Hermann von Boetticher

Hermann von Boetticher (born August 13, 1887 in Eldingen ; † murdered on April 28, 1941 in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein , Saxony ) was a German writer and dramaturge .

Life

Hermann von Boetticher was the second of six children of the Eldinger pastor Johannes von Boetticher (1859–1905) from the old Boetticher family and Katharina von Boetticher, née. from Zeschwitz. He went on May 14, 1914 on board the liner " Vaterland ", which was on its maiden voyage to travel to the United States, and reached New York on May 21. But already at the beginning of the First World War three months later he tried to return and on August 24th boarded the passenger ship “Nieuw Amsterdam” in New York with destination Amsterdam , which was attacked by the French auxiliary cruiser “La Savoie” at the English Channel entrance on September 2nd and was transferred to Brest . As a citizen of the Central Powers of war-ready age, he was first detained in the Fort of Crozon and in 1916 brought to Ile Longue in Brittany for labor service . Here he began with the creation of his actual first work Jephta. Tragedy , which he was not to end until 1919. In 1917 he was transferred to Switzerland for health reasons and interned in Geneva , Zurich and ultimately in Bern . After the end of the war in 1918 he became director and dramaturge at the Bern City Theater.

He returned to Germany in 1919 and briefly became a dramaturge at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . In the same year he published several works, u. a. his Sonnets of the Returned , which were furnished with nine lithographs by Max Thalmann and printed in 500 copies. A special edition of 100 of this edition was published on Zander handmade paper and bound in full leather by Otto Dorfner in Weimar. On January 21, 1920, the first part of his main work Friedrich der Große , Der Kronprinz , which was published in 1917, was premiered at the State Theater in Berlin , the second part followed under the title The King on July 9, 1922 as a world premiere at the Stadttheater Bochum . From 1920 he lived without a permanent residence in Berlin, Munich , Geneva and Paris , but mainly in Florence . In 1924 he published his last work with the novella Das Bild .

In 1925 he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the first time because of schizophrenia . On January 17, 1934, Gustaf Gründgens and Jürgen von Alten staged Boetticher's main work The King ( Friedrich der Große, Part II ) for the first time in the Prussian State Theater in Berlin and brought it to a total of 26 performances in the season up to the summer of 1934. Ob Boetticher his success still perceived is not known because he fell ill with schizophrenia in the 1930s. He spent the last years of his life in the sanatorium and nursing home in Hildesheim. With a collective transport he was transferred to the Saxon sanatorium and nursing home in Waldheim on March 14, 1941 and from there on to an “unknown institution” on April 28. Since all of the transports went to the Nazi killing center in Sonnenstein since June 28, 1940 , it can be assumed that he was murdered there that day. In 1941 his mother received Asche with the note that he had died of a "stroke" on May 8, 1941 in the Sonnenstein mental hospital in Saxony. The suspicion is therefore obvious that he was the victim of the murders as part of the National Socialist racial hygiene ( Action T4 , eugenics ) and was gassed in Sonnenstein near Pirna.

review

The renowned theater critic Julius Bab was full of praise for Boetticher. He wrote in 1920: “There is so much tension in this young person, such a happy equilibrium of sensual receptivity and authoritative spirit - so much readiness for every great thing that we need nothing but a little favor of luck to finally get into Hermann von Boetticher to be able to greet a German poet of great, pure style. "

Works

• Frederick the Great. A play in two parts , Fischer, Berlin 1917.
• Jephthah. Tragedy , Fischer, Berlin 1918.
• The love of God. A serious game , Fischer, Berlin 1919.
• Sonnets of the Returned , Bruno Wollbrück Verlag, Weimar 1919.
• Experiences from freedom and captivity , Fischer, Berlin 1919
• The picture. Novella , Fischer, Berlin 1924.
• Thomasio , without giving the publisher and year.

literature

• Kayser, Rudolf (review), Hermann Boetticher: Experiences from freedom and the present. In: "The new book show" - F. 1 (1919), p. 14.
• Kayser, Rudolf: About Hermann von Boetticher , in: "Fire: Monthly for art and artistic culture" - 1919/20 pp. 441 - 443.
• Maas, Lena, A new book: Hermann von Boetticher, Sonnets of the returned , in: "Weimarer Blätter: Zeitschr. D. German National Theater in Weimar" - 1 (1919), pp. 701–702.
• Benzmann, Hans (rec.), Hermann von Boetticher, Jephta , in: "Das Deutsche Drama: Vierteljahresschrift für Bühne u. Literatur" - 3 (1920), pp. 203-205.
• Bab, Julius, Hermann von Boetticher , in: "Weimarer Blätter: Zeitschr. D. German National Theater in Weimar" - 2 (1920), pp. 57–63.
• Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial (ed.): Hermann von Boetticher (1887–1941). Biographical portrait of a Lower Saxon victim from the Nazi killing center in Pirna-Sonnenstein. In: Give the victims their names. Issue 30, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-934382-61-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christophe Kunze, Hermann von Boetticher, interné civil au camp de l'Île Longue, et sa tragédie "Jephta". In: Avel Gornog, No. 18, Crozon, July 2010, p. 54.
2. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 65.
3. ^ Günther Rühle, Theater in Deutschland 1887-1945: His events - his people , Verlag S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, timetable 1934, January 17.
4. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 65.
5. ↑ Julius Bab: Hermann von Boetticher. In: Weimarer Blätter. Journal of the German National Theater in Weimar , 2 (1920), p. 63.