Konrad Haderlein

Konrad Haderlein

Konrad Haderlein (born February 25, 1932 in Berlin ; † May 14, 2012 in Saskatoon ) was a German-Canadian literary historian and poet . He taught at the University of Saskatchewan for over 35 years . In addition, he was considered Western Canada's most important beekeeper .

Life

Haderlein was the first of eleven children of Ludwig and Thekla Haderlein. As a student he sang in the Staats- und Domchor Berlin . Because of the Allied air raids on Berlin , his school was relocated to Poland during World War II . At the behest of his parents, the 12-year-old escaped at night with a troop train to Kulmbach , where his grandparents had a farm. In the post-war period he had to look after the whole family because his father was a Soviet prisoner of war . Like so many Franks , he did not want to become a brewer . Rather, he made it possible for himself to visit the Margrave Georg Friedrich Gymnasium in Kulmbach by doing internships at Siemens or by singing as a tenor in front of a band . After graduating from high school, he studied philosophy at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen , where he became active in the Corps Guestphalia Erlangen in 1956 . When he became Dr. phil. After receiving his doctorate , he saw no prospect of employment given the high level of unemployment . So he decided to make his way in Canada , Brazil or Australia .

Canada

The emigration initially ended at the Aéroport international de Montréal-Dorval . Workers were sought among the immigrants who had arrived . Haderlein went to a fast food restaurant. With the money he saved, he was able to travel further west . In Edmonton , he worked in the music department of the city library. He taught himself the English language with the help of her sound recordings of Laurence Olivier in Shakespeare dramas . A professor at the University of Alberta recognized his German accent and offered him to teach German at the university . Despite the lower income, Haderlein struck. Soon not only a teacher but also a student , he graduated in comparative literary history with a master's degree . For his doctoral thesis on a literary doppelganger, he had to learn foreign languages ​​and get seven typewriters with characters from the Latin , Greek , French , Hebrew , Cyrillic and Gothic alphabets .

While still a doctoral student , he went to the University of Saskatchewan. There he met Marianne Vangool, who had immigrated with her parents as the oldest of eleven siblings from Belgium . She married Haderlein in 1966 and wrote his dissertation , with which he obtained a Ph.D. PhD . As a professor for German language and comparative literature, he devoted himself particularly to medieval texts. He was able to quote from the works of English and German poets by heart. He held William Shakespeare and Ernst Toller in high regard among the playwrights .

Poems

Haderlein not only wrote textbooks , but also poetry . Written in German and partly reminiscent of Stefan George , they appeared in the German-Canadian Yearbook . When Haderlein and his wife spent a sabbatical year in Germany in 1974 , they missed the vastness of Canada's landscape . They had become Canadians . In 1980, Haderlein bought a lonely country estate. There he wrote the two volumes of poetry Saskatchewan Sounds Good , which were published in 1986 and 1990. In addition, he learned the Mongolian language .

Occasionally irascible, quarrelsome and hurtful, the experienced Haderlein was steadfast and stubborn - which was proven in 1988 when his faculty went on strike . After 1999 emeritus was, he sold at the farmers market in Saskatoon regularly his honey . When he was recovering from heart surgery in 2008 , he wrote a cycle of poems based on medieval Swiss verses dealing with the visit of death . He translated a (foreboding) poem into English:

Death - To the Poet

look at you scribbling in your hovel
instead of scraping with your shovel
i'm on my way with dirge and hearses
one puny stroke and no more verses.

When Haderlein suffered a fatal stroke at the age of 80 , he left his wife, a son, two grandchildren and siblings in Germany. He had requested funeral donations for the benefit of the Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Chris Ewing-Weisz: Konrad Haderlein was just passing through when he fell for the Prairies (The Globe and Mail) (Engl.)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Obituary in The StarPhoenix (Engl.)
3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 49/370.