Hermann Voget

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Hermann August Voget (born January 29, 1838 in Bremen , † June 5, 1883 in Rodaun ( Vienna )) was a German publicist and playwright . He made a name for himself above all as a war correspondent for the various scenes of the German Wars of Unification .

life and work

Voget came from a strictly Calvinist family. His father had worked his way up from a tanner to a tobacco manufacturer and had become a member of the constituent citizenship of Bremen in the revolutionary year of 1848 . Voget denounced himself in 1854 for alleged conspiracies because he hoped to be able to use a prison sentence to study and write poetry without being a burden to his father, who had now got into economic difficulties. He began to try his hand at acting, but entered a pharmacy in Varel as an apprentice at the request of his parents in January 1855 . In 1858 he passed his exams and became a pharmacy assistant in Neustadtgödens , but at the same time worked as a theater critic.

In 1860 Voget published his first play, Die Stedinger . In the same year he actually began studying medicine in Marburg , but actually occupied himself with all sorts of historical and economic studies instead of medicine. In 1862 he moved to the University of Munich , where he also agitated politically. At that time he was already earning his living as a correspondent and columnist for the Weser-Zeitung and the Frankfurter Journal . In 1863 he was doing research on Adalbert von Bremen in Hamburg when Denmark brought up a conflict with the German Confederation over Schleswig and Holstein through the November constitution . Voget worked as a secretary in an advertising bureau des Comités for the volunteer army and finally reported on the battlefields of the German-Danish War for various German magazines . He then traveled through Germany, Alsace and Switzerland and reported from Hamburg for the Allgemeine Zeitung , the Frankfurter Journal and the Swabian Merkur . In the autumn of 1865 he took over the editing of Itzehoer Nachrichten . Due to their support for the Duke of Augustenburg , the newspaper was banned by the Prussian governor Edwin von Manteuffel in 1866. It was only permitted again when Voget, a staunch opponent of the Prussian annexation of Schleswig and Holstein, left the editorial team.

In 1868 Voget joined the editorial team of the Frankfurter Zeitung . For them he took part in the Franco-German War as a war correspondent in 1870 and reported on the battles near Wörth , Sedan , Strasbourg and Orléans . His contributions, in which he reflected examples in individual fates and everyday situations, were also reprinted in several other newspapers and received attention all over Germany. They are also characterized by a relatively differentiated representation of the French. Voget's account of the battles for Bazeilles , of which he was an eyewitness, attracted particular attention , because the Bavarian soldiers deployed had been accused of massacring the civilian population. Voget defended the soldiers, but also showed understanding for the bitter struggle of the French soldiers and civilians who had defended their homeland.

Voget suffered badly in the army leadership. Bismarck's press officer Moritz Busch considered him a committed representative of democratic and anti-Prussian newspapers. Voget described himself as a “ Greater German ”, was friends with democrats like Ludwig Simon and Ludwig Pfau and was involved in the international peace movement. In December 1870 he was banished from France on the orders of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , whose leadership qualities he had criticized.

In 1872 Voget became editor of the New Foreign Gazette in Vienna , which was received in February 1876. In September 1877 Voget switched to Fremd-Blatt , where he mainly reported on the Orient. Since the fall of 1878 he suffered from a serious heart disease. In the same year he published his last drama Reconciled .

Works

  • The Stedinger. Dramatic poem . Bremen 1860.
  • Love and life. Play in five acts with a prelude Hamburg 1863.
  • The king's mistress . Hamburg 1864.
  • Reconciled. Play in four acts . Vienna 1878.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Voget, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Voget, Hermann August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1883
Place of death Rodaun