Ludwig Auerbach

Ludwig Wilhelm Auerbach (born September 5, 1840 in Pforzheim ; † July 22, 1882 in Seelbach (Schutter) ) was a merchant , jewelry manufacturer and poet . To posterity he is best known as the lyricist of the folk song O Black Forest, O Heimat .

Ludwig Auerbach (The tomb is on the eastern wall of the main cemetery in Pforzheim)

life and work

Childhood and youth

Ludwig Auerbach was the son of the Pforzheim jewelery manufacturer Ludwig Wilhelm Auerbach senior and his wife Karoline, née. Hirtzel.

The young Ludwig attended elementary school and grammar school in Pforzheim and showed pronounced literary talent at an early age. He wrote his oldest known poems when he was twelve. At the age of sixteen he wrote the romantic-historical verse epic Bellrem von Weißenstein , which was even printed as a book in 1860. The high school student was even offered a scholarship by Grand Duke Friedrich I. Auerbach's father, however, forbade his son to graduate from high school and study . Instead, Ludwig Auerbach began training as a businessman in his parents' company in 1861 at the will of his father, in order to later be able to take over management as his successor.

Time as a jewelry manufacturer in Pforzheim

When his father retired in 1867, this plan was implemented. Ludwig Auerbach and his brother-in-law Georg Katz took over the prosperous factory now trading as Auerbach & Katz . In its heyday it employed almost a hundred workers and produced mainly for customers in the Russian Empire . As a wealthy factory owner, Auerbach had a representative villa built not far from the factory, but also conveniently located for hiking in the Black Forest, which he loved .

Part of the Upper Kapfenhardter Mill

During all this time Ludwig Auerbach had continued his poetic activity in private and made friendships with other writers like Ferdinand Freiligrath , he also had contact with Wilhelm Ganzhorn . According to reports from relatives, he composed his Black Forest Heimatlied on a hike in the Würmtal in 1873 , which was set to music several times under the title O Schwarzwald, o Heimat and became one of the most popular folk songs of its time. The often-cited claim that Auerbach wrote the text inspired by the landscape there in the Upper Kapfenhardter Mühle near Unterreichenbach is probably incorrect, even if he also stayed there often and gladly.

Ludwig Auerbach was accepted into the Pforzheim Freemason Lodge Reuchlin on March 15, 1869 . He was also a committed member and partially co-founder of numerous other Pforzheim clubs and organizations, including the gymnastics club , the workers ' education club and the citizens' committee.

The economy in Germany, fueled by French reparations payments after the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of the Empire , collapsed from 1873 , which had a full impact on the Pforzheim jewelry industry. Auerbach senior had died in 1871 and did not see how things went down economically even for the strongly export-oriented company Auerbach & Katz, which finally led to bankruptcy in 1877.

Ludwig Auerbach was now facing economic ruin. During this time he received an offer to become editor-in- chief of the Wiener Neue Freie Presse , one of the leading newspapers of the Danube monarchy , but Auerbach declined. Instead, he preferred an offer from a poet friend, the Lahr banker Friedrich Geßler, who put him in charge of the scrap factory in nearby Seelbach. It is often assumed that Auerbach's great affection for his native Black Forest was the decisive factor in this decision.

Moved to Lahr and Seelbach and died early

After a big farewell party in Pforzheim, Auerbach and his family first moved into Geßler's villa in Lahr. In the following year, 1878, Auerbach then moved into an outbuilding of the Seelbach factory that had been converted into a residential building, in which he invested the rest of his assets. During his time in Lahr and Seelbach, Ludwig Auerbach was a regular guest in the Lahr Freemason's lodge “Allfather to Free Thought”, and during this time he wrote new poems again and again.

The Schutterfabrik processed straw into a raw material for paper production and discharged large amounts of toxic and foul-smelling sewage into the Schutter River , which paradoxically upset the majority of the valley population against the nature-loving Auerbach. The factory was not economically successful in the long run, however, because the newly invented method of processing wood into cellulose soon put it under increasing pressure. In this situation, in which a second bankruptcy was already looming, Auerbach suffered a heart attack on a business trip , the consequences of which he died a little later back in Seelbach.

Ludwig Auerbach was not quite 42 years old. He was buried in the main cemetery in Pforzheim , where his grave is still preserved today. Lahr friends donated a monument-like tombstone to him in 1884, on which a bronze plaque shows Auerbach's bust in profile. The Lahr friends Geßler and Scherenberg also took care of the posthumous publication of the poetry collection From the Black Forest in 1889 .

Auerbach's wife Rosa and his underage children Rudolf and Hedwig were left in a financially difficult situation after Ludwig's death. The widow continued to run the factory in Seelbach for a short time, but then returned to Pforzheim with the children.

Monuments

Ludwig Auerbach memorial stone, Pforzheim

A memorial stone for Ludwig Auerbach stands in Pforzheim a few meters above the “Kupferhammer” inn at the confluence of the Würm and Nagold rivers . In the immediate vicinity is the starting point for the three major Black Forest high- altitude trails , the West , Middle and East Path .

There is another memorial stone for Ludwig Auerbach near Seelbach.

Literary meaning

Ludwig Auerbach's work is largely forgotten today, apart from the lyrics to the song O Black Forest, O Heimat . During his lifetime, after Bellrem, he only published individual poems in magazines or collections of poetry, especially since he always pursued poetry as a hobby alongside his business activities. His work was predominantly shaped by themes of homeland poetry and the observation of nature, but also from early youthful works on by melancholy , premonition and longing for death.

Ludwig Auerbach was often confused with his contemporary Berthold Auerbach , who was more successful as a writer and who also came from the Black Forest area.

literature

• From the Black Forest . Poems from the estate. Lahr 1889 archive.org = Full text in the Google Book Search USA
• Esther Schmalacker: Personalities - Ludwig Auerbach . In: Pforzheim and the Enzkreis . Theiss, Stuttgart / Aalen 1976, ISBN 3-8062-0144-7 , pp. 173-174
• Olaf Schulze: O Black Forest, O home, how beautiful are you . In: Pforzheimer Zeitung , July 21, 2007, p. 26
• Ludwig Auerbach exhibition, Seelbach, 15. – 29. July 2007

Web links

• Lyrics of the song O Black Forest, o Heimat on ingeb.org
• Ludwig Auerbach . In: Stadtwiki Pforzheim-Enz