Konrad Nies

Konrad Nies , also Conrad Nies (born October 17, 1862 in Alzey / Rheinhessen ; † August 10, 1922 in St. Louis , Missouri / USA ) was a German-speaking poet , actor and teacher . He also wrote under the pseudonym Konrad von Alzey .

youth

Nies was the son of a baker in Alzey and completed a commercial apprenticeship in Worms . As a schoolboy he wrote his first poems. At seventeen he attended drama schools in Leipzig and Dresden . Engagements on the stages of Aachen , Chemnitz , Kaiserslautern and Dortmund followed.

emigration

In 1883 he emigrated to the USA and moved to his brother in Ohio. He has performed on stages in Cincinnati , Buffalo , Milwaukee and Omaha . He began studying English at Denison University in Granville (Ohio) and later taught German language and literature at high schools in Newark , Ohio . As a representative for the Freethinker Society in Milwaukee, he traveled through the states in the 1870s.

On later visits to Germany he used to visit Breslau , where he was a member of the Breslau school of poets .

In 1892 the poet visited his hometown and read a poem about the Alzeyer Castle . The historian Helmut Schmahl sees this as the trigger for the later reconstruction of the castle: "The lecture was well received at the time and sparked a real enthusiasm for the castle," he explained in an interview.

plant

From 1887 to 1890 Konrad Nies published a monthly newspaper in New York together with Herman Rosenthal under the title German-American Poetry . To support it, a development association, the Association for German Literature and Art in America, was founded, of which George Juraschek became the first chairman. Nies went on reading tours through the big cities of the USA and Canada , where he recited the poems of his friend Paul Barsch .

On April 21, 1904, he took part in the Flower Games , a poetry festival in Baltimore . His poem The Revenge of the Forests , according to Werner Sollors "an early example of environmental protection poetry", was awarded a prize. His novella Die Volkersfiedel also became known .

At the Germanic Congress , which took place on September 16 and 17, 1904 on the occasion of the World Exhibition in the International Congress Hall in St. Louis, Konrad Nies gave a lecture on German-American poetry.

The late years

In 1893 Konrad Nies settled in New York City. A disease of the larynx forced him to take a spa stay in the Catskill Mountains . In 1894 he founded the Victoria Institute for Major Daughters in St. Louis, which he directed until 1905. In 1907 he took over the editorial office of the Denver Democrats . In 1909 he moved to Mill Valley near San Francisco, where he lived intermittently until his death in 1921.

The Alzey City Museum keeps photos and documents about Konrad Nies. Numerous letters to the playwright Franz Keim are in the Vienna Library in the City Hall of Vienna .

Judgments about Konrad Nies

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature vol. 18 calls him “a master of form”. For Lotta L. Leser he was "without a doubt one of the most eloquent German-American poets".

Works

German revelers on the Missouri . In: The Gazebo . Issue 1, 1894, pp. 17 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
Roses in the snow. A German-American Christmas game in four pictures. C. Witter / Rubinverlag, St. Louis / Munich 1900
German gifts. A festival for the "German Day". C. Witter, St. Louis 1900, books.google.de
World and wilderness. Poems and songs from four continents. W. Härtel, Leipzig 1900; New edition W. Härtel / E. Hirsch, Leipzig / San Francisco 1921
Spark. Poems. Baumert & Ronge, Grossenhain i. S. 1891, 2nd ed. 1901; German-American Poetry Publishing House, New York 1900
Preface to: Friedrich Münch: Collected writings. C. Witter, St. Louis 1902
From the western expanse. New poems. Baumert & Ronge / Brentano, Grossenhain i. S. / Leipzig / New York 1905
The wonderful three. A gymnastics festival in three scenes. With choirs, round dance, gymnastics exercises and living images. Gutenberg Co., Indianapolis 1905
Robert E. Ward (ed.): German poetry from America. A selection. The Literary Society Foundation, New York 1969

Contribution to periodicals

Handbook of German Poetry
Literary sheets
Modern Rundschau
Monthly sheets of the Wroclaw Poetry School
New German Poet Hall
New poetic sheets
New York State Newspaper . Fiction journal
puck
Contemporary

literature

Lotta L. Reader: German poetry in the United States . In: The Book of the Germans in America. Ed. Under the auspices of the German-American National Association. Walther's Buchdruckerei, Philadelphia 1909, p. 383 (web resource)
Robert E. Ward: K. Nies. German-American Knight. In: Journal of German-American Studies Vol. 3 (1971), No. 1, pp. 7-11
Walther Thomas: Konrad Nies. A German poet in America. Diss., Philadelphia 1933
Marie Muthreich: friend among friends. Written to Paul Barsch. o. O. (self-published), 1958
R. Wied: Konrad Nies Rediscovered. In: Yearbook German-American Studies , vol. 34 (1999), pp. 141–152
Katja Rampelmann: In the light of reason. The history of the German-American Freethinker Almanac from 1878–1901. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-515-07872-X , p. 262 f.
Martin Recktenwald: “Volkerfidel” in America. New home: Alzeyer poet Konrad Nies emigrated to the USA in 1883 . In: Allgemeine Zeitung Alzey , August 5, 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Martin Recktenwald: "Volkerfidel" in America. New home: Alzeyer poet Konrad Nies emigrated to the USA in 1883 . In: Allgemeine Zeitung Alzey , August 5, 2009.
↑ A German Magazine; The Prospective Work of a Cooperative Association. In: The New York Times , December 16, 1889 (web resource) .
↑ Cf. CO Schoenrich: The first poet festival in America. The Baltimore Flower Games, held on April 21, 1904. In: Pedagogical monthly books , Volume 5 (1904), No. 6 (May), pp. 187 ff. (Web resource) .
^ Lotta L. Readers: German poetry in the United States . In: The Book of the Germans in America. Ed. Under the auspices of the German-American National Association. Walther's Buchdruckerei, Philadelphia 1909, p. 383 archivaria.com .
^ P. G .: The Germanic Congress. In: Pedagogical monthly books , Volume 5 (1904), No. 10 (December), pp. 330 ff.

personal data
SURNAME	Sneeze, Konrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Konrad von Alzey
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American, German-speaking lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH	October 17, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alzey , Rheinhessen
DATE OF DEATH	August 10, 1922
Place of death	St. Louis , USA

[1] Martin Recktenwald: "Volkerfidel" in America. New home: Alzeyer poet Konrad Nies emigrated to the USA in 1883 . In: Allgemeine Zeitung Alzey , August 5, 2009.

[2] A German Magazine; The Prospective Work of a Cooperative Association. In: The New York Times , December 16, 1889 (web resource) .

[3] Cf. CO Schoenrich: The first poet festival in America. The Baltimore Flower Games, held on April 21, 1904. In: Pedagogical monthly books , Volume 5 (1904), No. 6 (May), pp. 187 ff. (Web resource) .

[4] Lotta L. Readers: German poetry in the United States . In: The Book of the Germans in America. Ed. Under the auspices of the German-American National Association. Walther's Buchdruckerei, Philadelphia 1909, p. 383 archivaria.com .

[5] P. G .: The Germanic Congress. In: Pedagogical monthly books , Volume 5 (1904), No. 10 (December), pp. 330 ff.