Karl Bröger

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Karl Bröger (born March 10, 1886 in Nuremberg , † May 4, 1944 in Erlangen ) was a German worker poet .

Life

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The son of a shoemaker and drill operator and a textile worker, he was born in the suburb of Wöhrd in Nuremberg. He was very talented, received support, but left secondary school prematurely and completed a business apprenticeship. He initially earned his living as a construction worker. He came into conflict with the law because of minor offenses. He openly describes his youth in the autobiographical novel The Hero in the Shadow . From autumn 1906 he did his two years of military service with the 21st Bavarian Infantry Regiment .

He published his first literary works in 1910 in the Süddeutsche Monatshefte . In 1912, Bröger's first volume of poetry, Gedichte , was published , sponsored by Franz Muncker . After early publications, he was appointed to the editorial staff of the social democratic Franconian daily mail , for which he worked until 1933. From 1924 he also wrote for the newspaper Der Reichsbanner of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , which he had co-founded in Franconia . Bröger also wrote for other social democratic periodicals and was for a time editor of the young socialist papers . He was involved in the youth movement. At the same time he was a lecturer in literature at the Nuremberg Adult Education Center from 1921 to 1929 and led literature courses.

He was elected to the SPD city ​​council in Nuremberg in March 1933 , and then imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp from June to September 1933 . After that he had to reorient himself and worked as a freelance writer. Some of his poems were picked up and printed by the National Socialists who tried to get him to their side.

His early work was characterized by the search for new artistic means of expression that tried to approach the rapidly changing contemporary industrial and urban world ( Die singende Stadt , 1914).

Bröger was called up for military service in 1914 . As early as December 1914, he was dismissed as unfit for duty due to his wound in northern France at the beginning of October. The experience of the First World War was decisive for his war poetry. For him the legitimacy of the military mission was beyond question; because the social democratic part of the working class was loyal to the SPD approval and the entry into the war. This is how he programmatically formulated Confession in his poem - these lines were taken up several times -:

But it gloriously showed your greatest danger / that your poorest son was also your most faithful. / Think it, O Germany.

His other war poems have increasingly apolitical and later pacifist character (especially in Soldiers of the Earth , 1918 and later Flame , 1920); they put the reality of the fight, the details of modern war technology in the foreground. Until the end of the war he emphasized the suffering and camaraderie of the common soldiers, as was the case in his widespread story Bunker 17 (1929). In his play Descent from the Cross (in Flamme , 1920) he addressed war as a product of economic interests.

In his (partly later) poems on the industrial world of work, he addressed the inhumane features of work under capitalism, but avoided direct political statements; rather, he aestheticized the hard life , since he saw the possibility of democratic economic policy in the Weimar Republic (see On the new meaning of work , 1919). Bröger tried to keep his distance from explicitly partisan literature (which he nonetheless constantly published in the Fränkische Tagespost ) and to create more literary works in the traditional sense. Characteristic of his works of the 1920s are his commitment to Germany, the German land and the German people (especially Germany , 1923) and his patriotic attitude. He explicitly turned against the revolutionary internationalism of the other part of the German labor movement , from which the USPD and later the KPD emerged after 1914 and whose writers have been organized in the Bund proletarian-revolutionary writers (BPRS) since 1928 . Many of his journalistic works were viewed and evaluated relatively late, especially from the Franconian Daily Mail (Nuremberg), the Reichsbanner and the Young Socialist papers . Gerhard Müller first carried out their analysis in his dissertation.

Many of his poems and songs were adopted by the Hitler Youth , for example by Heinrich Spitta in his cantata Land mein Land , which was published by Kallmeyer Verlag and premiered at the Reichsmusiktage of the HJ in Stuttgart in 1937, and some were also - against his will - in the Volkish Observer printed. Since 1943 - in that year his settlement house in Nuremberg was destroyed by an air raid and the family had to be evacuated - he suffered from a serious illness. After his death in May 1944, he was even declared a supporter of the regime by the NSDAP and received a so-called party burial, at which the representative of the regional propaganda office, the NSDAP head of department, regional cultural administrator of the Gaues Franken and Nuremberg city councilor Hans Bäselsöder (1900–1983 ), who is said to have stood up for persecuted people such as Karl Bröger, spoke; the bereaved had no way of preventing this. However, it is guaranteed (as can be read in Gerhard Müller's dissertation) that Bröger met with like-minded people to the end in an inn near Nuremberg. His letters, which could be evaluated, also show that he had no sympathy for the NSDAP, but always remained a supporter of the SPD. This was already confirmed during a visit by Fritz Heine for the SoPaDe in 1936.

One of his sons was Friedrich Bröger (1912–1973), head dramaturge of the Nuremberg Municipal Theaters and author of the prologue that has been spoken of the Christ Child every year since 1948 at the opening of the Nuremberg Christmas Market. The children's book author Achim Bröger is Bröger's grandson.

Others

Karl Bröger's partial estate is located in the Fritz Hüser Institute for Literature and Culture in the Working World in Dortmund .

Honors

Karl Bröger House in Nuremberg

Works

  • Poems (Munich 1912)
  • The Singing City (Nuremberg 1914)
  • From my wartime poems (Nuremberg 1915)
  • Comrade when we marched - war poems (Jena 1916)
  • The Unknown Soldier - War Acts and the Fate of a Little Man (Leipzig 1917)
  • Soldiers of the Earth - New War Poems (Jena 1918)
  • The hero in the shadow (Jena 1919)
  • The new meaning of work (Jena 1919)
  • Phallos - chants around the man (Jena 1920)
  • Flame - poems and dramatic scenes (Jena 1920)
  • The fourteen helpers in need - a book of legends (Berlin 1920)
  • The Four-Child Man - A Song of Summer, Sun and Sons (Berlin 1922)
  • Death on the Volga - Poems (Konstanz 1923)
  • Imagination and Upbringing - An Attempt to Reflect on the Basics of Education (= Decided School Reform Issue 9, Leipzig 1923)
  • Germany - A lyrical song in three circles (Rudolstadt 1923)
  • The Blooming Hammer - Poems (Berlin 1924)
  • The Morning - A Work for the Proletarian Speaking Choir (Berlin 1925)
  • Our streets ring out - New Poems (Rudolstadt 1925)
  • Jacob on the Ladder of Heaven - Story (Berlin 1925)
  • The Eppele Book - A Chronicle of Rogues and Robbers from Franconia (Berlin 1926)
  • German Republic - Reflections and Confessions on the Works of Weimar (Berlin 1926) (Writings at the time)
  • Rote Erde - A Game for Speech and Movement Choir (Berlin 1928)
  • Bunker 17 - History of Comradeship (Jena 1929)
  • Versailles! - A Font for School Children (Berlin 1929)
  • Guldenschuh - Roman (Berlin 1934)
  • In the bunker (Cologne 1935)
  • Nuremberg - The Roman of a City (Berlin 1935)
  • Reta and Marie (Leipzig / Vienna 1935)
  • People, I live from you - poems (Jena 1936)
  • The Petrol School - A Little Boys' Novel (Leipzig 1936)
  • The holiday mill (Cologne 1936)
  • Four and their father - the dignity and burden of fatherhood (Leipzig 1937)
  • Light on Lindenfeld - History of a Seeker (Leipzig 1937)
  • Stories from the reservist Anzinger (Jena 1939)
  • Franconian sagas - selected and retold by Karl Bröger (Berlin / Leipzig 1940)
  • Fate out of the hat - stories from the people for the people (Bayreuth 1941)
  • The Knight Eppelein - A Chronicle of Knights and Robbers from Franconia (Bayreuth 1942)
  • Fall and Elevation - Complete Edition of the Poems (Jena 1943)
  • Confession. A selection of the poems (edited by Ludwig Baer and Friedrich Bröger, Nuremberg 1954)

Anthologies

  • Karl Bröger (Hrsg.): Youngest worker poetry. Young workers, Berlin 1925, 2nd ext. Edition 1929.
  • Wilhelm Haas (ed.): Face of the time - symphony of modern industrial poetry. Self-portrait and self-selection of the authors, Wegweiser, Berlin 1926.
  • Wolfgang Rothe (Ed.): German city poetry from naturalism to the present. Reclam, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-15-009448-8 .
  • Günter Heintz (ed.): German worker poetry 1910-1933. Reclam, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-15-009700-2 .
  • Günter Heintz (Ed.): Texts of the proletarian-revolutionary literature of Germany 1919-1933. Reclam, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-15-009707-X .

literature

  • Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4
  • Hans Hermann Schulz: The worker's national experience in the poetry of Gerrit Engelke , Heinrich Lersch and Karl Bröger. A contribution to the morphology of the problem , Vol. 5 of the series: Stadion , work from the German Department of the University of Berlin, ed. by Franz Koch, Würzburg (Triltsch) 1940.
  • Christoph Rülcker: Ideology of Workers' Poetry 1914–1933 - A sociological investigation , Metzler, Stuttgart 1970.
  • Siegfried Kett u. a. (Ed.): Karl Bröger. Worker poet, journalist and politician , Nuremberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-037-2 .
  • Alfred Klein: On behalf of your class. Path and achievement of the German working-class writers 1918–1933 , Aufbau, Berlin and Weimar 1972.
  • Worker poetry. Analyzes - Confessions - Documentations , ed. from the Österr. Society for cultural policy, Hammer, Wuppertal 1973, ISBN 3-87294-041-4 .
  • Christoph Rülcker: Proletarian Poetry without Class Consciousness - On the Claim and Structure of Social Democratic Workers' Literature 1918–1933. In: Wolfgang Rothe (Ed.): The German literature in the Weimar Republic , Reclam, Stuttgart 1974.
  • Gudrun Heinsen-Becker: Karl Bröger and the workers' poetry of his time . Nuremberg 1977, ISBN 3-87191-030-9 .
  • Gerhard Müller: He wasn't a collaborator. The Nuremberg worker poet Karl Bröger was born 100 years ago. In: Nürnberger Zeitung , March 8, 1986, supplement (NZ weekend, No. 56).
  • Hans Bertram Bock: The Volkish Psalmist. For the hundredth birthday of the “worker poet” Karl Bröger. In: Nürnberger Nachrichten , 8./9. March 1986, p. 25.
  • Gerhard Müller: For fatherland and republic. Monograph by the Nuremberg writer Karl Bröger (also: dissertation, University of Frankfurt (Main), 1985). Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, Pfaffenweiler 1986, ISBN 3-89085-108-8 , XII, 523 pp.
  • Ute Möller: Karl Bröger House in a new light. Franconian publishing house designed facade based on historical models - SPD boss: "We stand by Bröger" . In: Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger Nord of November 14, 2007, p. 7.
  • Klaus Schamberger: "Karl Bröger was a Nazi opponent". A great son of the city - and how to deal with his past . In: Abendzeitung (Nuremberg), December 12, 2006.
  • Ernst Klee : Karl Bröger. Entry in ders .: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
  • Gerhard Müller: Short biography of Karl Bröger , as PDF at www.muellers-lesezelt.de (2008, articles).
  • S. Kett, M. Scholz, H. Zintl (eds.): Worker poet, journalist and politician, documentation for the symposium on October 4, 2008. Nuremberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-037-2 .
  • Wolfgang Wießner:  Bröger, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 629 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bayer. Main State Archive IV Munich, War Log No. 2632
  2. ^ Extract from the German lists of losses (Bayer. 109) of December 9, 1914, p. 3515
  3. ↑ Extracts from: Music in Youth and People. 1937, p. 96.
  4. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia. The Volkish Awakening in Neustadt ad Aisch 1922–1933. Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2016 (= Streiflichter aus der Heimatgeschichte. Ed. By Geschichts- und Heimatverein Neustadt ad Aisch e.V., special volume 4), 3rd, extended edition ibid. 2016, pp. 82, 167 f., 201 f. (Positive opinion in the arbitration chamber proceedings, for example by Professor Max Körner ) and 270.
  5. ↑ Tp 116560797
  6. ↑ What the Christ Child Says - The Prologue. Verkehrsverein Nürnberg eV, accessed on November 30, 2018 .
  7. ^ Homepage Fritz-Hüser-Institut , accessed on October 1, 2017.
  8. ^ Karl-Bröger-Gesellschaft e. V.
  9. ↑ Ute Möller: Karl Bröger House in a new light. Franconian publishing house designed facade based on historical models - SPD boss: "We stand by Bröger" . In: Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger Nord of November 14, 2007, p. 7.
  10. ^ Karl Bröger Center
personal data
SURNAME Bröger, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German worker poet and politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1944
Place of death gain