Josef Wiessalla

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Josef Wiessalla (born December 15, 1898 in Beuthen , Province of Silesia , † March 1945 in Breslau , Province of Lower Silesia ) was a German writer and journalist. In the interwar period he was considered one of the most promising talents in Upper Silesia .

Life

Wiessalla was born one of eight children to a railroad man. Despite his talent, he was unable to attend secondary school due to the family's poverty, so that after elementary school he hired himself as a smelter.

After serving in the First World War , he tried a variety of professions and activities in Opole . a. as a miner, as a machinist, as an accountant and as a reporter. At times he was unemployed. During the uprisings in Upper Silesia from 1919 to 1921, Wiessalla was a “ border guard fighter against insurgent Poles”, according to his self-reported. At the same time, he suffered from the fact that the Upper Silesian culture was oppressed from both sides after 1918, through Germanization or Polonization. For a time he was a member of the League of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers ; whether he also belonged to the KPD is uncertain.

In 1928 Wiessalla began to write for the magazine Der Oberschlesier published by Karl Schodrok ; then Max Tau, also from Beuthen, discovered him for Bruno Cassirer's publishing house . Wiessalla's novels and stories focus on the “common people” of Silesia; they are tied to their homeland and socially critical. With his novels, stories and dramas "he wrote against German and Polish nationalism". His novel The rebels appeared in 1935 as a serial novel in the then widely read series "Library of entertainment and knowledge" of the Union German publishing company . His drama The Underground Front: A Mine Play in Three Acts was also broadcast as a radio play on the German broadcaster.

During the Second World War Wiessalla had to do military service again. He has been missing since the battle of Breslau ; later he was pronounced dead .

Wiessalla's German-language work has been rediscovered in the now Polish Silesia for several years .

Works

Stories:

  • The underground front (1937)
  • Gowin Seeks Genius (1938)
  • No Man's Land (1942)
  • The Battle of Himmelwitz (1943)

Novels:

  • The rebels (1935)
  • Udyta (1939)
  • Between Day and Dream (1941)
  • The Orpheus Cup (1942)
  • Underground (1961)

Plays:

  • People on Outposts: Drama in Five Acts (1928)
  • Crisis: unemployment tragedy (1929)
  • The Underground Front: A Mine in Three Acts (1934)
  • The Well Comedy: A Game in Three Acts (1937)

Translations:

  • Czech: Buřiči (1941) - The rebels
  • Norwegian: Opprørerne på Gorek (1942) - The rebels
  • Dutch: No man's land (1943) - No man's land
  • Polish: Bitwa pod Jemielnicą (2017) - The Battle of Himmelwitz

literature

  • Horst Denkler : Factory ruins, debris from life. Literary traces of the lost generation of the Third Reich . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006 (there especially pp. 155–165).
  • Olaf Haas: Max Tau and his group. On the ideological history of “Upper Silesian” literature in the Weimar Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn 1988, ISBN 3-506-78114-6 (therein pp. 72-81 on Josef Wiessalla).
  • Eugeniusz Klin: Wiessalla Josef (1898–1945), pisarz-górnik. In: Jan Drabina (Ed.): Bytomski Słownik Biograficzny . Towarzystwo Miłośników Bytomia, Bytom 2004, ISBN 83-908018-6-8 , p. 277.
  • Arno Lubos : The Silesian Poetry in the 20th Century . Bergstadtverlag, Munich 1961.
  • Arno Lubos: History of the literature of Silesia. Volume 2, Bergstadtverlag, Munich 1967.
  • Arno Lubos: A worker poet . Josef Wiessalla died 60 years ago . In: Upper Silesia. ISSN  0343-5113 . 55th volume (2005), issue 8, p. 15.

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Horst Denkler: Ruins of works, ruins of life. Literary traces of the lost generation of the Third Reich . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006, p. 165.
  2. ↑ a b c Horst Denkler: Ruined works, debris of life. Literary traces of the lost generation of the Third Reich . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006, p. 164.
  3. ↑ a b Arno Lubos : A worker poet . Josef Wiessalla died 60 years ago . In: Upper Silesia. ISSN  0343-5113 . 55th volume (2005), issue 8, p. 15.
  4. ↑ Hans Ludwig Oeser: Our new novel "Die Empörer" . In: Library of entertainment and knowledge , Vol. 7 of the year 1935, pp. 70–71, here p. 70.
  5. ↑ Horst Denkler: Ruins of works, ruins of life. Literary traces of the lost generation of the Third Reich . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2006, p. 163.
  6. ↑ Hans Ludwig Oeser: Our new novel "Die Empörer" . In: Library of entertainment and knowledge , Vol. 7 of the year 1935, pp. 70–71, here p. 71.
  7. ↑ Piotr Jelitto: Legenda o bitwie pod Jemielnicą (about the story The Battle of Himmelwitz ). In: Strzelec Opolski. 2014, No. 773 (22), accessed June 28, 2014.
  8. ↑ Eugeniusz Klin: Wiessalla Josef (1898-1945), pisarz-górnik. In: Jan Drabina (Ed.): Bytomski Słownik Biograficzny . Towarzystwo Miłośników Bytomia, Bytom 2004, ISBN 83-908018-6-8 , p. 277.
  9. ^ Tomasz Nowak: Opowieść o bytomianinie, który napisał Śląski Potop (about Josef Wiessalla and the Polish-language edition of “The Battle of Himmelwitz” ). In: Życie Bytomskie 2017, No. 39 (3143), p. 12.
  10. ↑ The novel was published post mortem.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wiessalla, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Bytom , Province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH March 1945
Place of death Wroclaw , Lower Silesia Province