Josef Nadler

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Josef Nadler

Josef Nadler (born May 23, 1884 in Neudörfl near Reichenberg , Austria-Hungary ; † January 14, 1963 in Vienna ) was an Austrian Germanist and literary historian , who was known as the protagonist of a “new National Socialist poetry” , especially during the Nazi era .

life and work

Nadler attended the Jesuit convict in Mariaschein and the grammar school in Bohemian-Leipa . There he made in 1904 High School , then he studied at the Charles University in Prague German with a minor in Classical Philology at Carl von Kraus , Adolf Hauffen and August Sauer . In the latter, Nadler received his doctorate in 1908 on Eichendorff's poetry.

In 1912 Nadler published the first volume of his popular scientific literary history. This formed the basis for his appointment as associate professor to succeed Wilhelm Kosch at the University of Freiburg in Üechtland in Switzerland . In 1914 Nadler became a full professor there and taught there until 1925, although this was interrupted by his military service from 1914 to 1917. In 1925, Nadler was appointed to the Albertina in Königsberg (Prussia) as Rudolf Unger's successor . There he invited the Estonian poet and literary critic Gustav Suits to give lectures. Thanks to Nadler's good connections to Lithuania , u. a. to his student Joseph Ehret in Kaunas , the "German language courses" were carried out especially for Lithuanian students.

In 1931 Nadler received an offer to Vienna to succeed Paul Kluckhohn . In the course of the appointment process, attempts were made to characterize the two main candidates: "As a personality, Nadler probably does not have the winning kindness and harmony of Günther Müller, but very strong temperament and tenacious energy." In his main work, the literary history of the German tribes and landscapes (Regensburg 1912–1928), Nadler interprets German literary history from a mainly ethnic point of view. According to this, the Teutons had absorbed the best characteristics of the Roman culture through physical intermingling with the Romans and were thus able to incorporate these characteristics into the development of their “ race ”. Nadler assigned different intellectual currents in German literature to different tribes .

After Austria was annexed to the German Empire, Nadler renamed his literary history, which had been published in 3 editions, and revised it. It was published as the 4th edition of the literary history of the German (Berlin, 1938-1941). His anti-Semitic tirades stand out here. Because Nadler sees Judaism as a danger:

“As long as they were healthy and independent, all European peoples have found living in a community with the Jews to be unwelcome and dangerous. All the young, emerging western European people's states of the Middle Ages exterminated the Jews from among themselves to the root. "

He particularly hates the poet Heinrich Heine . He showered Heine with a veritable flood of abuse. Walter Grab quotes him and a .: As a "intellectual bankrupt without taste, without organ for the spirit of art, truth, inner attitude, he was the most influential devastator of German prose, the creator of the newspaper phase". Elsewhere, Nadler welcomes the murder of the writer Hugo Bettauer ( The City without Jews ) in March 1925:

"It made sense when Hugo Bettauer was shot dead by a young man in 1925 because of his dirty work."

This volume was added to the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet Zone in 1947 . After 1945 the more balanced 3rd edition was presented as a reprint.

Like Adolf Bartels , Heinz Kindermann , Franz Koch , Hellmuth Langenbucher , Walther Linden (1895–1943), Arno Mulot and Hans Naumann, Nadler was one of the leading literary scholars of the "Third Reich", who repeatedly contributed to a "new 'National Socialist poem'" called. Because of his activities during the time of National Socialism , Nadler was decommissioned in 1945 and he retired in 1947. A dispute over his rehabilitation ensued, and Nadler became a leading figure in the newly formed German national camp in Austria.

After 1945 he appeared primarily as a literary historian. He published a literary history of Austria (1948), monographs on Franz Grillparzer (1948), Johann Georg Hamann (1949), Josef Weinheber (1952) as well as editions of the works of Hamann (Complete Works, 6 Vols., 1949-57) and Weinheber ( Complete works, 5 vols., 1953–56). Nadler died on January 14, 1963 in Vienna. A biography written by Nadler about the writer Henry Benrath remained unpublished.

Membership in the NSDAP

Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer emphasizes the often opinionated and opportunistic behavior of Nadler. In 1935, Nadler charged the Vienna State School Inspector Oskar Benda with insulting his honor because he had brought him close to National Socialism and his (Catholic) orthodoxy had questioned. At that time, at the time of the Catholic-oriented corporate state, Nadler felt that he had to defend himself against such an assessment. (After the end of the war, Nadler took up his complaint as an argument to prove his distance from National Socialism.)

According to his own statements (after the end of the war), Nadler applied for admission to the NSDAP “in mid-August 1938”, so since then he has been a “party candidate”. His application was accepted (in the "winter of 1940", ie at the end of 1939?) And membership was dated May 1, 1938, with the low membership number 6.196.904. Nadler received this special award for those who had campaigned for National Socialism before the Anschluss because of his commitment to the Anschluss. At the beginning of 1944, Nadler explained his active participation in the party: "I served in the local branch from summer 1939 to June 1943, initially as a block helper, then as a block administrator ...".

When a former student of Nadler questioned his National Socialist sentiments, Nadler referred him to his active participation in the NSDAP and to the fact that he in no way disregarded racial studies, but had even "demanded it as a central science" in his lecture.

At the end of 1942, Nadler felt “forced” to “call the Gaugericht Vienna” on a “discriminatory matter”. In the post-war period he presented this as "persecution by the Gaugericht Vienna". The matter ended up at the Supreme Party Court in Munich, and Martin Bormann dealt with it. He mentioned Nadler's complaints against the two Reich Ministers Goebbels and Rust. Referring to Nadler's lawsuit in 1935, Bormann worked towards the following solution: The inclusion of Nadler with a low membership number - as if he had campaigned for National Socialism when it was still forbidden in Austria - was incorrect, so “the admission was closed make and honorably dismiss Professor Nadler from the party ”. But some committed National Socialists in Vienna did not want to implement that, especially Baldur von Schirach (Reichsstatthalter in Vienna), who postponed the matter. It is not entirely clear whether an official decision was made here - Nadler only found out about it years later. Martin Bormann had also mentioned in his letter of February 25, 1944 that he had to give Hitler information about Nadler because he was reading his literary history .

Awards and honors

Fonts

  • Literary history of the German tribes and landscapes , 4 volumes, 1912–1928
  • History of the development of German literature , 1914
  • The science of literary history (in Euphorion 1914, p. 1 ff, online: archive.org )
  • The Austrian Volksstück , 1921
  • The Berlin Romanticism 1800–1814. A contribution to the common people question: Renaissance, Romanticism, Restoration , 1921
  • From Art and Art of German Switzerland , 1922
  • The Spiritual Structure of German Switzerland (1798–1848) , 1924
  • The German tribes , 1925
  • Heinrich von Kleist. Speech given January 18, 1928 , 1928
  • The Hamann edition. Legacy, Efforts, Execution , 1930
  • Hamann, Kant, Goethe. Lecture given on January 11, 1931 at a public meeting of the Königsberg Learned Society , 1931
  • Book trade, literature and the nation, past and present , 1932
  • History of literature in German-speaking Switzerland , 1932
  • The regular structure of the German people , 1934
  • German spirit, German east. 10 speeches , 1937
  • Literary history of the German people, fourth volume: Reich (1914–1940) , 4 1941
  • Franz Grillparzer , 1948
  • Literary history of Austria , 1948
  • Johann Georg Hamann, 1730–1788. The witness of the Corpus mysticum , 1949
  • History of German Literature , 1951
  • Josef wine lifter. History of his life and poetry , 1952
  • Minor aftermath , 1954
  • The German seal of Austria , Eckartschriften Heft 14b, Österreichische Landsmannschaft , 1964

literature

  • Gisela Brude-Firnau: Thomas Mann and Josef Nadler. Three decades of literary history . In: Seminar , 31 (1995), University of Toronto Press, pp. 203-216.
  • Moriz Enzinger : Josef Nadler - Obituary. In: Almanach of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , 113th year (1963), 385–415 (special print).
  • Elias H. Füllenbach : Nadler, Josef . In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1298-1301.
  • Elias H. Füllenbach : Josef Nadler . In: Michael Fahlbusch, Ingo Haar and Alexander Pinwinkler (eds.), Handbuch der Völkischen Wissenschaften. Actors, networks, research programs. 2. completely revised u. exp. Edition Berlin 2017, pp. 533-540.
  • Commemorative writing for Josef Nadler on the occasion of his 100th birthday. 1884-1984. Self-published by the J.-G.-Herder-Bibliothek Siegerland, Siegen 1984. (Writings of the JG Herder-Bibliothek Siegerland eV 14)
  • Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : opportunists, sympathizers and officials. Support of the Nazi system in the Vienna Academy of Sciences, represented by the work of Nadler, Srbik and Master. In: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 110 (1998), Issue 4–5 ( on the 60th anniversary of the expulsion of Jewish colleagues from the Vienna medical faculty ), pp. 152–157.
  • Wolfgang Hecht: Necessary comments on an unnecessary book: Josef Nadler "Kleines Nachspiel" In: Scientific magazine of the Pädagogische Hochschule Potsdam (social and linguistic series) 3 (1957) 1, pp. 103-106.
  • Markus Knecht: Josef Nadler's "literary history of the German tribes and landscapes". A contribution to the history of science in German studies. Munich 1988 (Univ. Dipl.-Arb.).
  • Hans-Christof Kraus : Josef Nadler (1884-1963) and Königsberg. In: Preußenland 38 (2000), pp. 12-26.
  • Sebastian Meissl, Friedrich Nemec:  Nadler, Josef. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , pp. 690-692 ( digitized version ).
  • Wolfgang Müller-Funk: Josef Nadler: Cultural Studies in National Socialist Times? In: The "Austrian" National Socialist Aesthetics , ed. v. Ilija Dürhammer . Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2003 ISBN 3-205-77151-6 .
  • Irene Ranzmaier: German national literature (s) as cultural, social and natural history. Josef Nadler's traditional literary historiography 1909–1931. Vienna 2005 (Univ. Diss. 2005).
  • Irene Ranzmaier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, Conflict, and Science. Böhlau, Vienna 2005, pp. 102–123 ( about Nadler as a professor ) and 163–167 ( about Nadler's denazification ).
  • Walter Rumpf: Bibliography Josef Nadler. A compilation of the most important publications and publications in the years 1909–1934 . Wroclaw 1935.
  • University professor Dr. Josef Nadler on his 75th birthday. Dedicated by his friends and students. Austria. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1959.
  • Peter Wiesinger , Daniel Steinbach: 150 years of German studies in Vienna. Extra-university early German studies and university German studies. Edition Praesens, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7069-0104-8 .
  • Jan Zimmermann: The FVS Foundation's Culture Awards 1935–1945. Presentation and documentation. Edited by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS Hamburg 2000, pp. 152–164.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ University Archives Vienna, personal file Josef Nadler, sheet 42f. Quoted from Graf-Stuhlhofer: Opportunisten , p. 152.
  2. ↑ Vol. 4 on the Reich (1914-1940) begins with the main ideas (pp. 1–6), there p. 2.
  3. ↑ Walter Grab: Heinrich Heine as a political poet. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-7632-4016-0 , p. 21.
  4. ^ After Anne Betten , Konstanze Fliedl : Judaism and anti-Semitism: Studies on literature and German studies in Austria . Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co KG 2003. ISBN 978-3-503-06151-8 . S. 175 in Josef Nadler: literary history of the German people. Poetry and literature of the German tribes and landscapes. Vol. 4: Reich (1914-1940) . Berlin 1941, p. 469.
  5. ^ List of literature to be sorted out 1947 . The name is printed there as "Nadier, Josef".
  6. ^ Jan-Pieter Barbian : Literary politics in the Nazi state. From synchronization to ruin. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, p. 390.
  7. ↑ Uwe Baur, Karin Gradwohl-Schlacher: Literature in Austria 1938–1945: Handbook of a literary system. Volume 3: Upper Austria. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2014, p. 270.
  8. ↑ In: Opportunists .
  9. ↑ Graf-Stuhlhofer: Opportunisten , p. 153. His accession is given as August 1938 in Ernst Klee : Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 427.
  10. ^ The documents from the personnel files relating to Nadler in the Archive of the Republic, in the University Archive of Vienna and in the archive of the Austrian Academy of Sciences: At Graf-Stuhlhofer: Opportunisten .
personal data
SURNAME Nadler, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Germanist and literary historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Neudörfl , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1963
Place of death Vienna