Josef Hofbauer (writer)

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Josef Hofbauer (born January 20, 1886 in Vienna ; died September 25, 1948 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German journalist and writer.

Life

Hofbauer was the son of a worker. The typesetter, who was active in the social democratic youth movement, was a co-founder of the Union of Young Workers Austria in 1904 , the forerunner of the Socialist Workers' Youth . In 1910 he was appointed by Josef Seliger to the editorial team of the magazine Freiheit in Teplitz-Schönau , where he took part in the development of socialist youth associations. From 1914 to 1918 he was a soldier in the First World War . In 1919 he became editor-in-chief of freedom , in 1921 of the socialist youth . In 1924 he came to Prague as editor of the Social Democrat and later also of the journals Equality and Women's World .

As a member of the board of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic (DSAP), after the annexation of the German-speaking areas of Bohemia as a result of the Munich Agreement, he emigrated to Malmö in Sweden in autumn 1938 , where he worked in several exile magazines.

After the end of Nazi rule, he settled in Frankfurt am Main in 1948 and became editor-in-chief of the Socialist Tribune . In the same year he died at the age of 62.

Hofbauer wrote political and biographical writings about Seliger and Masaryk , as well as socially critical and militant poetry. His most important work is the novel The March into Chaos (1930), based on Hofbauer's war diary , whose realistic portrayal of the war on the Austro-Italian front counteracts contemporary tendencies to mythicize the experience of the front in the First World War:

“A wild, thunderous crash that shakes the stone floor tears the sleepers open, throws them up into the air. In rapid succession. Hissing and howling in the air. Stones, large blocks and smaller pieces, metal debris, earth tumble down with a crash. Fire spurts up in the ditch, sprays in all directions - dark spring springs whirl up, sink together, sink into newly burning rays of flame. Blow after blow - a hundred crashing blows at the same time - a gigantic hammer smashes the Monte San Michele and the passages and caves, the tiny people carved into his body, tramples the little people with the trenches that they built in weeks of work. "

Hofbauer's estate is located in the Collegium Bohemicum in Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic.

Works

  • The fight for German Bohemia. Leipzig 1919.
  • What does socialism want? Attempt at a common understanding. Teplitz-Schönau 1925.
  • In red Vienna. Study trip of German workers from Czechoslovakia. Prague 1926.
  • The march into chaos. Austria's war book from the Italian front. Vienna 1930.
  • with Emil Strauss: Josef Seliger. A picture of life. Prague 1930.
  • Vienna, city of songs. Cycle of poems. Bodenbach 1934.
  • Village in shards. A glassworker novel. Bratislava 1937.
  • The big old man. A Masaryk book. Bratislava 1938.
  • Late harvest. Poems. Stockholm 1944. New edition: Stuttgart 1973. Compiled by Adolf Hasenöhrl (partially modified version of the Stockholm 1944 edition).

literature

  • Ernst Fischer: Hofbauer, Josef. In: Wilhelm Kühlmann (Ed.): Killy Literature Lexicon . Authors and works from the German-speaking cultural area. 2., completely revised Ed. De Gruyter, Berlin 2009, vol. 5, p. 510 f.
  • Bruno Jahn: The German-language press. Saur 2005, ISBN 3598117108 , p. 468.
  • Helmut Müssener: Exile in Sweden. Political and cultural emigration after 1933. Munich 1974, p. 390 ff.
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2015, ISBN 3462309633 , pp. 194f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Freedom: social democratic daily paper. Teplitz 1898-1938, ZDB -ID 1189335-7 .
  2. ^ Socialist youth. Magazine for the German working class youth in the Czechoslovak Republic . Teplitz-Schönau 1921-1934, ZDB -ID 1030091-0 .
  3. ^ Social Democrat: Central organ of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic. Prague 1921-1938, ZDB ID 1154569-0 .
  4. ↑ Equality: the sheet of the working woman. Prague 1927-1938, ZDB -ID 1106340-3 .
  5. ↑ Frauenwelt: a weekly publication . Prague 1934-1938, ZDB -ID 1207292-8 .
  6. ^ Socialist tribune. Monthly . Frankfurt a. M. 1947-1948.
  7. ↑ Quoted from: Josef Hofbauer and “The March into Chaos”. Contribution by Marco Zimmermann, Radio Praha, September 3, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Hofbauer, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1948
Place of death Frankfurt am Main