Johannes Kirschweng

Johannes Kirschweng (born December 19, 1900 in Wadgassen / Saar , † August 22, 1951 in Saarlouis ) was a German writer .

Johannes Kirschweng (1950)

Bronze sculpture Johannes Kirschweng in front of the former estate of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Wadgassen

Life

Johannes Kirschweng was the son of the locksmith Philipp Kirschweng (1871–1950), who worked in the Mannesmannröhren works in Bous (Saar) , and his wife Luise née Mathieu (1876–1949). From 1907 to 1912 he attended elementary school in Wadgassen , then a grammar school and the Bischöfliche Konvikt in Trier . After taking his high school diploma , he took part in the First World War in 1918 as a soldier in the Imperial Army . After the end of the war he studied Catholic theology and philosophy at the Trier seminary . He received on 5 April 1924, the sacrament of Holy Orders . Until 1926 he worked as a chaplain in Bernkastel / Mosel , then in Bad Neuenahr . At the same time he continued his theology studies at the University of Bonn and dealt with German and French literary history. In August 1933 he was assigned a position as chaplain in Saarbrücken , which Kirschweng, however, no longer took for health reasons and because he had meanwhile begun to devote himself more to writing. He was given permanent leave by the Bishop of Trier and retired as a freelance writer to Wadgassen, where he lived until his death.

To the work

Kirschweng wrote mainly novels , stories , essays and feature sections , but also poems and fairy tales. Apart from Catholicism, his entire work is strongly influenced by the author's Saarland origins. Kirschweng's works, published after 1933, in which he campaigned for the re-connection of the Saar area to the German Reich , can be assigned to the ethnic-national literature of those years. Since the late thirties, however, Kirschweng increasingly distanced himself from National Socialist ideology; in his later works he advocated German-French understanding .

Topics such as “home” and “border” run through Kirschweng's literary work. His close connection to his homeland in the Saarland, in particular to the history of his birthplace Wadgassen and its history, are always the subject of his texts. The former Premonstratensian Abbey of Wadgassen is given particular attention.

Works

The raid of the centuries , Munich 1928
The golden fog , Saarlouis 1930
Lightened Night , Freiburg 1931
Between world and forests , Saarbrücken 1933
Sörb siblings , Saarbrücken 1934
The nut tree , Saarlouis 1934
The reorganization of the Saar , Frankfurt am Main 1934 (together with Karl Busemann )
The resistance begins , Saarlouis 1934
The blue candle or the secret of home , Saarlouis 1935
The growing empire , Bonn 1935
Field guard of love , Saarlautern 1936
Play by poets and people , Saarlautern 1936
The house , Saarlautern 1937
Odilo and the secrets , Freiburg i. B. 1937
Harvest one summer , Freiburg 1938
The journey of the faithful , Freiburg 1938
The hard morning , Stuttgart 1938
Stars above the village , Saarlautern 1938
The Marshal's nephew , Munich [u. a.] 1939
Songs of Confidence , Munich 1940
The gate of joy , Bonn 1940
The wedding ring , Jena 1940
Consolation of Things , Freiburg 1940
Bernard Wieman , Osnabrück 1941
Small delicacies , Freiburg 1942
The rested cousin and other calming stories , Munich 1942
The seasons , Freiburg i. Br. 1944
The Undaunted Heart , Kolmar 1945
Preserved and Promising , Saarlouis 1946
Late at night , Munich 1946
Consolation book to a young woman , Trier 1947

Load on narrow shoulders , Saarlouis 1948

The shepherd's cart , Saarbrücken 1948
The dream maker , Saarbrücken 1948
My Saar Breviary , Saarbrücken 1949
Open Herrgottsstuben , Leipzig 1956
Coming home to die , Gütersloh 1959
Narrated World , Saarbrücken 1968
Collected works , Saarbrücken
- 1. Stories 1 , 1974
- 2. Stories 2 , 1976
- 3. Stories 3 , 1976
- 4. Stories 4 , 1978
- 5. The growing empire. Field Guard of Love , 1975
- 6. Novels 2 , 1980
- 7. The Gate of Joy , 1981
- 8. Poems Fairy Tales , 1982
- 9. Considerations, Essays, Features 1 , 1983
- 10. Considerations, Essays, Feuilletons 2 , 1984
- 11. Supplements, biographical abstract, bibliography , 1986
With Kirschweng through the year , Saarbrücken 1982

Translations

Altfried : The life of St. Liudger , Essen 1934

literature

Nikolaus Appel: Three Saarland folk poets and writers: Ernst Thrasolt , Bernard Michael Steinmetz, Johannes Kirschweng . In: 400 years of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium Trier . Trier 1961, pp. 103-124.
Patrik H. Feltes: The space that limits create. Boundaries and strategies for overcoming them are shown in selected works by the Saarland writer Johannes Kirschweng . In: Pierre Bèhar, Michel Grunewald (eds.): Frontières, Transferts, Échanges Transfrontaliers et Interculturels. Actes du XXXVIe Congrès de l'Association des Germanistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur . Peter Lang, Bern et al. 2005, pp. 207–227.
Wolfgang Haberl: Johannes Kirschweng . Diss., Innsbruck 1968.
Hugo Hagn: Catholic poets in words and pictures . Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag 1934. pp. 84–89.
Peter Neumann (Ed.): Johannes Kirschweng. Pictures and documents . Saarbrücken printing and publishing house, Saarbrücken 1980, ISBN 3-921646-31-6 .
Martin Persch : Johannes Kirschweng. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 1535-1537. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Franz-Josef Reichert : Kirschweng, Johannes. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 677 f. ( Digitized version ).
Frank Steinmeyer: "Because home stands above all the misery of this time". Literature and politics in the work of Johannes Kirschweng , Röhrig, St. Ingbert 1990, ISBN 3-924555-43-5 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Kirschweng, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Catholic priest and writer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 19, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wadgassen
DATE OF DEATH	August 22, 1951
Place of death	Saarlouis