Karl Willy Straub

Karl Wilhelm Straub , mostly Karl Willy Straub (born March 12, 1880 in Karlsruhe , † April 20, 1971 in Saarbrücken ), was a German writer.

Youth and Studies

Karl Wilhelm Straub was the son of the postal director Karl Straub and his wife Wilhelmine geb. Neuz. As a child, he first lived in Karlsruhe and Mannheim. When his father in 1893 into the realm country to Schlettstadt was transferred, Karl Willy attended the local grammar school. He passed his Abitur in Rastatt in 1900 . He then did his military service as a one year old in Strasbourg .

Straub's time in Alsace shaped him not only culturally but also literarily through his friendships with Paul Schmitthenner , Paul Bertololy and Franz Spieser , so that he made his first attempts at writing as a schoolboy. During his law studies from 1902 in Strasbourg, Freiburg, Berlin and Heidelberg he was interested in literature, theater and architecture and attended lectures in philosophy, German studies and art history. He also wrote and was able to publish a novella in the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten in 1903 .

Profession and calling

In 1908 Karl Willy Straub completed a traineeship at the Heidelberger Zeitung. When the Heidelberg constitutional lawyer Lilienthal rejected his dissertation on the obligation to testify in the press in 1909 , Karl Willy Straub decided to live as a freelance artist. In addition to journalistic work, he published his first major prose work Vollblutfrauen in 1909 . Eight women's fates . When Straub worked in Würzburg from 1911 to 1914 as an editor for the features section of the Bayerische Landeszeitung , he made the acquaintance of the local writer Max Dauthendey, who was thirteen years his senior . During the First World War , Straub fought on the Lorraine and Russian fronts, and towards the end of the war on the home front. After the First World War he moved to Saarbrücken, where he co-founded the Association of Art Friends on the Saar , which gave new impetus to cultural life there. In 1920 he married Klara Maria Emonds. From this marriage a daughter and a son were born.

In 1928 he was appointed professor of architecture Paul Schultze-Naumburg at the Berlin University. Straub worked there from 1927 to 1932 as a private lecturer in building culture. In Berlin he made the acquaintance of the writers Paul Fechter and Hans Martin Elster . In 1928, on the recommendation of his childhood friend Paul Schmitthenner, Straub took over the editing of the magazine Deutsche Baukultur . Since his youth, shaped by the sight of the Strasbourg cathedral with German architecture , Straub rejected both historicism and the Bauhaus style . Against a new objectivity, he wrote his book Architecture in the Third Reich in 1932 .

Straub was also conservative as a writer. He rejected expressionism and was regarded by his colleagues as a master of the sonnet . His lyrical style also shines through in his prose, for example in his diary novel from 1926 Die Reise um Silvia . In 1931 Straub became a member of the NSDAP . In the same year Straub took part in a meeting of the Rheinischer Dichterkreis in Freiburg and then decided to settle in the Upper Rhine city.

In the Third Reich

In 1933 he became cultural advisor and head of the city's press office in Freiburg. In the course of time, tensions grew between him and Mayor Franz Kerber . In 1937, for example, Straub moved to the Freiburg City Archives , where he wrote biographies and essays on Baden literature. In 1939 he married Frieda Franziska Auguste Koller in their second marriage, who remained childless.

In 1940, the Freiburg novel Guardian of the Flame , written as a homage to Emil Gött , was published , which also had autobiographical features and is considered to be a key novel for Straub's self-image and understanding of poetry. In his 1966 book, Memories of Alsace , he processed the memories of his youth that came up in 1940 during a poet's trip through Alsace, which was occupied by German troops . A contemporary document .

post war period

When he was denazified after the end of the war, the Spruchkammer classified Karl Willy Straub as a fellow traveler , and yet a world had collapsed for him. In contrast to the literary change of the 50s, he remained his own literary world of authors born in the 19th century such as Richard Sexau , Ludwig Finckh , Hermann Burte , Hermann Eris Busse , Emil Strauss and Paul Sättele, all of whom sympathized with the Nazi regime had been arrested. Straub noticed that the literary renewal after the war with Group 47 no longer affected him and so he left his social novel Call to Istanbul unprinted. Almost defiantly he gave his collected sonnets the title One Hundred Sonnets of a Timeless One . For a few years he worked for the Südwestfunk and dealt with topics from the Baden homeland . In 1968 Karl Wilhelm Straub moved back to the place of his first professional activity in Saarbrücken, where he died in 1971.

Literary heritage

The widow Frieda Straub handed over the literary estate of Karl Wilhelm Straub to the Freiburg State Archives . The Freiburg City Archives received its private library .

Award

• 1967: Max Dauthendey badge in silver

Works and essays

• Game and fight. Poems. 1908.
• Thoroughbred women. Eight women's fates. 1909.
• Between day and evening. Poems. 1916.
• Sonnets. 1920.
• The trip to Silvia. Diary of a sensitive man. 1926.
• Last drive. New sonnets. Private print 1927.
• Between God and the world. New poems. 1930.
• Architecture in the Third Reich. 1932.
• About yourself in Ekkhart. in: Yearbook for the Upper Rhine (1935), 64f.
• Keeper of the Flame. Roman, 1940.
• Silver foxes. Roman, 1943.
• Freiburg in four wars, war hardships and war burdens in those days. in: The Alemanne 1943?
• Architecture as an expression of attitude. in: Der Alemanne from April 28, 1945.
• The marriage carousel. Lucrezia Corsini. 2 novellas, 1955.
• The hundred sonnets of a timeless man. 1907-1957.
• A selection. 1960.
• Heidelberg. Edited by the city's tourist office, undated (1962).
• Memories of Alsace. A contemporary document. 1966.

literature

• Ferdinand Gregori: Lyrik des Jahres , in: Das literäre Echo , 23rd year 1921, no. 8, col. 468.
• Erich Dürr: Karl Wilhelm Straub , in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of November 27, 1926.
• Wilhelm Westecker : Poet , in: Berliner Börsenzeitung from March 25, 1931.
• Hans Franck: Between God and World , in: Hamburger Nachrichten of June 26, 1931.
• Erich Dürr: Between God and the World. The Baden poet Karl Wilhelm Straub , in: Neue Badische Landeszeitung from August 19, 1931.
• Paul Weinacht : Karl Wilhelm Straub. On his 60th birthday , in: Der Führer from March 10, 1940.
• Fritz Bühler : Karl Wilhelm Straub 75 years old , in: Badische Heimat , 35 year 1955, no. 1, pp. 41–43.
• Wilhelm Kosch: German Literature Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Vol. 4. 1958, p. 2899.
• Gustav Faber : Karl Wilhelm Straub, architect of language. On his 80th birthday , in: Ekkhart - Yearbook for the Upper Rhine , 1960, pp. 27–29.
• Gustav Faber: Master of the Sonnets. On the 80th birthday of Karl Wilhelm Straub , in: Badische Latest News from March 11, 1960.
• Fritz Bühler: Karl Wilhelm Straub, poet and publicist. On his 80th birthday , in: Saarheimat , 4th year 1960, no . 3, p. 20 f.
• Gustav Faber: Architect of Language. The Baden poet Karl Wilhelm Straub 90 years , in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of March 9, 1970.
• Paul Raabe: Books and Authors of Literary Expressionism . 1992, p. 460 f.
• Manfred Bosch : Straub, Karl Wilhelm (Willy), writer, 1880–1971. In: Bernd Ottnad, Fred. L. Sepaintner (ed.): Baden-Württemberg biographies. Volume 3, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 405-408 ( online ).

Web links

• Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Department Freiburg, inventory T1, access 1976/0046
• Saarland biographies, Straub Karl Willy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefanie Albus-Kötz, biography in the Baden-Württemberg State Archives, Freiburg Department, inventory T1, access 1976/0046
2. ↑ Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Dept. Freiburg, inventory T1, access 1976/0046