Karl Uhl

Karl Uhl (born November 30, 1886 in St. Ingbert ; † December 15, 1966 ibid) was a German poet from Saarland who was very close to his hometown throughout his life. In the 1920s and 1930s he was a central figure in St. Ingbert's cultural life, in particular due to the founding of the Volksbühne St. Ingbert , which was later renamed the Heimatbühne . He wrote several plays and published a number of volumes of poetry and history. On his 70th birthday he was made an honorary citizen of the city. A few years later the city gave its name to a street.

life and work

Karl Uhl was one of five children. His father was a boilermaker. He grew up in Pfarrgasse 60, one of the oldest streets in St. Ingbert. He spent almost his entire life in St. Ingbert, most of which he lived in Pfarrgasse, from 1931 in house number 16, where he also had his workshop.

His career aspiration was that of a missionary , but this path could not be financed. So from 1900 he went to his cousin's apprenticeship as a cobbler . His talent for poetry had already been shown in school, because he was already writing his first poems at the age of 15. His role model was Hans Sachs (1494–1576): "The Hans Sachs, he was a shoemaker and poet too"

After a brief interlude as a postman (1905/1906), he started his own business as a shoemaker. His first lecture evening took place in 1910, in 1920 the Volksbühne was founded, for which he wrote several plays, and in 1923 he published his first volume of poetry, "Young Day". In the meantime he had been drawn into the First World War as a soldier and was transferred to the Reichsbekleidungskammer in Würzburg because of his inability to work with weapons .

For the shoemaker's association, Uhl was a kind of “court poet” who performed his works on official occasions. During the Nazi dictatorship he chose the "inner emigration" and withdrew into the world of fairy tales . Uhl remained unmarried throughout his life and lived with his mother, who died in 1941 and to whom he had a very close relationship. He himself spent the last years of his life in the Mathildenstift. Today he is buried in the old cemetery .

His literary work revolved around his hometown St. Ingbert and the people with whose life and work he had to do on a daily basis. Although only his works of the lyric were printed and published, he saw his work as the dramatic . Unfortunately, his theatrical works have only been preserved as typescripts and are now in the St. Ingbert City Archives and in the Palatinate State Library in Speyer . The highlight of his work is likely to be the homeland game "Die Waldstreiter", written in connection with the 100th anniversary (1929) of the city development of St. Ingbert, which addresses the conflict between the citizens of St. Ingbert and von der Leyen's rule over forests and coal .

Works (selection)

Poems

• Young day. Poems, St. Ingbert, 1923
• The potato republic. Verse and prose. Compiled and published by Dr. Wolfgang Krämer, Gauting, St. Ingbert, 1956
• Walk through the old St. Ingbert, St. Ingbert, 1961
• Colorful home pictures, St. Ingbert, 1963

Stage works

• The myopic. Theater play 1920 (not preserved)
• The forest fighters at St. Ingbert. Heimatspiel in five acts (around 1920) (typescript)
• The iron knobs. Drama 1921 (not preserved)
• Leave of death. Drama 1921 (not preserved)
• The ney bailiff. Wavering in one act. (Not preserved)

literature

• Reiner Marx: Article by Karl Uhl . In: Time brings fruit - Saar-Palatinate authors' lexicon . Saarpfalz, special issue 2008, Homburg 2008, pp. 183–186, ISSN  0930-1011
• Josef Scholl: Karl Uhl and the St. Ingberter Volksbühne, St. Ingbert 1982

Sources and Notes

1. ↑ Self-characterization in a carnival game, quoted from: Reiner Marx: Article Karl Uhl . In: Time brings fruit - Saar-Palatinate authors' lexicon . Saarpfalz, special issue 2008, Homburg 2008, pp. 183–186, ISSN  0930-1011