Josef Preussler

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Josef Preußler (born May 27, 1891 as Josef Syrowatka in Reichenberg , Austria-Hungary ; † January 9, 1967 in Rosenheim ) was a German-speaking teacher, local historian , folklorist and author who first worked in Bohemia under Austrian, Czechoslovak and German rule and then was active in the Federal Republic of Germany . He was the father of the children's book author Otfried Preußler .

Life

origin

Josef Syrowatka was the son of the tailor Josef Syrowatka (1856-1913) from the hamlet of Škodějov northeast of Semily and his wife Dorothea, née Jireš (1869-1949), from the village of Chudoplesy near Mnichovo Hradiště (Münchengrätz). He was born in Reichenberg, a German-speaking settlement area. The mother's place of birth was on the other side of the language border. Most of the relatives who lived there (in the village of Jivina) spoke Czech , as Otfried Preussler recalled. The parents "came from a purely Czech-speaking environment" and had only settled in Reichenberg at the end of the 19th century; they were primarily farmers and craftsmen. In obituaries, a German-Bohemian family tree of Syrowatka is rumored, which is said to go back to the Preussler family of glassmakers in the 16th or 17th century; Raimund Paleczek could “not prove” such a genealogical connection in his research. The name “Preußler”, adopted in 1941 as part of Heydrich's Germanization policy , came from a grandmother of Syrowatka, who is recorded as Agnes Praizler.

Teacher and local historian in Czechoslovakia

Josef Syrowatka studied at the teacher training college in Reichenberg (later Liberec ) during the time of Austrian rule and worked there as a teacher at the elementary school from 1913 and at the auxiliary school from 1920 . He was involved in the board of the association "German Aid School", where he was temporarily secretary . During the time of the young Czechoslovakia , Syrowatka was the editor in the series “Books for German Youth” and “Books for Class Reading”, a selection of works by recognized writers for young people from 1919 to 1922. From 1923 he was voluntarily responsible for the local history collections, which he expanded into the “Heimathort” museum; there he put on, among other things, a large collection of Bohemian Christmas cribs. He founded a local history specialist library and pursued various other local history activities. In particular, he collected German-language legends and fairy tales in the nearby Jizera Mountains . He published numerous articles in various local and folklore magazines and also wrote independent works, mainly of a local history. In his volume Reichenberg (1922) local historical and folkloric documents as well as his own overview presentations are collected, anti-Czech or anti-Semitic remarks are completely missing. Occasionally Syrowatka also wrote poetry. He is also referred to as the city ​​archivist and chronicler of Reichenberg / Liberec. From 1925 to 1938 he was editor of the magazine Deutsche Jugend , published by the German State Teachers' Association in Bohemia , which was intended to educate and educate German-speaking youth. In addition, Syrowatka put together with Reinhold Erben and Hugo Wagner a songbook for elementary and community schools Der Jugend Liederborn , which reached several editions.

In the National Socialist Sudetengau: From Syrowatka to Preußler

Isa Engelmann, the author of a story of the Jewish citizens of Reichenberg, described Syrowatka as "one of the leading figures for local history and Reichenberg Germanness". After the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland appeared on Christmas Eve 1938 in the NSDAP in the Reich District of Sudetenland and OJ principal organ of the Reich Governor and all of its agencies , the time at which he uses shortcuts JS an anti-Semitic tinted propaganda post subtitled foreign customs Healthy people sense breaks through , the campaigned for a Germanization of the "strange, oriental" Christmas story. In 1939 he published a laudation for Franz Kraus , the founder and director of the Sudetendeutscher Verlag, in which he denounced the “Czech tyranny” of the last 20 years and praised the works of “National Socialist ideas” as “happy fire”. From May 25, 1940 Syrowatka represented the National Socialist Teachers 'Association for one year as a partner in the Reichenberg book publisher Paul Sollors' successor , in which his "Books for German Youth" had been published almost 20 years earlier. In 1941 he wrote an 80-page chronicle of the Gau capital Reichenberg , which celebrated the German history of the city and the National Socialist takeover and the activities of the Jews (who "strive to eat their way deeper and deeper into the national body"), Czechs ( "Extermination policy") and communists ("Communism and Marxism work feverishly through Jewish agents"). Carl Kostka was reviled here as a Masonic mayor who "encouraged the will of Prague". When compared with his publication Reichenberg from 1922, one can "observe the changing perspectives on local history in Syrowatka [...]", as Wojciech Kunicki noted; he saw an "institutional Nazification" of the author primarily in his participation in official projects of the Reichsgau Sudetenland . Günter Lange summed up in 2015 that Syrowatka was "probably part of the Nazis" at the time.

On December 16, 1941, by order of the District President von Aussig, his Czech family name Syrowatka was changed to Preußler. In 1943 Preußler became a lecturer and training manager at the Reichenberg Teachers Training College. In obituaries he is also referred to as the town councilor.

In the Federal Republic of Germany

After the end of the Second World War, Preußler was arrested in Czechoslovakia and sentenced to seven years in a camp by the Reichenberg District Court in 1946. He served the sentence in Kartouzy Detention Center until June 1950 . In 1950 he was expelled and came to Haidholzen near Rosenheim , where his son Otfried Preussler settled in 1949 after his return from Soviet captivity.

In Haidholzen near Rosenheim he set up a “Reichenberger Heimatarchiv”, which he looked after until his death in 1967. Among other things, he organized exhibitions of Sudeten German art for the “Reichenberger Heimattreffen” in Rosenheim in 1958 and wrote an article about Gustav Leutelt in the volume Große Sudetendeutsche edited by Josef Schneider . He bequeathed his local and family history to the Heimatstube Reichenberg in Augsburg , the godfather town of Liberec. For his services to the "cultural integration of the displaced" he received various awards, including the Golden Decoration of Honor of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft (1960), the Federal Cross of Merit (1961) and the Liebieg Medal (1966).

Private life

Josef Syrowatka / Preußler was married to Ernestine, called Erna, geb. Tscherwenka (1897–1982), who had trained as a teacher during the First World War. Until the end of the 1920s she was a teacher of German and history at a Reichenberg public school . The couple had two sons, the children's book author Otfried Preußler and a younger son Wolfhart (1927–1981).

Fonts

As a writer

  • Reichenberg. Sudeten German homeland districts . "Heimatbildung" pamphlet series, issue 21. Sudetendeutscher Verlag Franz Kraus, Reichenberg 1922
  • From Alt-Reichenberger Winkel: At the old shooting house . Sudeten German publisher Franz Kraus, Reichenberg 1926
  • Reichenberg: A city guide . P. Sollors' successor, Reichenberg 1929 (revised edition 1938)
  • Walks in the home. Booklet I / 1 by Erich Gierach , Anton Ressel and Franz Spatzal (eds.): Local history of the Reichenberg district in Bohemia . Publishing house of the three teachers' associations and the association for local history of the Jeschken-Iser-Gaues, Reichenberg 1931 (revised edition: Walks around Reichenberg . Kraft, Augsburg 1960)
  • Reichenberg, the capital of the Sudetengau. Part 1: The City . P. Sollors' successor, Reichenberg 1939
  • Chronicle of the Gau capital Reichenberg . CH way, Berlin 1941 ( Digitalisat the SLUB Dresden )
  • Unterm Jeschken: Happy foray through Reichenberg and the surrounding area . Record (45 revolutions per minute). Aufstieg-Verlag, Munich 1964

As editor and editor

  • Books for the German youth . Series at P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg. Including:
    • Johann Karl August Musäus : Two stories from the Rübezahl . Selected by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1922. Books for the German Youth, No. 24
  • Books for class reading . Series at P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg. Including:
    • Adalbert Stifter : From the high forest . Edited by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1919. Books for class reading, volume 2
    • Clemens Brentano : The fairy tale of the witticorn . Edited by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1920. Books for class reading, No. 13
    • Brothers Grimm : Seven children's legends . Edited by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1920. Books for class reading, booklet 14
    • Gottfried August Bürger : Baron von Münchhausen's adventures in Russia and the Turkish war. Selected by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1921. Books for class reading, No. 18
    • Gottfried August Bürger: The Baron von Münchhausen's lake adventure . Selected by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1921. Books for class reading, booklet 19
    • Gustav Schwab : The shield citizens . Selected by Josef Syrowatka. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1921. Books for class reading, volume 20
  • The youth of Liederborn. For general elementary schools. In three parts: A / 1: For the 1st, 2nd and 3rd school year. A / 2: For the 4th and 5th school year in elementary schools to which a community school is affiliated. B / 2: For the 4th to 8th school year. Compiled by Reinhold Erben, Josef Syrowatka and Hugo Wagner. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1924 (2nd, completely revised edition 1931/1932)
  • The youth of Liederborn. For community schools. Compiled by Reinhold Erben, Josef Syrowatka and Hugo Wagner. P. Sollors' Nachf., Reichenberg 1924 (2nd, completely revised edition 1937)
  • German youth . Editor: Josef Syrowatka. German state teachers' association in Bohemia, Reichenberg 1925–1938

literature

  • Biographical lexicon on the history of the Czech lands . Published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum (Institute) by Ferdinand Seibt , Hans Lemberg and Helmut Slapnicka, Volume III, R.Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-55973-7 . There entry “Preußler, Josef”, p. 311. Accessible online via the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/Vta2/bsb00090507/bsb:BV012923444?page=329
  • Life and work pictures of Sudeten German teachers. Volume 2, Brno 1933. There entry “Syrowatka Josef”, p. 497. Accessible via World Biographical Information System Online
  • Friedrich Jaksch : Lexicon of Sudeten German writers and their works for the years 1900–1929 . Reichenberg 1929. There entry “Syrowatka, Josef”, p. 321. Accessible via World Biographical Information System Online
  • Wojciech Kunicki : Otfried Preußler's father Josef Syrowatka / Preußler - folklorist and collector of Bohemian and Silesian stories . In: Jan Kvapil, Rahel Rosa Neubauer, Ernst Seibert (eds.): Hotzenplotz from Osoblaha. The Bohemian theme in Otfried Preussler's work . Special issue of Libri liberorum (Journal of the Austrian Society for Children's and Youth Literature Research), vol. 10, December. Praesens, Vienna 2009, pp. 30–32
  • Otfried Preußler : My father, a story collector . In: Otfried Preußler: I am a storyteller . Thienemann, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 30-34
  • Sudetenland. European cultural magazine. Vol. 10 (1968), p. 56. There obituary for Josef Preußler. Word identical on the 20th anniversary of his death in: Mitteilungen des Sudetendeutschen Archiv , No. 86 to 89 (1987), p. 45
  • Reichenberger Zeitung from February 15, 1967. Obituary
  • Reichenberg - town and country in the Neißetal. A home book. Edited by Dr.-Ing. Randolf Gränzer with the help of many friends of home. Published by Heimatkreis Augsburg eV 1974. There at: Literature and Poetry, p. 200

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Notes on the Bohemian origin of Otfried Preußler . In: Ernst Seibert, Kateřina Kovačková (ed.): Otfried Preußler - work and effect . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. a. 2013, pp. 87-106, here: pp. 92f. See also: Liberec Baptismal Register 1888–1891, Litomerice Regional State Archives - Archives Department, fol. 382-383.
  2. ^ Günter Lange: Questions about Otfried Preußler's biography and work . In: Volkacher Bote 99 (2013), pp. 30–35, here: p. 31, online . See Otfried Preußler: The Káča, the chalice and Wallenstein's epitaph . In: Otfried Preußler: I still knew Gustav Leutelt. Local texts by Otfried Preußler . Verlag der Leutelt-Gesellschaft, Schwäbisch Gmünd 2003, pp. 34–42.
  3. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Comments on the Bohemian origin by Otfried Preußler , p. 88; Günter Lange: Otfried Preußler's life and work . In: Kurt Franz, Günter Lange (ed.): The stuff that stories are made of . Schneider, Hohengehren 2015, pp. 1–33, here: p. 1.
  4. ↑ For example in Sudetenland 10 (1968), p. 56.
  5. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Comments on the Bohemian origin by Otfried Preußler , p. 88f. and 94; Günter Lange: Otfried Preußler's life and work , p. 1.
  6. ^ Biographical Lexicon for the History of the Bohemian Lands , Volume 3, p. 311; Life and work pictures of Sudeten German teachers , vol. 2, p. 497.
  7. ↑ Herwig Baier, Peter Reckziegel: German Aid School - Messages from the Association of German Aid Schools in the Czechoslovak Republic. Analysis of a teacher magazine . In: Stifter-Jahrbuch , New Series Volume 16 (2002), pp. 95-109, here: p. 103.
  8. ↑ Life and work pictures of Sudeten German teachers , p. 497.
  9. ↑ See the bibliography: Writings on Reichenberg and the Reichenberg district. Compiled by Dr. Viktor Lug . Enclosure to the "Messages of the Association for Local Studies of the Jeschken-Iser-Gaues". Second, supplemented edition. Reichenberg 1937 (the year apparently refers to the first edition, as the supplements extend to 1943). Online . There are over 50 contributions from Syrowatka.
  10. ↑ See the entry in the Liberec Library catalog: https://ipac.kvkli.cz/arl-li/cs/detail-li_us_cat-c160252-Gedichte/ .
  11. ↑ Sudetenland 10 (1968), p. 56; Biographical Lexicon for the History of the Bohemian Lands , Volume 3, p. 311; Otfried Preußler: My father, a story collector .
  12. ↑ Life and work pictures of Sudeten German teachers . Volume 2, p. 497; see. Hubert Göbel: Magazines for German Youth: A Chronography 1772-1960 . Harenberg, Dortmund 1986, p. 152. This journal and Syrowatka's editorial activity are dealt with in detail in: Heinrich Pleticha : Literary Influences and Models: Austria's German Youth and German Youth 1884–1938 . In: Ernst Seibert, Kateřina Kovačková (ed.): Otfried Preußler - work and effect . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. et al. 2013, pp. 75-86.
  13. ↑ Isa Engelmann: Reichenberg and his Jewish citizens . Lit Verlag, Münster 2012, p. 206.
  14. ^ Josef Syrowatka: Twenty Years Sudeten German Publishing House . In: Heritage and Mission . Kraus, Reichenberg 1939, pp. 131–140, available online at http://www.boehmischeverlagsgeschichte.at .
  15. ↑ Murray G. Hall: Paul Sollors' Nachf. Komm-Ges., Reichenberg / Liberec . Online at http://www.boehmischeverlagsgeschichte.at .
  16. ^ Josef Syrowatka: Chronicle of the Gau capital Reichenberg . Quotes pp. 53, 62, 65, 69.
  17. ^ Wojciech Kunicki: Otfried Preußler's father Josef Syrowatka / Preußler , p. 31.
  18. ^ Günter Lange: Otfried Preussler and the folk literature . In: Kurt Franz, Günter Lange (ed.): The stuff that stories are made of . Schneider, Hohengehren 2015, pp. 53–69, here: p. 65.
  19. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Comments on the Bohemian origin by Otfried Preußler , p. 92; see entry in the baptismal register of Liberec 1888–1891 in the Litomerice State Regional Archives - Archives Department, fol. 382-383.
  20. ↑ Biographical Lexicon for the History of the Bohemian Lands , Volume 3, p. 311.
  21. ↑ Sudetenland 10 (1968), p. 56. It is likely to have been the honorary office of a municipal council, in cities: councilor, according to the German municipal code of 1935. The municipal councils were not elected, but appointed by the NSDAP commissioner in consultation with the mayor (Section 51 of the Municipal Code).
  22. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Comments on the Bohemian origin by Otfried Preußler , p. 92.
  23. ↑ Biographical Lexicon for the History of the Bohemian Lands , p. 311; see. also Sudetenpost 16/1958, p. 4 (PDF; 9.1 MB). Josef Preußler: The Jizera Mountains poet Gustav Leutelt . In: Josef Schneider (Ed.): Great Sudeten Germans. Spiritual acts, life journeys, adventures . 2nd edition, Aufstieg, Munich 1961, p. 194 ff.
  24. ↑ Sudetenland 10 (1968), p. 56.
  25. ↑ Raimund Paleczek: From the Jizera Mountains to the Bohemian Forest: Comments on the Bohemian origin by Otfried Preußler , p. 90; Otfried Preußler: I am a storyteller , Thienemann, Stuttgart 2010, p. 13, as well as ibid .: I liked going to school , p. 26–29.
  26. ↑ Excerpts from Der Hochwald .
  27. ↑ The magazine was originally called Austria's German Youth (until 1918) and changed its title after the establishment of Czechoslovakia. Syrowatka took over the editing from Karl Neumann in 1925 and continued it until the German annexation of the Sudetenland, after which it was no longer published.
personal data
SURNAME Preussler, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Syrowatka, Josef (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-speaking teacher, local historian and folklorist, initially Austrian, then Czechoslovak and finally German citizenship
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Reichenberg , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1967
Place of death Rosenheim