Hertha Vogel-Voll

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Hertha Vogel-Voll (born October 15, 1898 in Bad Kissingen , † July 13, 1975 in Dresden ) was a playwright and book author.

childhood

Hertha Romana Voll was born as the daughter of a painter and a sculptor in Bad Kissingen .

When her father - Roman Voll - died of tuberculosis, the mother gave the three older of her five children to Catholic monastery orphanages. Hertha was barely two years old at the time. The following six years were determined by the particularly strict upbringing in the monastery. The psychological and physical abuse they experienced there, the privations and fears they experienced shaped them for life.

When she was eight, Hertha Voll returned to her mother in Altötting. After the mother remarried, the family moved near Dresden . The stepfather determined a future career for Hertha as a teacher. She received a free place as a pupil of the Dominican Sisters' educational institution in Wettenhausen Monastery. Initially very frightened and seriously ill due to the previous experiences with monastic upbringing and the renewed separation from her mother, a new world opened up for her later. Under the care of subtle nuns, she received a varied musical education, which, like the deeply internalized Christian faith, became decisive for her future work.

Hertha Voll left the convent school at the age of 15 and attended the trade school in Dresden from 1913. This year the girl, who until then only knew saints and legends, received her first fairy tale book for Christmas.

Early career

After the First World War , Hertha Voll began writing stories in addition to her professional activity: short stories and fairy tales. These works were characterized by the imaginative creation of new characters, warmth and deep faith without being tied to church institutions. Some of the works, including Das Märchen , were published in magazines.

In 1926, Hertha Voll helped set up large exhibitions, among other things. In the course of this activity she met the doctor Dr. Martin Vogel from the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden. They married in the same year and a year later a child was born in their home in Hellerau near Dresden: Annemarie Vogel .

In 1933 Martin Vogel, now a professor, left the Hygiene Museum as scientific director, settled down as a doctor in Dresden and founded a research institute for nutrition from 1937. In addition to supporting her husband, Hertha continued to work on her stories, including several preliminary stages of her main work, Die Silberne Brücke .

Success and oblivion

The family survived the Second World War, but when Dresden was destroyed, Martin Vogel's institute was destroyed. He set up a new practice at home, but in November 1947 he had a fatal motorcycle accident - the day his daughter was enrolled. Hertha threatened to break up with his death and the renewed loss of livelihood.

The sudden success came in 1948, when her play Verwunschen, Verzenert was staged successfully in Dresden and later in several cities in Germany. In a performance in Dresden, the young Rolf Ludwig played the fairytale devil in one of his first permanent engagements.

Confirmed by the success, Hertha Vogel-Voll published the prose revision of the play, which had been available since 1937, as The Silver Bridge in 1949 . In 1956 the fairy tale and short story collection The Blue Wonder followed. Both books were great successes with total editions of an estimated 150,000 copies and became cult books in the following years.

At the end of the 1950s she wrote the commissioned work ... and then the golden laugh, a one-act play for peace, which was successfully performed in Dresden. After only a few weeks, the theater management was instructed to cancel the play. The author never received an explanation for this and has since been "hushed up" in the literary and cultural landscape of the GDR. No further printing permits have been issued for their works. Although she continued to work intensively - among other things on a novel and the fantastic story The Light on the Forgotten Star - there were no further publications of old or new works during her lifetime.

Hertha Vogel-Voll died in Dresden in 1975. She succumbed to a stomach ailment that had troubled her since childhood.

Publications during his lifetime

Works before 1945 (selection)

  • The fairy tale , 1932
  • Why the birch has a white trunk
  • How the Hanskasperle got into heaven
  • Enchanted, enchanted . Theater manuscript, S. Fischer, 1937

Works after 1945

  • Enchanted, enchanted as a theater performance
  • The Silver Bridge , L. Ehlermann, Dresden 1949/50
  • The Silver Bridge , Peter-Paul-Verlag, Feldberg 1951/52
  • The blue miracle , Altberliner Verlag Lucie Groszer, 1956/58
  • ... and then the golden laugh , play

Publications after her death

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Vogel-Voll, Hertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German playwright and book author
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kissingen
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1975
Place of death Dresden