Julius Zerfass

Memorial plaque for Julius Zerfass "Am Burgweg" in Kirn-Kallenfels

Julius Zerfaß (born February 4, 1886 in Kirn ; † March 24, 1956 in Zurich ) was a German journalist and writer . He also wrote under the pseudonym Walter Hornung .

Life

Zerfaß, son of a small farmer and factory worker, worked as a gardener and later went hiking. Zerfaß made contact with the trade unions and the labor movement early on. From 1913 he worked as a freelance editor and editor of the social democratic press in Munich , among other things as a feature section editor of the Munich Post .

Zerfass, who was considered a working-class poet, first drew attention to himself through poems and stories, and at the same time developed a lively journalistic activity. Due to his political involvement in the labor movement , he came into conflict with the National Socialists in 1933 and was taken to the Dachau concentration camp . After six months in prison, he managed to escape in 1934, whereupon he found political asylum in Switzerland . With Dachau - Eine Chronik (1936) Julius Zerfaß published (under the pseudonym Walter Hornung ) one of the first reports from inside the concentration camp . The book has been translated several times. Zerfass' other writings from the period 1933 to 1945 are gathered in the volume From Great Time .

Zerfass only returned to Germany temporarily after the end of the war; He stayed in Switzerland out of displeasure with the federal German state system, which he and others perceived as "restorative". He died there in 1956 as a result of gastric surgery. Zerfaß was also a member of the German PEN Club in London.

Zerfaß's childhood memories appeared posthumously under the title At Home and Across the River. A childhood in Kirn . The city of Kirn continues to cultivate his legacy, including a five-volume edition (1985–1990).

A memorial plaque is located in Kirn at the "Große Brücke", at the corner of Lohweg and Obersteiner Straße.

Fonts

Poems

• Wrestling and swinging. Poems by a proletarian . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1910.
• Glowing world . Arbeiterjugend-Verlag, Berlin 1928.
• You humans at this time ... . Oprecht, Zurich 1946.

additional

• The journey with the rag bag. Fairy tale . Berlin, Dietz 1925.
• Dachau. A Chronicle , Zurich 1936. (under the pseudonym Walter Hornung)
• From subject to free citizen . Publishing house for economy and social policy, Hamburg 1946.

literature

• Julius Zerfass . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Vol. 1, Hannover 1960, pp. 341-342.
• Rainer Bohn: I am a proletarian and you are a proletarian. Julius Zerfaß in the change of tradition in German workers' poetry around 1910. Editions Phi, Echternach / Luxemburg 1982, ISBN 3-88865-008-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Julius Zerfaß in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by Julius Zerfaß in the catalog of the Berlin State Library
• "In the footsteps of Julius Zerfass - research leads US journalists to Kirn" - Allgemeine Zeitung , Kirn edition, October 19, 2009.