Josef Wenter
Josef Wenter (born August 11, 1880 in Meran ; † July 5, 1947 in Innsbruck ) was a playwright and writer from South Tyrol .
Life
Wenter comes from an old Catholic family from South Tyrol. The family name can be traced back to the year 1237 as a farm name. The ancestors were landowners, innkeepers, postmasters and, since 1622, had a coat of arms and a letter of loyalty.
After graduating from the Benedictine grammar school in Merano in 1898, he went to Munich - against his parents' wishes - in 1900 and then to Leipzig to study music at the conservatory there. He graduated in 1903, but turned to drama because he felt overwhelmed by the demands of modern composition and the comparison of earlier well-known composers (such as Bach or Beethoven ). Wenter rejected a drama that had begun about Judas and began work on Saul .
At the same time, he began his philosophical, Germanistic and art history studies in 1908 and received his doctorate in Tübingen in 1914 with a thesis on The Paradox as a stylistic element in Hebbel's drama . In order to achieve material security, he wanted to take the path of a university career. However, this was thwarted by the outbreak of the First World War , which he participated in the 2nd regiment of the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger . The subsequent division of Tyrol, the southern part of which became part of Italy , burdened him personally.
In the Klagenfurt City Theater and in the Landestheater Coburg his works finally found acceptance and helped him to become nationally known. At that time he lived in Baden near Vienna . However, the turmoil of World War II drove him out of this idyll.
Wenter was a member of the NSDAP and wrote for the Völkischer Beobachter .
After Austria's annexation to the German Reich in 1938 , Wenter contributed to the Confession Book of Austrian Poets (published by the Association of German Writers in Austria ), which enthusiastically welcomed the annexation.
After the end of the war, his novel Spiel um den Staat ( Westermann , Braunschweig 1933) and the play Der Traktor (Pfeffer, Berlin and Vienna 1933) , written with Fritz Gottwald , were placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone . In the German Democratic Republic , this list was followed by the illustrated book Das Land in den Bergen (subtitle: “Vom Wehrbauer zum Gebirgsjäger”; Deutscher Alpenverlag, Innsbruck 1942) with photos by Simon Moser , for whom Wenter had written the text.
Awards and honors
- 1935 Franz Grillparzer Prize
- 1936 Prize of the Austrian State Prize
- 1936 Cross of Merit for Art and Science
- 1940 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Prize
- 1943 Grillparzer Prize of the City of Vienna during the National Socialist years (together with Mirko Jelusich and Josef Weinheber)
- Until 2015, a middle school in Merano was named after Josef Wenter. Due to Wenter's Nazi past, it was renamed.
Works
- Leonardo da Vinci
- thunderstorm
- Out of deep need
Comedies
- Impostor
- Carvela in July
- Prin Tumora
Dramas
- Johann Philipp Palm
- Chancellor of Tyrol (premiered in the Burgtheater in 1934)
- Landgrave of Thuringia
- Empress Maria Theresia (premiered on May 4, 1944 in the Burgtheater )
- Saul (his last work and at the same time his first was only premiered posthumously in Innsbruck )
libretto
- Court Ball in Schönbrunn (1937, operetta with music by August Pepöck )
Novels
- Monsieur the Cuckoo the Strange
- Laikan the salmon
- Situtunga
biography
- Leise Leise dear source
Individual evidence
- ^ Association of German writers Austria (ed.): Confession book of Austrian poets. Krystall Verlag, Vienna 1938.
- ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1947-nslit-w.html
- ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-w.html
- ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-m.html
- ↑ Homepage of the Meran-Stadt secondary school
Web links
- Literature by and about Josef Wenter in the catalog of the German National Library
- Entry on aeiou.at
- Estate in the Brenner archive of the University of Innsbruck
- Entry in the Lexicon of Literature in Tyrol
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Wenter, Josef |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South Tyrolean playwright and writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 11, 1880 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Meran |
DATE OF DEATH | July 5, 1947 |
Place of death | innsbruck |