Hermann Harry Schmitz

Hermann Harry Schmitz (born July 12, 1880 in Düsseldorf ; † August 8, 1913 in Bad Münster am Stein ) was a German office clerk and author of grotesque stories and one-act plays as well as an essayist .

Life

As the son of a factory director of the Piedboeuf pipe factory, Hermann Schmitz grew up in Düsseldorf. The municipal grammar school he left to 1896 erupting tuberculosis on Corsica auszukurieren. After he had meanwhile been found unfit for the military, his father forced him to pursue a commercial career after graduating from secondary school in Kassel.

Schmitz has been publishing grotesques since 1906, and he made his literary debut with the satire “Die Bahnhofsmission” in the Munich magazine Simplicissimus . From 1907 he wrote almost exclusively for the daily newspaper Düsseldorfer General-Anzeiger . On the side, Schmitz wrote bizarre, time-critical one-act plays for the Academic Association Laetitia , a combination of students and graduates of the Düsseldorf Art Academy . Again and again he appeared in a dandy-like appearance as an emcee at charity events in Düsseldorf.

At the literary regulars' table in the wine bar “Zum Rosenkranzchen”, Altestadt 1, in Düsseldorf's old town, he made friends with Hanns Heinz Ewers and Herbert Eulenberg , who promoted his work. After the success of his first book, The Infant and Other Tragic Comedies (with Ernst Rowohlt , Leipzig 1911), he decided to work as a freelance writer. After numerous stays in sanatoriums and hospitals with no hope of a cure, he shot himself.

Thanks to the radically surreal design of his grotesques, Hermann Schmitz occupies a special position within this genre, which is little developed in Germany . In his deliberately naive narrative attitude, he seeks the world of the petty bourgeois in the industrial age as a point of attack for his attacks . His protagonists with their senseless pleasures, their technology fetishism , status problems, but also escape movements, such as travel frenzy or misunderstood nature cult, usually end fatally.

Since 1989 the Hermann-Harry-Schmitz-Societät has been promoting his memory and literary legacy, based in the listed clock tower on Grafenberger-Allee in Düsseldorf . In Düsseldorf district Oberbilk a street is named after him.

Works (selection)

The Infant and Other Tragic Comedies. Ernst Rowohlt , Leipzig 1911 ( online - Internet Archive ). (3rd edition, 1912; 4th edition, Kurt Wolff Verlag , Leipzig 1913; 12th edition, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich 1928; 13th edition, Verlag für Zeitlichen progress, Munich 1935; 14th edition (edited or edited by the editor) falsified version) Progress-Sprachenverlag Richard Pille, Munich 1940; 15th edition, Progress-Sprachenverlag Richard Pille, Munich 1943)
Victor M. May (ed.): Book of the catastrophes. Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig 1916. (6th edition, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich 1929; 7th edition (edited or falsified version by the publisher), Progress Languages Publishing House Richard Pille, Munich 1940; 8th Edition, Progress Languages Publishing House Richard Pille , Munich 1943)
Victor M. Mai (Ed.): Professor Mauzfies and other tragedies. Progress-Sprachverlag Richard Pille, Munich 1941.
Bruno Kehrein, Michael Matzigkeit (ed.): The blouse and other grotesques. Travel and other disasters. The Aesthetes and other tragic comedies. (= All works in 3 volumes. ) Haffmans Verlag , Zurich 1988. (reviewed, expanded new edition, Econ Verlag , Düsseldorf / Munich 1996)
Baptism and other disasters. (with wood engraving montages by Horst Hussel ) Eulenspiegel Verlag , Berlin (GDR) 1965. (New edition 1974)
How I decided to walk on hands 30 disaster stories. Eulenspiegel Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1987. (New editions 1989 and 1999)
Frank Meyer (ed.): The book of catastrophes. L + L Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-9804825-1-0 .
Book of Disasters . Frankfurt a. Main: Insel Verlag , 2005 [it 3186]. ISBN 3-458-34886-7 .
Elke Heidenreich (ed.): The book of catastrophes. Stories. (= Die Brigitte-Edition , Volume 13.) Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-570-19521-X .

literature

Bibliographies

Michael Matzigkeit: Bibliography. In: HHS: Der Aesthet… Zurich 1988 (last Munich 1996), pp. 223–232.
Franz Rottensteiner: Hermann Harry Schmitz. Bibliography. In: Joachim Körber (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon der Utopisch-Fantastischen Literatur. Meitingen, 17th Supplementary Delivery (March 1989), pp. 1-24.
Michael Matzigkeit: Hermann Harry Schmitz. The dandy from the Rhine. Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-1217-8 , pp. 208-235.

Other titles

Victor M. May: HH Schmitz. In: Pempelfort , issue 8 (1925).
Guido K. Brand : Becoming and changing. Berlin 1933, p. 221 f.
Michael Schulte: Schmitz, H. (H.). In: literary dictionary of the 20th century. Reinbek 1971, Volume 3, p. 709.
Fernand Hoffmann: HH Schmitz, a German forerunner of surrealism. In: Recherches Germaniques , No. 8 (1978), pp. 50-69.
Dieter Krywalski: HH Schmitz. In: Knaur's Lexicon of World Literature. Munich / Zurich 1979, p. 666 f.
Michael Matzigkeit: The writer HH Schmitz. Paintings, graphics, documents. Exhibition catalog of the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 5, p. 7–33, p. 38–44.
Michael Matzigkeit: Hermann Harry Schmitz and the literary scene in Düsseldorf before the First World War. In: Michael Matzigkeit (Ed.): Literature on the move. Writer and theater in Düsseldorf 1900–1933. Verlag der Goethe-Buchhandlung, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 3-924331-23-5 , pp. 18–56.
Michael Matzigkeit: Schmitz, Hermann (Harry). In: Walther Killy (Ed.): Literaturlexikon. Authors and works of German language. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-570-04680-X , Volume 10, p. 322.
Michael Matzigkeit: Hermann Harry Schmitz. The dandy from the Rhine. Droste, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-7700-1217-8 .

Web links

Wikisource: Hermann Harry Schmitz - Sources and full texts

Commons : Hermann Harry Schmitz - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Schmitz, Hermann Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German author of grotesque stories and one-act play, essayist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 12, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH	August 8, 1913
Place of death	Bad Munster am Stein