German, history, geography and Latin. In addition, Gerstner wrote theater reviews for foreign newspapers. A first circle of poems with the title "Nordic Landscape" was created. He used his free time to write manuscripts that were never published. However, a volume of short stories “Von Liebenden und other poor Teufeln” appeared in 1930 in the Würzburg Amend-Verlag, followed in 1932 by the cycle of poems “Buddha-Legende”; Works that went almost unnoticed.

In Berlin, Gerstner met Rudo Ritter , the composer from Würzburg and the brother of Ufa film director Karl Ritter who worked as a screenwriter for a living . In 1928 Gerstner also met 17-year-old Ingeborg Ruegenberg, who attended Obersekunda as a student. The daughter of a German businessman, who was born in St. Petersburg and came to Berlin at the end of the First World War, later became his wife.

In 1929 he wrote his first novel manuscript "First Creature", which remained unpublished. In the same year Gerstner undertook a trip to Scandinavia, which took him to Denmark , Sweden and Norway . The following year he and his girlfriend Inge spent a holiday together on the Curonian Spit .

Librarian at the Bavarian State Library

In 1931 Gerstner applied for the Bavarian library service in Munich, as his teaching work did not satisfy him in the long run. He performed the practical part of his training as a library assistant from July 15, 1931 to spring 1932 at the University Library of Würzburg . In the summer semester of 1931 he attended a seminar on applied dramaturgy.

During this time, Gerstner produced the texts for the photo book "Streifzug durch Alt-Würzburg" published by his childhood friend Paul Friede's, published in 1933 by the publishing house of the university printing company CJ Becker, Würzburg.

In the spring of 1932 he continued his training at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and completed this subject examination with a grade of 1. On July 15, 1932, he was appointed library assessor as a non-official. In the meantime, his girlfriend Ingeborg had continued her studies in dentistry, which she had started in Berlin, also in Munich and completed her state and doctoral exams in 1935. The marriage took place on June 29, 1935 in Berlin, the new home of the in-laws. The appointment as scheduled state librarian took place on October 1, 1936. This set Gerstner's professional career, which was to provide him with the economic basis for his intended writing activity.

Politically, Gerstner had neither committed nor engaged until the National Socialists came to power. On May 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP (membership no. 1925875) like many of the so-called March fallen , but without assuming any partisan functions.

From 1934, all writers who wanted to publish had to be members of the relevant state cultural organizations. He therefore joined the Reich Association of German Stage Writers and Stage Composers in January 1934 (membership no. 1718). In September 1934 he was registered in the Reichsschrifttumskammer , student body for stage writers. Gerstner was also a member of the Reich Association of German Civil Servants (since July 1934), the Association of German Librarians (from 1936), the NSV (since 1935) and the Reich Air Protection Association (from 1937). He was appointed to the advisory board for literature and librarianship on December 1, 1936. Finally, from August 31, 1939, he was editor-in-chief for cultural policy at the Reich Association of the German Press (membership no. 13810).

As a librarian in World War II

In 1938 Gerstner completed a two-month training in a communications unit of the Wehrmacht . In March 1939 he was used for the repatriation and the associated military reoccupation of the Sudetenland . Immediately afterwards, the Gerstner couple went on a major holiday trip, which took them via Naples , Taormina and Malta to North Africa , where, in addition to Tripoli, they also visited the Ghadames oasis . A trip to Italy with stops in Pompeii , Rome , Florence and Venice followed in April 1939.

On August 25, 1939, Gerstner was drafted into news department 7 in Munich. He experienced the beginning of the Second World War with his news unit in Jülich before taking part in the campaign in the west that began on May 10, 1940 . From November 6, 1940, he worked for the library protection department in the rank of war administrator in Paris . Here he made a list of around 2500 manuscripts and prints that came from Germany and should be reclaimed from France . However, the return project was not carried out.

On February 27, 1942, Gerstner was ordered to Serbia and took over as head of the army library in Belgrade , where he remained until the Wehrmacht withdrew in autumn 1944. Here he was u. a. dealt with the removal of the holdings of the Geca Kon publishing house after the Germans had murdered the Jewish publisher Géza Kohn , and the sending of specimen copies to German libraries. The award for services to the Bulgarian Army and the War Museum in Sofia in 1944 indicates that Gerstner also arranged for book deliveries to be made to Bulgaria , an ally of Germany . In 1943 he brokered the sale of books from the Royal Serbian Academy of Sciences to the National Library in Vienna . His possible knowledge of the gassing of over 5,000 Jews in the Semlin camp, not far from Belgrade, and a collaboration with the " Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg ", as indicated in the literature (Dannhauer / Kellner), must remain speculation. As a captain and Army War Councilor of the Reserve, he was transferred to the Army Library in Liegnitz in January 1945, based in Munich.

His first daughter Doris was born in January 1940. His father died in Würzburg in 1943. The incapacitated mother, who was housed in a home, died shortly afterwards. His wife had left her apartment at the end of 1944, and the daughter had previously been placed in a sanatorium, so that they survived the destruction of their Munich home by an Allied air bombardment on January 7, 1945 unscathed. Gerstner's parental home and his parents' two apartment buildings suffered the same fate as his Munich apartment in the bombing of Würzburg on March 16, 1945 .

After the war

After his release from the Wehrmacht on April 28, 1945, Gerstner was not taken prisoner of war, but was able to move into an attic apartment again with his wife and child in Grünwald. In September 1945 the second daughter Astrid was born. Gerstner decided to start over as a writer: “I will write, write, write to get rid of the burden. No, not just the burden. Also write to show that there have always been and still are people who have a human face even in bloody times. ” However, he was initially only able to implement this wish to a limited extent, since on November 1, 1945 he was officially suspended from duty and from the Allies were banned from writing for two years.

As part of the denazification process , he was classified as a “ fellow traveler ” by the competent court in May 1948 .

The prescribed professional and journalistic abstinence plunged Gerstner into a deeply depressed phase. Working as a lecturer at the Munich publishing house Carl Röhrig did not satisfy him. It was not until June 30, 1952, that Gerstner was returned to the Bavarian civil service as a librarian, initially at the Bamberg State Library and, from 1954, back in Munich. He found the task assigned to him as signing chief to be stupid punitive service.

In 1953 Gerstner took his own Volkswagen for the first time to Italy and traveled to the Tyrrhenian Sea via Venice and Florence . In 1955 the tent went to the Riviera and Provence . Further trips within Europe followed until his retirement in 1965.

In 1955 he bought a piece of land in the Munich suburb of Grünwald and built a spacious family home there, which he moved into in July 1956. Eugen Schuhmacher , who later became well known as an animal filmmaker, lived in the immediate vicinity , about whom Gerstner published a biography with 60 articles by prominent authors in 1973 under the title "Eugen Schuhmacher - Encounters and experiences with the great animal lover".

In the 1950s, Gerstner was gradually able to gain a foothold again as a journalist. In the “Wednesday Club” in Munich he met fellow authors such as Eugen Roth , Ludwig Reiners , the publisher Franz Ehrenwirth and the architect and cartoonist Ernst Hürlimann . As successor to Wilhelm von Scholz , he took over the presidency of the Würzburg Max Dauthendey Society in 1964. In addition to many trips in Europe, he undertook a major world tour in the 1980s, which he described in a report as a "cruise in 85 days".

Hermann Gerstner died on August 17, 1993 in Grünwald, where he was also buried. His wife Inge followed him in 1998.

Literary work

Until 1945

Dramas and Poetry

Gerstner showed literary ambitions from an early age. He was a founding member of the “Circle of Younger”, a circle of writers from Würzburg. Gerstner, who felt called to be a playwright, wrote his first plays in the mid-1920s. However, these were largely ignored; hardly a piece found its way onto the stage. In 1927 Gerstner worked together with other writers in Würzburg to stage puppet shows. An attempt to recommend the drama "Baldur and Loki" from Germanic mythology to the new cultural-political decision-makers was positively reviewed on July 13, 1935 in the Würzburger Generalanzeiger:

“The tremendous experience of the National Socialist revolution finally opened up for the German poet ... the way to the myth of our Germanic ancestors, showed him the shocking, dramatic force of the profound worldview questions that the myth seeks to answer. The Nordic myth of Baldur and Loki is eternally new and has the deepest political symbolism . The struggle between light and darkness, the struggle between formless chaos and meaningful order is the basic idea of ​​the event. "

However, his first literary works were of a lyrical nature. The first publication appeared in 1926, a cycle of poems entitled “Encounters”. Further works followed and were partly published in anthologies; such as the “Tales of Death” in 1931. During his time in Berlin, Gerstner came into contact with the world of Buddhism through visits to the Buddhist House (Berlin-Frohnau, Edelhofdamm) . Additionally stimulated by Max Dauthendey's poetry , which was determined by exotic countries and themes and whose personality and works had a strong influence on Gerstner, the "Buddha-Legend" was created in 1932. In 60 poems the life and work of Buddha are told in metaphor .

When the tones of the new ideological march can be heard in the volume of poems “Herzliche Gesänge” from 1934, for example in “Gesang der Träumer”, the “Christmas Light Festival” from 1937, set to music by Rudolf Tisken, is an exemplary celebration poem for the neo-pagan oriented Nazi cult. The play published by the Reich Administration of the National Socialist Teachers' Association was premiered on December 12, 1937 in the Atlantik-Palast in Munich at a major event by the young people . Such celebrations should compete with the Christian Christmas celebration and replace it in the long term. At the latest, Gerstner put himself fully in the service of Nazi cultural policy.

A typical product for propagating total war is his poem Grenzlandlied from 1943:

We come from the north, come from the south, / from the west and east our step echoes./ We push to guard the border, the faith of our homeland wandered with us./ Here at the Marken we keep watch, / Germany, for you Day and night! / We shout the slogan among the peasants: / You settlers of the land preserve your property! / The ancestors bequeathed these walls to you, / they gave life and blood to the fields ./ Here at the Marches their tribe flourish, / stand ready as a living dam! / We announce the consecration of the native earth / and canonized it, extol it loudly / For whoever increased their blessings fighting, / has built vigorously at the work of the empire / Here on the brands you can now hear singing where once the fathers call to the sword rang out! / In this hour of greatness / we want to profess our country more deeply / How often was the border loud with din, / how often was the fire of war aflame! / Here at the Marches they wore hardship, / fought for home, fought for bread! / We want to commit ourselves entirely to the flag / which blows wonderfully in our border region. / We want to stack the wood for the burst of fire / everyone who goes with us will find us. / Here at the brands we shout brightly: / Eternal Germany, we are there!

Novels and short stories

Gerstner also began to write novels at an early age. In addition to unpublished manuscripts such as "Wogen des Lebens" (1922) and "Arme Kreatur" (1929), Gerstner was able to achieve an initial success with "Ewig Ruft das Meer". This was published in 1938 in the series “Books of the Young Nation” by Franz Eher Nachhaben , Munich. Most of his works before 1945 were published in this central publishing house of the NSDAP.

With his novel "Die Straße ins Waldland" published in the same year, Gerstner designed the new topic of motorway construction. In a review, the National Socialist Monthly Bulletins also approved that the author had "for the first time attempted to capture the great creative, historical work of the Führer, the building of the Reichsautobahn, in an epic work."

A detailed time painting put Gerstner prior to the 1939 published extensive novel "Between the Wars", which includes the chronicle of two generations 1866-1914 and "from observers Nationalists " "the best and most impressive novels of our time" was expected.

He also achieved significant success with the entertainment novel “Mit Helge southwards”, which, based on his own holiday experiences in 1940, met the travel and adventure fantasies of a large readership.

Gerstner was able to book an almost even greater impact with his novellas published until 1945. The stories, which were also published by Franz Eher Verlag, achieved print runs of well over 20,000 copies in some cases. This number of copies was, however, partly determined by field post expenses and special expenses for Nazi organizations. Examples of line loyalty in unobtrusive packaging are “The Gray Rock” (1936), “Victims of Youth” (1938), “Fähnrich Charlotte” (1940) and “Schwerterklang und Saitenspiel” (1942). Strengthening military strength and strengthening the will to sacrifice were the literary aims here.

Gerstner supplied cross-media propaganda literature for radio broadcasts, such as a radio address with the title “Lust and love are the wings for great deeds” and celebration poems. Excerpts from his short stories and novels were also broadcast. Together with the editor-in-chief of Eher-Verlag Karl Schworm , Gerstner published the collection "German Poets of Our Time" in 1939, which on 622, p. 53 presents old and new poets with curriculum vitae and samples that fit into the image of Nazi cultural policy.

Without counting among the particularly prominent poets of the Nazi state, Gerstner was a prominent and well-circulated author whose works, in terms of style and choice of motifs, fitted in perfectly with the ideologically and politically desired direction.

After the war

In the third addendum to the list of literature to be sorted out from April 1, 1952, published by the GDR Ministry for Public Education , two works by Gerstner were listed: “Requiem for a Fallen” (1936) and “Farewell to Bettina” (1944).

Novels

It took until 1951 before Gerstner was able to build on his literary successes again. The novel “Jugendmelodie”, published this year, combines autobiographical and fictional memories of the youth. Again, novel manuscripts remained unpublished, such as “Celeste am Meer” and “Zärtliches Interlude”, both from 1954. In 1966 the historical novel “Camille Desmoulins” was published.

In the early 1950s, several detective novels were published that Gerstner had written under the pseudonym René Renard; so "Shot in the Metro" and "Between Cayenne and Paris" from 1951 and 1952 respectively.

Young adult novels take up a considerable part of his post-war production. The novel “Lorenzo discovers the Etruscans” from 1966 was conceived as a narrative with an exciting plot, combined with the conveyance of historical knowledge.

Translations and edits

Gerstner has re-translated and edited several classics of world literature: “ The Last Days of Pompeii ” (1949) by Bulwer-Lytton , “ The Pathfinder ” (1966) and “ The Last of the Mohicans ” (1968) by JF Cooper and Swifts " Gulliver " under the title "The Adventures of Ship Doctor Gulliver" (1972).

Others

Gerstner was very productive until the 1980s. He published a large number of autobiographical and regional historical articles both in various journals and in book form. His contributions to the life and work of Max Dauthendey and the Brothers Grimm stand out from the mass of his literary production .

Appreciation

Gerstner's work comprises over 70 novels , short stories , biographies , travel books and poetry with a total circulation of well over a million copies.

Even if Gerstner can be regarded as an example of the mass of average authors in the middle of the last century and their adaptation to the prevailing zeitgeist resulting from a wide variety of reasons, he has lasting significance as a talented narrator and chronicler of Franconian literary and regional history.

Awards

• Medal in memory of October 1, 1938
• 1941: War Merit Cross, 2nd class with swords
• 1942: Literature Prize of the Capital of the Movement (Munich)
• 1944: Badge of Honor of the Bulgarian Army
• 1968: Dauthendey badge in gold
• 1968: Silver City Seal of the City of Würzburg

Works (selection)

• Hearty Chants , 1934
• The gray skirt , 1936
• The mothers of the dead fighters , 1936
• Christmas light celebration , 1937
• The road into the woodland , 1938
• Victims of the Youth , 1938
• Between the wars , 1939
• German poets of our time (with Karl Schworm), 1939
• South with Helge , 1940
• Ensign Charlotte , 1941
• The sound of swords and strings , 1942
• Farewell to Bettina , 1943
• Book of Poems , 1943
• Victim of youth
• The Eye of the Lord , 1963
• Youth Melody , 1951
• Lucienne and her cavaliers , 1952
• The golden mother book , 1956
• Max Dauthendey and Franken , 1958
• In the country of Franconia , 1960
• You ask me what I love , 1963
• The Eye of the Lord , 1963
• Shepherd legend , 1965
• Lorenzo discovered the Etruscans , 1966
• At anchor , 1967
• Munich , 1967
• Gondola ride , 1968
• Musicians play under every sky , 1969
• Assault on Mallorca , 1969
• Fir scent and shine of lights , 1970
• Brothers Grimm , 1973
• Adventure in the lagoon , 1975
• The brave , 1978
• The holy seven stars , 1980
• Northern Skies , 1984
• Goodbye father's house , 1988

literature

• Ernst Klee : Hermann Gerstner. In: Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
• Josef Kern: Hermann Gerstner - Life and Work. Writings of the Würzburg City Archives, issue 13. Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-87717-787-5
• Paul Gerhard Dannhauer and Stephan Kellner: Hermann Gerstner (1903–1993) - a literary librarian as an "ariseur". In: Regine Dehmel (ed.): Jewish book possession as looted property: Second Hanover Symposium. Klostermann, 2006, ISBN 3-465-03448-1 , pp. 107-119
• Stephan Kellner: I will write, write, write ... - the author and librarian Hermann Gerstner, in Marita Krauss: Right Careers in Munich. From the Weimar period to the post-war years , Volk Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-937200-53-8

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Gerstner in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christina Köstner: Book theft in the Balkans. The National Library of Vienna and the Belgrade publisher Geca Kon. In: Regine Dehmel (ed.): Jewish book possession as looted property: Second Hanover Symposium. Klostermann, 2006, ISBN 3-465-03448-1 , pp. 96-106
2. ^ Hermann Gerstner: "Father house adieu", Gerabronn-Crailsheim 1988, p. 214.
3. ^ Barbara Rott: Felix Fechenbach and the puppet show. In: Roland Flade, Barbara Rott (Eds.): Felix Fechenbach , The Puppeteer. A novel from old Würzburg. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1988, ISBN 3-88479-376-4 , pp. 31-43; here: p. 33 f.
4. ↑ NS expression for border areas