Jean Améry

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Jean Améry (born October 31, 1912 as Ha (n) ns Mayer in Vienna , † October 17, 1978 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian writer , resistance fighter against National Socialism and a victim of National Socialism. Since 1955 he used the pseudonym Jean Améry, Améry being an anagram of Mayer and Jean the French form of Hans. This name was notarized in 1966.

Life

Jean Améry's grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Early years in Austria

Jean Améry was the son of Jewish parents, his aunt the Soubrette Mila Theren . The Amérys family comes from Hohenems in Vorarlberg . His father, Paul Mayer (1883–1917), died as a motor vehicle soldier in a regiment of the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger during World War I due to a pinched hernia ; the mother Valerie, b. Goldschmidt (born August 31, 1879 - † July 1, 1939 in Vienna) became the main reference person for her son through the early death of his father. Améry started school on September 1, 1918 at the Phorus School in Vienna. After his mother leased the "Gasthaus zur Stadt Prag" in Bad Ischl at the foot of the Kalvarienberg, which still exists today , Améry grew up in the Salzkammergut in a Catholic environment. In the school year 1923/24 he was accepted as a “privateist” in the high school in Gmunden . In January 1925 he left school at the age of twelve without grades; Nothing is known about his further school attendance.

In September 1926 he and his mother moved back to Vienna. After a stopover in 1929/1930 with his uncle Hans May in Berlin , he did an apprenticeship as a bookseller in the "bookstore and newspaper bureau Hermann Goldschmid" under the guidance of Leopold Langhammer . From 1930 to 1938 he was employed as a bookstore assistant in the bookshop of the Volkshochschule Leopoldstadt.

The author Améry can be regarded as an autodidact , who also trained as a free listener at the University of Vienna through literary and philosophical lectures. And he met Hermann Broch , Robert Musil and Elias Canetti . Many other writers read at the Volkshochschule Leopoldstadt during these years ( Albert Paris Gütersloh , Max Brod , Franz Theodor Csokor , Felix Braun , Erika Mitterer, etc.). The so-called Vienna Circle with the philosophers Moritz Schlick , Ludwig Wittgenstein , Friedrich Waismann , Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap was also influential for Améry . The founders of Critical Rationalism were involved in school reform and popular education work, because the thinking tools they developed were intended to counter the widespread irrationalism in the interests of Enlightenment. During this time Améry was editor of the literary magazine Die Brücke together with Ernst Theodor Mayer , whom he had known since elementary school. The first edition appeared on February 12, 1934. At the same time, Améry was probably involved as an arms carrier in the failed uprising of the Republican Protection Association.

Améry's precarious relationship to Judaism is evident in his departure from the Jewish community on December 5, 1933, which he rejoined on November 15, 1937, probably because of his impending marriage. His relationship to Judaism remained divided (“If… being a Jew is a cultural possession, a religious bond, then I wasn't and can never become one.” Nevertheless: “I have to be a Jew and will be one, with or without religion, within or outside of a tradition, whether Jean, Hans or Jochanaan. ”) But being a Jew was inevitably ascribed to him, which he became aware of at the latest in 1935 when he had studied the Nuremberg racial laws in a newspaper .

On December 12, 1937, he married the Jewish Regine Berger (born May 16, 1915), recte Baumgarten, in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde of Vienna. She accompanied him on his escape to Belgium in 1938. When Améry was interned in the French Gurs camp , the couple were separated, but were able to live together again between 1941 and his arrest by the German Gestapo in 1943. The friend Maria Eschenauer-Leitner helped Regine Mayer to go into hiding after Améry was arrested. Without seeing her husband again, Regine Mayer probably died of a heart defect on April 24, 1944; it was then maintained by the Filles de la Charité de Saint Vincent de Paul . Her death certificate, issued by the City of Brussels, is dated July 19, 1950.

Escape, resistance movement, concentration camp imprisonment

Due to urgent advice from a friend who was already visiting him in Nazi uniform, Améry left the city of Vienna on December 31, 1938 with his wife Regine in the year of the ["Anschluss" | Anschluss_Österreichs] of Austria to the German Reich. Via Cologne, with the help of a people smuggler, he reached the border town of Kalterherberg and from there to Belgium. The almost destitute newcomer was generously supported by the Jewish Aid Committee in Antwerp . In order to survive, Regine Mayer worked as a saleswoman for bras, Jean Améry occasionally as a furniture transporter and as a teacher at the Ecole Moyenne Juive de Bruxelles .

After the invasion of German troops on May 10, 1940 , Améry was arrested as an " enemy alien " and interned in the Gurs camp in southern France . Meanwhile, Regine Mayer died of heart disease in her hiding place in Brussels. In 1941 Améry managed to escape with fellow prisoner Jaques Sonnenschein . Back in Belgium, he joined the resistance against National Socialism and took part in the Austrian Freedom Front operating in Belgium .

On July 23, 1943, Améry was arrested while distributing anti-Nazi leaflets together with the German Marianne Brandt, his then partner, and imprisoned at the headquarters of the Brussels Gestapo in the Saint-Gilles / Sint-Gillis prison. On the same day he was transferred to Fort Breendonk / Derloven, where members of the SS tortured him: Améry was whipped and staked , which dislocated his shoulder joints. On January 15, 1944, Améry was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp , and in June 1944 he was hired as a clerk in the Buna factory . Here he met Primo Levi . He was later separated from this by fundamental differences in the assessment of the SS system and its helpers. The Auschwitz Monowitz concentration camp was evacuated from January 17th to 26th as the Soviet Army was approaching. Améry was deported to Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and then to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . On April 15, 1945 this, including Améry, was liberated by British troops; on April 24, 1945 he was back in Brussels.

After 1945

In autumn 1945 Leopold Langhammer dubbed Améry a “lecturer and lecturer” in order to protect him and enable him to return to Austria; His childhood friend Ernst Mayer also wanted to persuade him to come back to Austria, but Améry decided against it. Even after he got his Austrian passport back, he decided not to take up residence in Austria, but made annual visits.

Living in Brussels after 1945, Améry worked as a cultural journalist for various German-language newspapers in Switzerland. At times he refused to publish his texts in the Federal Republic of Germany. For years Améry could only live “rather badly than right” from writing. The placement of the radio essayist of the Süddeutscher Rundfunk , Helmut Heißenbüttel , later helped him to achieve a tolerable financial livelihood; As early as 1946, Heinz Kühn had offered him the head of the “Artistic Word” department at Northwest German Broadcasting.

In Antwerp, among other things, a friendly relationship with Maria Eschenauer-Leitner (born March 20, 1911 in Vienna ; † 2004) developed during the war . This was a Catholic, daughter of the community official Georg Eschenauer and his wife Maria, geb. Appel. On August 30, 1936 she had Dr. Married Rudolf Leitner, who was a “Mosaic Creed” and worked as a commercial agent. Both emigrated to Belgium in 1938 and to New York in 1941 . Maria Eschenauer-Leitner helped Améry's wife Regine Mayer go into hiding after Améry's arrest. In New York, Maria Eschenauer-Leitner was able to build a secure existence, while her husband was no longer able to act due to chronic depression . In 1948 she left her husband in favor of Améry. She was legally divorced from Leitner on January 25, 1955 in Vienna. In the same year she and Améry married in Vienna-Währing. Maria Améry became the “gray eminence” of his work. She is buried with Jean Améry in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

In 1968, Améry met the Austrian-American Germanist Mary Cox-Kitaj (1924–1997) through Heti Schmitt-Maas. This resulted in a passionate ménage à trois . In the fall of 1970, Cox-Kitaj settled in Brussels with their two children, Kathy and Paul, ostensibly to finish their dissertation. The initially “happy passion” resulted in serious tensions when Améry's wife was excluded from the three-way relationship in 1973 and he sought an exclusive relationship with Mary Cox-Kitaj. This accompanied him on his last reading tour through Germany; Améry broke off this trip in Marburg, longing for the Salzkammergut. Cox-Kitaj allegedly accompanied him to the Austrian border, he himself traveled on to Salzburg, where he stayed at the “Österreichischer Hof” hotel.

Améry's death in Salzburg

On February 20, 1974, Améry first tried to commit suicide in Brussels. His friend Kurt Schindel found him already lying in a coma , but he was rescued at the Clinic Saint-Jean . In his farewell letters, he stated that he could no longer practice his profession as a writer because of his illness.

In 1978 Améry committed suicide in the Salzburg hotel “Österreichischer Hof” (today Hotel Sacher Salzburg ) with an overdose of sleeping pills . He received an honorary grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 40, number 132). In his book, published two years earlier, Lay Hands on Yourself. He had written the discourse on suicide : “Whoever jumps off does not necessarily go mad, is not even 'disturbed' or 'disturbed' under all circumstances. The tendency to commit suicide is not a disease from which one has to be cured as it is with measles. "" Suicide is a privilege of the human. "

In 1982 his widow donated the Jean Améry Prize for essay writing in his memory .

plant

Améry's early literary attempts were not published. Above all, his youthful work Die Schiffbrüchigen , despite kind words from Thomas Mann and Robert Musil, he was unable to accommodate in a publishing house. At least one chapter was printed by Hermann Hakel in the 1935 yearbook he edited . Later, Hakel remembered Améry very unkindly ("nature-moved foggy brother", "dull aggressiveness", "tendency to doctrinal assertions").

Jean Améry processed his experiences in the National Socialist concentration camps in his collection of essays Beyond Guilt and Atonement , a work with the publication of which he became known in German-speaking countries in 1966 and which is one of the central texts in German-language Holocaust literature. In the following year he sharply opposed Adorno's attempt to make philosophical capital in a “language that was delighted by itself to the point of self-dazzling” from Auschwitz under the title “absolute negativity”.

Published in 1969 Améry the time the much-publicized essay The respectable anti-Semitism where it joins with the continuing hatred of Jews after 1945 , and especially one in Israel dealt projected Semitism in left intellectual circles. He concluded: If the historical fate of the Jewish or anti-Semitic question, to which the foundation of the now existing State of Israel may well belong, again the idea of ​​Jewish guilt is constructed, then the responsibility for this is borne by a left that forgets itself . He was one of the first to address “anti-Semitic tendencies in the German left.” Améry saw himself as part of the left throughout his life and tried to reform it.

Probably his most important literary work is the 1974 "Roman-Essay" Lefeu or the Demolition , in which the protagonist Lefeu - a homage to Améry's friend, the painter Erich Schmid - creates an aesthetic of decay and saying no. In his last book, Charles Bovary, Country Doctor , published during his lifetime . Portrait of a common man , Améry opened the indictment against Gustave Flaubert , the author of Madame Bovary , who neglected and recorded the character of Charles Bovary in his novel.

Awards / honors

Works (selection)

Original editions

  • Charles Bovary, country doctor. Portrait of a common man. Klett, Stuttgart 1978.
  • Put your hand to yourself. Discourse on suicide. Klett, Stuttgart 1976.
  • Lefeu or The Demolition . Roman essay, Klett, Stuttgart 1974.
  • with Iring Fetscher : ideology and motivation. Colloquium, Berlin 1973.
  • Unmasterly years of wandering. Klett, Stuttgart 1971.
  • Contradictions. Klett, Stuttgart 1971.
  • with Friedrich Heer and Wolf-Dieter Marsch : About the virtue of urbanity. Klett, Stuttgart 1969.
  • About aging. Revolt and resignation. Klett, Stuttgart 1968.
  • Beyond guilt and atonement. Coping attempts of an overwhelmed . Essays. Szczesny, Munich 1966
  • Winston S. Churchill. A century of contemporary history. Bucher, Lucerne / Frankfurt 1965.
  • Gerhart Hauptmann. The eternal German. Stieglitz, Mühlacker 1963.
  • Under the spell of jazz. Portraits of great jazz musicians. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich 1961.
  • Birth of the present. Shaping and shaping western civilization since the end of the war. Walter, Olten / Freiburg 1961.
  • Teenage stars, idols of our time. Müller, Rüschlikon-Zurich 1960.
  • Careers and Minds. Portraits of famous contemporaries. Thomas, Zurich 1955.

Published posthumously :

  • The shipwrecked. Novel. First print after a 400-page typescript from the DLA estate , presumably from the years 1934 and 1935 (excerpts published as Die uprooted 1935 in the Wiener Jahrbuch 1935). Klett, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93663-6
  • Cinéma. Texts about the film. Klett, Stuttgart 1994
  • Integral humanism. Between philosophy and literature. Articles and reviews by a reader 1966–1978. Klett, Stuttgart 1985
  • "Live on - but how?" Essays 1968–1978. Klett, Stuttgart 1982
  • Books from the youth of our century. Klett, Stuttgart 1981
  • Locations. Epilogue Manfred Franke . Klett, Stuttgart 1980

Work edition

  • Works in nine volumes. Klett, Stuttgart 2002 ff.

Audio books & film

  • Beyond guilt and atonement. Read by Peter Matić . mOceanOTonVerlag, Grosser + Stein sales, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86735-209-3 .
  • Lefeu or demolition. Read by Jean Améry. mOceanOTonVerlag, Grosser + Stein sales, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86735-210-9 .
  • The ordeal . Read by Jean Améry, based on an essay by him. Film by Dieter Reifarth, Distribution absolut MEDIEN, 2018, ISBN 978-3-8488-2010-8
    • Review by Jonas Engelmann : No longer at home in the world. The essay "Die Tortur (1966). In" Dschungel ", supplement to jungle world , 47, November 22, 2018, p. 10f. (Also online)

literature

interview

Web links

Wikiquote: Jean Améry  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 359: According to his birth certificate, his name was Hans Meier, in the class register of the Bad Ischl elementary school in 1920/21 he was listed as Hans Mayer, in the school year 1922/23 as Hans Maier. In 1923/24 he was referred to as Johann Mayer in the class books of the grammar school in Gmunden. In the early 30s he called himself Han (n) s Mayer.
  2. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 375.
  3. ↑ Mila Theren in the google book search
  4. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 28.
  5. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 366.
  6. ↑ Jean Améry: On the compulsion and impossibility to be a Jew. In: Beyond Guilt and Atonement. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2008, p. 131 f.
  7. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 78.
  8. ^ Wollheim Memorial. Retrieved November 7, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Own report in: Jean Améry: Die Tortur. In: Mercury . No. 208 (July 1965), pp. 623-638 [632f]. Also in: Irene Heidelberger-Leonard: Jean Améry. Revolt in resignation. Stuttgart 2004, p. 81; Robert Zagolla: In the name of the truth. Torture in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day. Berlin 2006, pp. 148-150.
  10. ↑ Andreas Dorschel : The mind is always disturbed. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . No. 129, June 7, 2004, p. 14.
  11. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 344f.
  12. ↑ Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, 2005, p. 291.
  13. ↑ Jean Améry: Put your hand on yourself. Discourse on suicide . 14th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-608-93947-7 , pp. 42 f .
  14. ↑ ibid., P. 57.
  15. ↑ Hermann Hakel: Drought branches, withered grass. Encounters with writers. Notes on the literature. Lynkeus, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-900924-04-X , pp. 121–129.
  16. ↑ Andreas Dorschel: The mind is always disturbed. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . No. 129, June 7, 2004, p. 14.
  17. ↑ Honorable Anti-Semitism. Essay. In: The time . July 25, 1969; Works , Volume 7, pp. 131-140.
  18. ↑ Timo Stein: Between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel: anti-Zionism in the German left. VS-Verlag, 2011, p. 9.
  19. ↑ Günter Platzdasch: Jean Améry: born a hundred years ago - left, a “wrapped up liberal” and anti-Semitism.
personal data
SURNAME Améry, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hans Mayer (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1978
Place of death Salzburg