Joseph Breitbach

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Joseph Breitbach (portrait of Alexander Mohr )

Joseph Breitbach (born September 20, 1903 in Ehrenbreitstein ; † May 9, 1980 in Munich ) was a German - French writer and publicist who, since moving to France in 1930, has been committed to improving cultural and political Franco-German relations .

Obsessed with politics, social issues, literature and painting throughout his life, he was one of the first to address the fate of employees in his stories and was interested in the reality of the common man. Even before Hitler came to power, he moved to Paris. It was not until the early 1960s that he also took up residence in Munich. In addition to his continuous activity as a writer between 1921 and 1980, as a consultant and journalist he had a strong influence on the political and cultural relations between France and Germany. Through Jean Schlumberger he had direct access to high-ranking personalities in the French government, as well as in Germany through General Hans Speidel . Breitbach campaigned for German-French understanding , especially after the Second World War .

Life

Breitbach was the son of the principal of the Ehrenbreitstein primary school . Before graduating from high school, he left the Koblenz Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in 1921 to become a bookseller and trained as a publisher at the Koblenz daily Rheinische Rundschau . From 1925 to 1928 he worked as a bookseller in the Landauer department store in Augsburg . Here he had close contacts with the KPD . The department store released him after the stories Red Against Red appeared . The time in Augsburg was marked by trips to Berlin , Paris , Prague , Vienna and Munich , during which he was able to make important contacts with writers and publishers. Breitbach also maintained close contacts with artists; he began collecting art at a young age.

Breitbach lived in France from 1929, and from 1931 in Paris, where he also worked as a businessman. At the same time he wrote for French newspapers. On November 2, 1932, his first novel was published by the Kiepenheuer Verlag in Berlin: The Change of Susanne Dasseldorf . In 1933 his books were banned in Germany. In 1937 he returned his German passport and applied for French citizenship. At first he was stateless.

In 1939 he was interned as a native German. He decided to work in the Foreign Legion and in the French secret service . After the German invasion of Paris in 1940 , the Gestapo confiscated Breitbach's library and the manuscripts it contained. Some of these documents were later brought to Silesia, where they were captured by the Red Army at the end of the war and taken to Moscow. The Soviet Union later handed the papers over to the GDR , but Breitbach never found out about them and until his death believed that the material had been completely destroyed. After reunification, the material came to the German Literature Archive in Marbach , where it was assigned to the rest of the Breitbach estate. Large parts of the papers confiscated in Paris at the time, including Breitbach's diaries, have been lost to this day. A European college of translators in Straelen has part of the estate, especially its library.

In 1945 Breitbach became a French citizen . He campaigned for German prisoners of war . From 1948 to 1951 the weekly newspaper Die Zeit published articles by Breitbach on the culture and politics of France. From 1961 the author again had a second residence in Germany. Thirty years after the first novel, Breitbach published his second in 1962: Report on Bruno . The work was a great success, especially in the USA . Breitbach translated some of his works into French himself, although he also made minor changes in the plot. He was friends with numerous writers and intellectuals or exchanged letters by letter, for example Klaus Mann (with whom he later fell out), Julien Green , Golo Mann and André Gide .

Breitbach often promoted young writers whose talent he was convinced. Through his diverse relationships with publishers and literary critics, he was able to help them with the publication of their work, he did not spare himself with criticism of stylistic negligence and gave advice on improving them. In addition, he often provided financial aid, even after his death: In his will, the author ordered a prize to be awarded to German-speaking writers. The Joseph Breitbach Prize named after him is awarded annually and financed by the foundation of the same name in Vaduz . It is the most highly endowed award for German-speaking writers. Breitbach's works have been reissued in recent years, so that his work has gained new prominence.

Works (selection)

Breitbach wrote novels, short stories, dramas, comedies, reviews and essays:

Breitbach was always very self-critical and corrected or revised his works again and again while he was working. As a result, some novels and short stories were never completed and remained unpublished. For example, he tried to revise the novel Die Wandlung der Susanne Dasseldorf because he was no longer satisfied with the original version, but these new versions remained unfinished due to constant changes and revisions.

honors and awards

literature

  • Alexandra Plettenberg-Serban, Wolfgang Mettmann: The change of Susanne Dasseldorf / I have to write the book ... Letters and documents for Joseph Breitbach's novel "The change of Susanne Dasseldorf", 2 volumes, novel and accompanying volume. Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-89244-930-0 .
  • J. Hellmut Freund, Wolfgang Mettmann (ed.): Alternate speech: Joseph Breitbach on his 75th birthday . Festschrift. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 978-3-10-005404-3 .
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 , p. 138-142 .
  • Jochen Meyer: Joseph Breitbach or the courtesy of the narrator (= Marbacher Magazin 102), Marbach 2003.

Memberships (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ estate
personal data
SURNAME Breitbach, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, publicist and patron
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Ehrenbreitstein
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1980
Place of death Munich