Josefa Berens-Totenohl

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Josefa Berens-Totenohl (born March 30, 1891 in Grevenstein , Sauerland , † June 6, 1969 in Meschede ) was a German writer and painter .

biography

The Femhof in Gleierbrück - Josefa Berens-Totenohl's home

Josefa Berens was born the daughter of a blacksmith. Her mother died in childbirth and she grew up in the care of her grandparents. In 1911 she entered the teacher training college in Arnsberg . First she worked as a teacher in the Weserland until the beginning of the 1920s, then as a writer, painter and weaver of tapestries . She left the Catholic Church as early as 1920 . In 1923 she moved to Höxter- Godelheim , and in 1925 to Gleierbrück in the Sauerland (today part of Lennestadt ). In 1931 she subscribed to the Völkischer Beobachter and joined the NSDAP . She gave herself the stage name Josefa Berens-Totenohl.

At the end of the 1920s, like Maria Kahle , Christine Koch and Heinrich Luhmann , she joined the völkisch Sauerland Artists' Circle (SKK) founded by Georg Hermann Nellius . In the following years, the circle was headed by Hans Menne, NSDAP member since 1924. After the transfer of power, the NSDAP regarded the SKK as a representative association of the Sauerland culture bearers. The “National Socialist Revolution” filled its members “with great joy”, as they announced in a joint declaration in the Westphalian Central-Volksblatt of the center . The SKK was a member of the Rosenbergs Kampfbund for German culture .

Her close friends included Christine Koch, who wrote glorifying poems about Hitler and the NSDAP, and Maria Kahle , an active member of the anti-Semitic Young German Order , then the NSDAP. Berens and her milieu were as much at home as they were ns-moved. Steffen Stadthaus from the literature commission of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association sees her together with Maria Kahle as a “political activist” in the national scene.

Berens' novel Der Femhof and the follow-up novel Frau Magdlene achieved large print runs. Her subsequent novels Der Fels and Im Moor were less successful. Berens is considered to be a representative of folk mass literature and a protagonist of National Socialist blood-and-soil literature . The inspiration for her first novel came from her friend, the Nazi author and Thingspiel poet Richard Euringer .

In her two best-selling novels, she mixes anti-Semitic with anti-Gypsy passages. Negative opponents of heroic-Germanic Sauerland peasant figures are a Jewish-Gypsy “half-breed” with the speaking name “Robbe” and the “black peoples” of the “Gypsies”. “Every individual,” said Berens about this disposition, “must turn bad who has lost his bond with his people and his homeland. The value of a people is that they are ready to sacrifice. But for what should the Jew sacrifice? What is the gypsy for, what is the restless seal? So these people must become the enemies and corruption of others. "

Since she was awarded the Westphalian Literature Prize in 1935 , she was “increasingly active in the NSDAP cultural association”.

In 1941 she and other regional authors such as Heinrich Luhmann , Maria Kahle or Fritz Nölle declared themselves "soldiers of the word" in a " war confession by Westphalian poets " in the Nazi magazine Heimat und Reich , the central Nazi organ of Westphalian cultural and literary policy .

Berens undertook numerous reading trips for the Propaganda Ministry in what is known as the poet's mission. She mainly appeared in front of the Hitler Youth . Even from an apologetic point of view, the assessment is clear: “It must be added that in her novels Josefa Berens provides literary support to Adolf Hitler's idea of ​​building the 'New German Reich' on the idea of ​​'blood and soil'. ... The farm, the field is a gift from God, whoever serves him does 'worship'. "

Even in the final phase of the regime, Berens hid members of the SS from the Allies and boasted about this in her autobiography. She denied the National Socialist terror and, after its end, saw herself as persecuted: "Her people" were "plundered down to the last" and "her people" were "tortured" as she was "in this time of wild hardship and persecution". What was meant was the period that followed National Socialism. Rather, she presented herself as an apolitical idealist and Hitler as someone who had created permanent jobs in a convincing way: “The fact that Hitler brought so many honest people back to work back when unemployment was high, that alone could make you believe. And they stayed at work, that is not said today. I don't know who is responsible for the war and all of the terrible destruction and horrors. "

In the denazification process , she was initially assessed as an "activist through propaganda lectures and writing" and placed in category III. In the revision she received the more favorable classification IV (“Mitläuferin”). The chairman of the committee and its defender was the teacher and local writer Karl Broermann , who in turn had emerged as the author of Nazi ideological teaching materials ("Albert Leo Schlageter, a German hero"; "Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf"; "From Adolf Hitler's speeches. Edited for the youth ”).

In 1955 Berens took part in the first, 1956 in the second Westphalian poets' meeting in Schmallenberg. At this meeting it came to the " Schmallenberg poets dispute ". Younger authors turned against the mystification of the concept of home in general and against the völkisch blood-and-soil literature and the National Socialist commitment of many older authors in particular. Josefa Berens was also explicitly criticized. The writer then withdrew to privacy.

After her death in 1969 she was buried in Lennestadt-Saalhausen .

Honor, criticism, withdrawal

  • 1935: First recipient of the Westphalian Literature Prize , which is awarded every two years from 1935 to 1943 and is endowed with 10,000 Reichsmarks, in front of Maria Kahle , Karl Wagenfeld , Heinrich Luhmann and Christine Koch
  • 1956: Honor on the 65th birthday by the Westphalian Social Democratic Prime Minister Fritz Steinhoff and recognition of Berens-Totenohl as the winner of the Westphalian Literature Prize in 1935 by the spokesman for the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association
  • 1991: Unveiling of a memorial plaque at the birthplace in Grevenstein by the representatives of a "circle of friends"

As a “local poet” and successful writer, Berens was highly valued in the region for a long time. “An active circle of friends scattered far and wide across the Sauerland” stood by her side.

For her 100th birthday in 1991, a memorial stone was to be placed in the middle of the Saalhauser Kurpark with an accompanying celebration. The cultural and monument preservation committee prevented this on the grounds that "in view of possible discussions about the person, which are based on the not clearly clarified past from the time of National Socialism , particularly worthy events are not appropriate."

Its supporters also included younger people like the school principal, author of numerous religious writings and children's books, and founder and long-time chairman of the Sauerland Christine Koch Society Dietmar Rost . He tried “openly”, so the criticism of the publicist Gisbert Strotdrees in the 1990s, “to make a Nazi poet acceptable again”.

The controversial "Josefa-Berens-Straße" in Gleierbrück will be renamed to "Alter Weg" on January 1st, 2015
Memorial stone to Josefa Berens in Gleierbrück. The heavily weathered inscription includes the note “The narrator of the Sauerland lived and worked in Gleierbrück from 1925 to 1968. Your peasant novels are great epic poetry. 1936 Westphalian Literature Prize "

Despite von Berens' Nazi activism, streets were named after her. Some of these names have been reversed in recent years, for example in 2013 in Eslohe and 2014 in Lennestadt. The city council decided to rename all street names in Gleierbrück that are reminiscent of Josefa Berens-Totenohl and her works (Josefa-Berens-Straße, Femhofstraße, and Frau-Magdlene-Straße). The memorial stone to the writer is also under discussion. Berens lived and worked in Gleierbrück from 1925 to 1969 in the "Femhof" estate, which she financed with prize money.

In the “Haus des Gastes” in Lennestadt- Saalhausen , the association “Heimatstube Saalhausen” looks after a “Josefa-Berens-Stube”. A collection of her writings, abandoned furniture, pictures and textile works are currently on display there. In the course of the renaming of the street names in the neighboring town of Gleierbrück, which are reminiscent of the writer, the Josefa-Berens-Stube was closed to visitors at the beginning of 2014. A new concept is being developed for the use of this location.

Even at times of sustained post-National Socialist popularity, Berens was exposed to biting literary criticism. The literary critic Oda Schaefer judged the short story collection Der Alte hinterm Turm , published in 1949 : “Although the earth here is heavily red and Westphalian, the farmers remain paper. Perhaps you should drink a Steinhäger while reading it. ”In recent research, Berens is received as a typical Nazi poet, whose work is largely ideological and also of poor linguistic quality. According to the Westphalian literature portal , she is considered by literary studies to be “ the absolute blood and soil poet” (emphasis in the orig.). “Homeland voices” would come to a different conclusion. The literature portal quoted Dietmar Rost with the assessment that Der Femhof and Frau Magdlen , “their heavy and harrowing peasant novels ”, are “great epic poetry that will forever give the great narrator of the Sauerland a place in Westphalian and German literary history [ t] en ”. In their activities under National Socialism, it was a question of "entanglement". It does not affect the great literary importance. “Certainly,” said Rost, “a later time will be able to appreciate the work of those who are hushed up today, because they are more impartial.” The authors of the Berens portrait on the LWL portal “Westphalian History” comment on this statement: Berens will be recognized by serious literary studies in no way “hushed up”, and there is a dispute about who deserves them “biased”. "The fact that the author is also sure of the promise of a 'later time' should speak for itself."

Fonts

  • Mutzpeter . Fairy tale (1933)
  • The Femhof , novel (1934)
  • Mrs. Magdlene , Roman (1935)
  • The sleeping bread , poems (1936)
  • A poetry lesson , compiled by Kurt Ziesel (1937)
  • The woman as creator and sustainer of nationality . Speech (1938)
  • A clan's face . Epic (1941)
  • The rock , novel (1943)
  • Im Moor , novel (1944)
  • Homeland (1944)
  • The old man behind the tower , village stories (1949)
  • The mute , novel (1949)
  • The golden eggs , children's fairy tales (1950)
  • The Face (1950)
  • Answer of Hearts , anthology (1951)
  • Michael Rother's love . Novella (1951)
  • Westphalia. Land of the red earth . Illustrated book (1956)
  • The secret guilt . Novel (1960)

She also wrote the introduction to Helmut Domke's Westphalia. Land of the Red Earth (1955).

literature

  • Christian Adam: Reading under Hitler: authors, bestsellers, readers in the Third Reich. Galliani, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86971-027-3 , pp. 288ff.
  • Peter Bürger: The national wing of the Sauerland homeland movement. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle - at the same time a contribution to the street name debate. Eslohe 2013, pp. 7–27 and 70–72. PDF file
  • Christine Koch dialect archive in collaboration with the Kreisheimatbund Olpe (publisher): Josefa Berens-Totenohl (1891–1969). Successful National Socialist author from the Sauerland. Research contributions by Peter Bürger, Reinhard Kiefer, Monika Löcken, Ortrun Niethammer, Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann and Friedrich Schroeder (daunlots. Internet contributions from the christine-koch-mundart archive at the museum eslohe, no. 70), Eslohe 2014, see: [14]
  • Eva-Maria Gehler: Female Nazi Affinities. Degree of affinity for the system of women writers in the “Third Reich” , Würzburg 2010
  • Ortrun Niethammer: Josefa Berens-Totenohl as a propagandist of the National Socialist cultural policy, in: Westfälische Forschungen , 42 (1992), pp. 346–359
  • Ortrun Niethammer: Josefa Berens-Totenohl (1891–1969). In: Literature next door. In cooperation with the Literaturbüro NRW eV, Düsseldorf, and with the assistance of Manfred Bosch, edited by Bernd Kortländer, Bielefeld 1995, pp. 4–48.
  • Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann: "Gypsies" on the home stage. A Sauerland successful author and her main work, in: Karola Fings / Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann (ed.), Gypsy persecution in the Rhineland and Westphalia. 1933-1945. History, processing and memory , Paderborn 2012, pp. 301–314
  • Gisbert Strotdrees : bestselling author of the “Third Reich”. Josefa Berens-Totenohl . In other words: It wasn't just Droste. Sixty life pictures of Westphalian women . Münster 1992, pp. 134-136
  • Hannes Tuch , Klaus Peter Wolf (adaptation): My thinking of you. Biography of Josefa Berens-Totenohl . Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-89846-000-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gisela Brinker-Gabler, Karola Ludwig, Angela Wöffen: Lexicon of German-speaking women writers 1800-1945 . dtv Munich, 1986. ISBN 3-423-03282-0 . P. 30
  2. ↑ Willy Knoppe: everything is wuat. Orientation search in a regional language form. Cuvillier, Göttingen 2005, p. 276 (with reference to Peter Bürger ).
  3. ↑ Willy Knoppe, Un bey allem is wuat - Searching for orientation in a regional form of language, A literary-pedagogical study of the values ​​in Low German poetry by Christine Koch, Göttingen 2005, p. 276; Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Everything is change. Autobiography, supervision of the publication by Peter Bürger and Heinrich Schnadt, Eslohe o. J. (1992), p. 150.
  4. ^ Peter Bürger, The völkisch wing of the Sauerland homeland movement. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle - at the same time a contribution to the street name debate, in: daunlots. Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at Museum Eslohe, No. 60, Eslohe 2013, see: [1] .
  5. ↑ Steffen Stadthaus, Heinrich Luhmann. Homeland poet and National Socialist ?! Expert opinion on behalf of the city of Hamm, o. O. (Hamm) o. J. (2012), p. 5, see: [2] .
  6. ↑ All information in this section based on: Steffen Stadthaus, Heinrich Luhmann. Homeland poet and National Socialist ?! Expert opinion on behalf of the city of Hamm, o. O. (Hamm) o. J. (2012), see: [3] .
  7. ↑ Steffen Stadthaus, Heinrich Luhmann. Homeland poet and National Socialist ?! Expert opinion on behalf of the city of Hamm, o. O. (Hamm) o. J. (2012), see: [4] .
  8. ↑ Josefa Berens-Totenohl in her homeland, in: Das Deutsche Mädel. Journal of the Association of German Girls in the HJ, 6 (1936), quoted in. after: this., Everything is change. Autobiography, supervision of the publication by Peter Bürger and Heinrich Schnadt, Eslohe o. J. (1992), p. 197f.
  9. ↑ According to: Literaturportal Westfalen, see: [5] ; Wilhelm Vernekohl, war confession of Westphalian poets, in: Heimat und Reich, born in 1941, p. 124f.
  10. ↑ Ortrun Niethammer, Josefa Berens-Totenohl as a propagandist of the National Socialist cultural policy, in: Westfälische Forschungen, 42 (1992), pp. 346–359, here: p. 349.
  11. ↑ Dietmar Rost: The epic writer Josefa Berens-Totenohl. in: Sauerland. Journal of the Sauerländer Heimatbund, 1991, No. 1, pp. 11–13, here: p. 12.
  12. ↑ Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Everything is Change. Autobiography, supervision of the publication by Peter Bürger and Heinrich Schnadt, Eslohe o. J. (1992), p. 164.
  13. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, Dept. Rhineland, NW 1.109-201 (Josefa Berens).
  14. ↑ The school, which was headed by Broermann in Oberhausen during National Socialism, was named after him after 1945, but renamed "Anne Frank Realschule" in 1994 due to its Nazi burden. See: Karl Broermann in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors .
  15. ↑ Josefa Berens-Totenohl in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
  16. ^ Peter Bürger, The völkisch wing of the Sauerland homeland movement. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle - at the same time a contribution to the street name debate, in: daunlots. Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at Museum Eslohe, No. 60, Eslohe 2013, see: [6] .
  17. ↑ Prime Minister Steinhoff congratulates Josefa Berens-Totenohl, in: Westfalenspiegel, 5 (1956), no. 5, p. 27.
  18. ↑ [7] .
  19. ↑ LWL (ed.), Portal Westfälische Geschichte, see: [8] .
  20. ↑ All quotations: Gisbert Strotdrees, There was not only the Droste. Sixty life pictures of Westphalian women, Münster-Hiltrup 1992, p. 135f.
  21. ↑ The street name is changed. in: Sauerlandkurier, May 1, 2013, see: [9] ; General information on renaming streets in the Sauerland and in particular on Josefa Berens-Totenohl, see: Peter Bürger, Der völkische Flügel der Sauerland Heimatbewegung. About Josefa Berens-Totenohl, Georg Nellius, Lorenz Pieper and Maria Kahle - at the same time a contribution to the street name debate, in: daunlots. Internet contributions from the Christine Koch dialect archive at Museum Eslohe, No. 60, Eslohe 2013, see: [10] .
  22. ↑ a b Josefa-Berens-Straße, Femhofstraße and Frau-Magdlene-Straße are renamed, in: Westfalenpost, newspaper for Lennestadt and Kirchhundem, edition of February 27, 2014
  23. ↑ LWL (ed.), Portal Westfälische Geschichte, see: [11] .
  24. ↑ Ortrun Niethammer, Josefa Berens-Totenohl as a propagandist of the National Socialist cultural policy, in: Westfälische Forschungen, 42 (1992), pp. 346–359; Gisbert Strotdrees, bestselling author of the “Third Reich”. Josefa Berens-Totenohl, in this: It wasn't just Droste. Sixty life pictures of Westphalian women. Münster 1992, pp. 134-136; Eva-Maria Gehler, Female Nazi Affinities. Degree of affinity for the system of women writers in the “Third Reich”, Würzburg 2010.
  25. ↑ All citations from: [12] .
  26. ↑ LWL (ed.), Portal Westfälische Geschichte, see: [13] .
personal data
SURNAME Berens-Totenohl, Josefa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Grevenstein , Sauerland
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1969
Place of death Meschede