Ilse Molzahn

Ilse Molzahn (born June 20, 1895 in Kowalewo ; † December 15, 1981 in Berlin ) was a German author.

Life

Ilse Molzahn, née Schwollmann, sister of the textile artist Immeke Mitscherlich , married the expressionist painter Johannes Molzahn in 1919 , with whom she had two sons. She lived in Breslau from 1928 to 1933 and wrote articles for feature articles, theater reviews and cultural reports, etc. a. for the Vossische Zeitung and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. She also wrote radio plays for the Silesian Radio Lesson in Breslau. Her stories, poems and book reviews were also published in the Silesian monthly magazine.

With her progressive articles, she repeatedly came into conflict with more conservative circles in Wroclaw. Her article O Wratislawia in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 1929 triggered a storm of indignation with her sharp and very critical characterizations of the Breslau people. In February 1930, the Schlesische Monatshefte printed a satirical drawing directed against Molzahn.

Ilse Molzahn has been portrayed several times by important artists: on the one hand by her husband Johannes ( portrait of my wife ), on the other hand by Oskar Moll , who even created several portraits of Molzahn. Molzahn was in close contact with the artist couple Oskar and Marg Moll .

In 1932 Molzahn began to write her first novel The Black Stork . The book was published in Berlin in 1936 and was banned a short time later. In 1933 the Breslau Art Academy, where Johannes Molzahn taught, was closed. The Molzahn couple moved to Berlin, where Ilse Molzahn continued to work as a journalist. In 1938 Johannes Molzahn had to flee to the USA, while Ilse Molzahn stayed in Berlin, possibly due to a love affair with the art critic and writer Paul Fechter . Until the end of the Nazi regime, Molzahn continued to publish, u. a. her second novel Nymphs and Shepherds stop dancing . She showed a thoroughly ambivalent attitude between resistance and adaptation.

Molzahn lived in West Berlin from 1953 and continued to work as a journalist and writer. Her two sons died in World War II. Ilse Molzahn is buried in the Dahlem forest cemetery.

Works

• The black stork , Berlin: Rowohlt 1936
• Nymphs and shepherds no longer dance , Berlin: Rowohlt 1938
• Daughters of the Earth , Hamburg: Goverts 1941
• Snow is in paradise , Gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1953.
• I want to gamble away this heart , Heidenheim: Jerratsch 1977 ISBN 978-3-921519-19-6 .

literature

• Teresa Laudert: Ilse Molzahn in Breslau. The portrait of a critical observer, journalist and author . In: Dagmar Schmengler u. a. (Ed.): Painter. Mentor. Magician. Otto Mueller and his network in Breslau, Heidelberg, Berlin: Kehrer [2018], ISBN 9783868288735 , pp. 148–155.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ berlin.friedparks.de. Retrieved December 25, 2018 .