Karl Aloys Schenzinger

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Karl Aloys Schenzinger (born May 28, 1886 in Neu-Ulm ; † July 4, 1962 in Prien am Chiemsee ) was a doctor and author of novels , non-fiction books and Nazi propaganda .

Life

Karl Aloys Schenzinger's father was a tax investigation assistant, his family came from Schwendi in the Oberamt Laupheim. Karl grew up in Ravensburg , attended grammar school and passed the Abitur . He then began an apprenticeship as a pharmacist , studied medicine from 1908 to 1913 and received his doctorate. During the First World War he served as a medical officer.

After the war Schenzinger moved to Hanover and devoted himself to his literary inclinations. In “Das Kestnerbuch”, edited by Paul Erich Küppers, his expressionist drama Berggang appeared in 1919 .

In 1923 he went to the United States on an ocean liner without knowing English , and managed to get by in several professions. Schenzinger bought a film camera, founded the "West Star Film Company" and wanted to compete with the big film companies, but was unlucky in his plans.

After returning to Europe , Schenzinger settled in Berlin / Wedding , a working-class district, in 1925 as a health insurance doctor and also devoted himself to writing. His first great success was the adventure novel Abitur am Niagara in 1928 , which was published by the "Frankfurter Illustrierte" for a fee of 6000 Reichsmarks . He then quit his unpopular medical profession and went on a world tour ( Canada , USA, South Seas ) on behalf of a publishing house . His travel impressions were reflected in three magazine novels.

During the Second World War , Schenzinger was stationed as a doctor in the German Air Force in Vienna . There he met his wife Gertraud, who was 30 years his junior and whom he married in 1944. The son Axel was born two years later.

post war period

After the end of the war, Schenzinger was interned in the Mauerkirchen camp in the American occupation zone. Before the Landauer Spruchkammer he was classified as a “ fellow traveler ” because he was never a registered member of the NSDAP despite sympathy for National Socialism. Between 1945 and 1949 he was banned from writing in the American occupation zone . In the Soviet occupation zone , many of his writings were placed on the list of literature to be discarded.

Schenzinger practiced his profession again as a doctor and initially practiced at the Mainkofen sanatorium near Deggendorf . There he also opened his own doctor's practice in 1950, without neglecting to write. From 1951 he lived with his family in Prien am Chiemsee, where he died in 1962 at the age of 76.

Schenzinger's past as the author of one of the best-known Nazi propaganda novels in no way hampered his post-war career. In the decade before his death, other popular science books were written, and his scientific novels were reprinted several times, most recently as a Heyne paperback in 1973–1975. In the home book of the community of Schwendi from 1969, he is portrayed in the chapter Significant men as a designer “the most brittle technical problems in exciting novels in the most colorful way”, without even mentioning the Hitler youth Quex .

Works

"The Hitler Youth Quex"

With the novel Man wants to quit us (1931) Schenzinger first showed sympathy for the NSDAP . Baldur von Schirach , who later became the Reich Youth Leader , became aware of him and commissioned him to write a propaganda novel about the Hitler Youth . This is how the HJ novel Der Hitlerjunge Quex came about, which he claims to have completed in 14 days. His knowledge of the milieu of the Berlin workers and the fate of the stabbed Hitler Youth Herbert Norkus flowed into him . In 1932 Quex was first published as a serial in the " Völkischer Beobachter ", the central organ of the NSDAP. In the same year it was published as a book and by 1945 had a circulation of half a million copies sold. Even the UFA tore itself over the subject and filmed the Hitler Youth Quex in 1933 under the direction of Hans Steinhoff and with Heinrich George in the role of the father of Quex and Heini Völker.

"Aniline"

The novel Anilin describes the development of organic chemistry, depicts chemists, entrepreneurs and pioneering discoveries. Schenzinger allows himself artistic freedom in the representation of people and actions.

In Oranienburg, Professor Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge investigated the tar oil, which was worthless up to now and which was used in the production of coke and coal gas . Runge discovered many interesting substances in tar oil: kyanol ( aniline ), leucol ( quinoline ), carbolic acid ( phenol ), stearin . He won colored substances from the tar and was able to sell the stearin as a substitute for candle wax in his sea trade. However, the substances that Runge found have not yet been chemically analyzed. The young student August Wilhelm von Hofmann takes on the material analysis with Justus von Liebig in Giessen. Another young chemist from Heidelberg, August Kekulé , thinks about the structure of the organic compounds in tar oil. Based on the correct chemical analysis, Hofmann also finds a new method of preparing aniline from benzene. Hofmann becomes one of the first professors of chemistry at the Royal College of Chemistry in London. Hofmann had two great students in London: William Henry Perkin and Charles Blachford Mansfield . Perkin finds the first synthetic dye, mauvein . Mansfield dies in an accident involving a tar oil product.

In the following part, Schenzinger shows how raw materials from coal tar were used to develop the first medicinal substances against dangerous diseases (phenatidine, acetanilide) - or how dyes became valuable for microscopy. Robert Koch used the dye methylene blue for cell staining and was able to detect the tuberculosis bacillus. He also described the first synthetic preparation of indigo , alizarin or the first large-scale chemical production of sulfuric acid . The characters in the novel also include Carl Duisberg , Heinrich von Brunck , Schering , Karl Graebe , Robert Koch, Rudolf Knietsch .

Schenzinger's belief in technology in the 1920s takes on a decidedly nationalistic trait: German researchers work selflessly for the benefit of mankind, which the victorious powers of the First World War tried to prevent by stealing the fruits of German intellectual labor (which, according to the corresponding regulation of the Versailles Treaty, is true corresponds) or seek to thwart the unfolding of the blessings they emanate through dark machinations. The people behind these machinations include "mainly traders [...] who, because of their blood and convictions, were not in favor of the new Germany." Schenzinger states: "Today, the artificial material determines the future of the German nation. The artificial material has become a question of life for Germany. "

Aniline was still successful in the post-war period and in 1951 had a circulation of 1.6 million. However, it was a very carefully checked version that was cleared of all offensive formulations. The above quote was in the post-war version: "The artificial material today determines the future of the German economy."

"Metal"

At the beginning, this book deals with partly fictitious, but often - in the later part - true events from the lives of natural scientists and scientific company founders. The reader becomes a spiritual eyewitness to the problems, thoughts and hopes of researchers and entrepreneurs. The book covers a historical framework between 1710 and 1910. The reader also receives a lot of background information about scientific and technical processes and developments, as well as the achievements of individual researchers.

In individual episodes, Schenzinger packaged important reference points in society with regard to metals, alchemy, technology: murder by greed for gold (ending chapter gold), replacing labor with steam engines (beginning chapter iron), the speed of progress and competition between entrepreneurs and researchers, research conflict between family happiness and research work (R. Mayer, W. Siemens).

The sequence of chapters is assigned metal names: gold , silver , iron , aluminum , magnesium . Each chapter includes two or three groundbreaking developments in the history of technology. The basis of alchemy was to transform base metals into gold or silver, the alchemist went through a purification process that was connected with the entire cosmos in the individual striving for knowledge. The sequence of chapters is deliberately chosen in reverse, it goes from the metal gold to silver, iron, aluminum and magnesium.

“Gold”: The first chapter deals with the period of Georg Ernst Stahl's phlogiston theory. This chapter is less about technical progress and more about good faith.

“Silver”: The discovery of oxygen, the new atomic theory and the replacement of the phlogiston theory. Generation of the current by voltaic cells. During this period of time, French, English, Italian and German researchers ( Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier , Jacques Alexandre César Charles , James Watt , Humphry Davy , Luigi Galvani , Alessandro Volta , Johann Wilhelm Ritter ) and their inventions are presented.

“Iron”: the feelings of the machine-busters, development of steam engines, research into electricity and magnetism, photography, conservation of energy. The discoveries and fates of researchers and entrepreneurs such as Richard Trevithick , Robert Stephenson , Fox Talbot , André-Marie Ampère , Werner von Siemens , Julius Robert von Mayer are described.

"Aluminum": Development of the electrolysis process for the production of aluminum. Replacement of the steam engine by internal combustion engines. Increasing the speed and reducing the weight of internal combustion engines. Beginning of airship travel thanks to the light metal aluminum. Resumes of researchers and entrepreneurs: Paul Héroult , Nikolaus Otto , Gottlieb Daimler , Wilhelm Maybach , Otto Lilienthal , Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin .

Chronological overview

  • 1919: Berggang in: Das Kestnerbuch. Böhme, Hanover. 1921 at Rowohlt
  • 1926: ace! Ace! and ace! Kiepenheuer, Potsdam.
  • 1926: ††† - The drama with the three crosses , Kiepenheuer, Potsdam.
  • 1928: Abitur at Niagara , Josef Singer, Berlin.
  • 1929: Behind Hamburg , Brückenverlag, Berlin.
  • 1931: They want to terminate us , Dom Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1932: Busse emigrates , Berlin: The book community.
  • 1932: There is a fire in the USA. Dom Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1932: The Hitler Youth Quex , Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin and others
  • 1933 to 1940: Der Braune Reiter , publisher and editor of the magazine of the Brown Book Ring of the contemporary history publisher Wilhelm Andermann Berlin.
  • 1933: Fire in USA , Die Buchgemeinde, Berlin.
  • 1933: A German emigrates , Dom, Berlin.
  • 1933: Woe to the defenseless! , Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin and others
  • 1933: The first German May , editor of the illustrated book. Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin,
  • 1934: The Herrgottsbacher Student March , Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1936: The Black Knight - War experiences of the fighter pilot Eduard Ritter von Schleich , Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1937: 1932 - The restless year - The story of a German family. Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1937: Anilin , Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, Berlin.
  • 1939: Metall , Andermann, Berlin.
  • 1950: Atom , Andermann, Munich.
  • 1951: Schnelldampfer , Andermann, Munich and others
  • 1951: At IG Farben , Andermann, Munich and others
  • 1956: 99% water - novel of the indispensable , Franckh, Stuttgart.
  • 1957: Magic of the living cell , Andermann, Munich and others
  • 1969: with Heiner Simon and Anton Zischka : Heinrich Nordhoff , Andermann, Munich.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
  2. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html
  3. ↑ Max Hammer: Schwendi. Home register of a community in Upper Swabia . Konrad, Weißenhorn 1969, p. 126
  4. ↑ Schenzinger Anilin Berlin 1937, p. 297
  5. ↑ Schenzinger Anilin Berlin 1937, p. 305
  6. ^ Adam, read under Hitler , Berlin 2010, p. 87
  7. ↑ Schenzinger, Anilin , Munich 1949, p. 378
personal data
SURNAME Schenzinger, Karl Aloys
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH New Ulm
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 1962
Place of death Prien am Chiemsee