Ludwig Reiners

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Ludwig Reiners (born January 21, 1896 in Ratibor ; † August 10, 1957 in Munich ) was a German businessman and writer .

Life

Reiners was the son of a cigar manufacturer. He passed his Abitur in 1914 at the high school in Ratibor. Then he took part in the First World War. He studied law and economics. In 1920 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the economic measures of the Munich Soviet Republic and was entitled Dr. jur. Dr. rer. pole.

Then he began a career as a businessman in the position of stock exchange representative of Deutsche Bank , became an assistant director in heavy industry at Deutsche Werke AG , a timber trader in the Balkans as an authorized signatory of a Swiss timber company. In 1939 he employed the young Ducci Mesirca, who later became the manager of Schloss Elmau . Reiners was a member of the NSDAP during the Third Reich, and most recently for more than 25 years - also during the Second World War, but interrupted by a time as a farm worker after the surrender in 1945 - in Bavaria as Sales Director of the Richard Jung yarn factory in Munich. In 1957 he died after a short, serious illness.

Reiners grew up under the spell of Prussia as well as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and its atmosphere, which he describes in his description of the prehistory and course of the First World War In Europe the lights go out .

In the time of the Great Depression , he began economics textbooks and individual studies to publish ( the real economy, an introduction to the economics of the question and answer, 1930). This was followed by books on internal issues, German literature, and the history of England and Germany.

After the war, Reiners brought most of his books to market in quick succession. He also wrote a preface for the Stilduden .

With his first wife Lotte, he had a son and a daughter. He was married to her until her death in 1947. In 1951 he married the 26-year-old painter Hilde Wielandt, they both had three sons.

The art of style

In 1943 Reiners' book Deutsche Stilkunst was published. A textbook of German prose. It not only contains a panopticon of good and bad style, but Reiners also provides the reader with tasks, such as describing objects or translating them back from English into German. Reiners took over the structure, long literal passages and numerous examples from the 30th edition (1922) of Eduard Engels book of the same name; he even portrayed Engels 'personal experiences as his own. The extent of these takeovers is not clear from Reiners' reference, which under "Notes" reads literally: "Some examples, namely of unsuccessful sentences, are taken from the following books." 23 works, u. a. Engels German style art .

Stefan Stirnemann therefore called Reiners' book plagiarism and wrote:

“Reiners consciously and according to plan took over the conception of style and style, the terms and countless examples from beautiful and specialist literature from Eduard Engel. In addition, he stole accurate observations and strong sentences from him and actually mimicked Engel's attitude: the superior attitude of the connoisseur. [...] The fraud was only possible in the Third Reich. On the one hand, Engels' writings were without legal protection; on the other hand, Reiners was entitled to assume that they would be forgotten all the more quickly if printed in Fraktur, since the 'Führer' had ordered the conversion to Antiqua in 1941. So he could confidently read the successful book of Eduard Engels - the word comes to mind: Aryanize. "

The poet Eugen Roth , who was friends with Reiners, recommended Reiners' book. He praised Reiners for his "wealth of knowledge", for the "superior wit of his lecture", for his "excellent book". However, he also called him an “after-work and Sunday writer”, whose stylistic art was “fed from at least as many own and other sources”.

On August 22, 1956, Der Spiegel dedicated its cover story to Reiners, with his photo on the front page.

more publishments

In his treatise Is It In the Stars? - A scientific study on the truth and error of astrology from 1951 collected Reiners everything that can be said against the meaning and truth of astrology .

The lights go out in Europe is a chronicle of the mistakes that led to the First World War and the defeat of the Central Powers and the dissolution of the German Empire .

Friedrich is a biography of the Prussian King Friedrich II , which depicts his life from youth to his death.

In addition, Reiners wrote a biography of Otto von Bismarck , including many original quotes. Before Reiners died, he could only complete two volumes, Bismarck's rise 1815–64 (1956) and Bismarck founds the empire 1864–1871 (1957), so that the biography remained unfinished.

Reiners' anthology The Eternal Fountain is best known , for which Reiners, according to his own statement, selected the poems "that a normal person likes to read". The anniversary edition available today was fundamentally revised by Albert von Schirnding in 2005 , with around a quarter of the poems contained in it being replaced.

Works

  • The real economy. 2 volumes. 1932/33.
  • Fontane or The Art of Living. 1939.
  • Style art. A textbook of German prose. 1943, improved new edition Beck, Munich 1951, ISBN 3-406-34985-4 .
  • Worry Primer or: About the art of becoming a master through understanding and exercising your worries. Beck, Munich 1948 (Becksche series) ISBN 3-406-32981-0 .
  • Primer for lovers - at the same time a guide to be married and yet happy. 1950.
  • Statecraft novel. Life and achievement of the lords. CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1951, ISBN 3-406-02128-X .
  • Is it in the stars? A scientific study of the truth and error of astrology. 1951.
  • The sure way to good German. A style guide. C. H. Beck, Munich 1951 (published from 1959 under the title Stilfibel. The safe way to good German ).
  • Friedrich. CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1952, ISBN 3-423-10599-2 (work on Friedrich II of Prussia , called the Great).
  • We can all live better. 1953.
  • Miss, please dictate. Paul List Verlag, Munich 1953, ISBN 3-471-60014-0 .
  • The lights are going out in Europe. The fall of the Wilhelmine Empire. dtv 1699, Munich 1981 (first edition: Beck, Munich 1954), ISBN 3-423-01699-X .
    • published in English in 1955 ( The lamps went out in Europe , Meridian Books)
  • The eternal well . A folk book of German poetry. CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1955, ISBN 978-3-406-53638-0 (anniversary edition, updated and expanded by Albert von Schirnding , Munich 2005).
  • The art of speech and conversation. Paul List Verlag, Munich 1955, ISBN 3-7720-0221-8 .
  • The business thing. Letters from an entrepreneur to his son. 1956, ISBN 3-471-60082-5 .
  • Who just said that? 1956 (dictionary of quotations).
  • Bismarck's rise 1815–64. CH Beck, Munich 1956, ISBN 3-423-01573-X .
  • Bismarck founds the empire, 1864–1871. CH Beck, Munich 1957, ISBN 3-423-01574-8 .
  • Are we earning too little? 1957.
  • Style guide. The sure way to good German. C. H. Beck, Munich 1959 (first published in 1951 under the title The Safe Way to Good German. A Style Guide ).

literature

  • Reiners, Ludwig . In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE) . 2., revised. and extended edition. tape 8 : Poethen – Schlueter . De Gruyter / KG Saur, Berlin / Boston / Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-094025-1 , p. 287 .
  • Heidi Reuschel: tradition or plagiarism? The “Art of Style” by Ludwig Reiners and the “Art of Style” by Eduard Engel in comparison (= Bamberg Contributions to Linguistics Volume 9). University of Bamberg Press, Bamberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86309-284-9 (Dissertation Universität Bamberg 2014, 512 pages, nbn-resolving.de ).

Web links

Wikiquote: Ludwig Reiners  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Two kinds of yarn . In: Der Spiegel . No. 34 , 1956, pp. 32 ( Online - Aug. 22, 1956 ).
  2. ↑ a b Ludwig Reiners in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  3. ↑ Obituary Ducci Mesirca
  4. ^ Digitized at archive.org
  5. ↑ Stefan Stirnemann: A fraudster as a classic. Eduard Engels “Deutsche Stilkunst” and Ludwig Reiners ( PDF file, 75 kB), Critical Edition 12, 2004, pp. 48–50. - See also Stirnemann's article “Theft of the 'highest souls'. The National Socialist plagiarism of a 'German style art' is still on the shelves of bookstores today ”, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, International Edition, No. 194, 23 August 2014, p. 28.
  6. ↑ Stefan Stirnemann: German style art - the stolen life's work. In: Eduard Engel: German style art. After the 31st edition from 1931. Enriched with a foreword by Stefan Stirnemann . Two volumes. The other library , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8477-0379-2 .
  7. ↑ On the subject, the comprehensive dissertation by Heidi Reuschel: Tradition or Plagiarism? The 'Art of Style' by Ludwig Reiners and the 'Art of Style' by Eduard Engel in comparison, Bamberg Contributions to Linguistics 9, Bamberg 2014 (accessed on November 15, 2015); from the foreword by doctoral supervisor Helmut Glück, page 15: "The subject of this book is a nasty allegation of plagiarism, which has been repeatedly raised (and sometimes re-prayed without being examined), but has not yet been thoroughly investigated."
  8. ↑ Sunday is for writing , Der Spiegel , August 22, 1956.
  9. ↑ Reiners, Ludwig . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)
  10. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: All moods of existence, reviewed by Jörg Drews on November 29th, 2005
  11. ^ A suitable poem for every occasion Deutschlandradio Kultur February 10, 2006
personal data
SURNAME Reiners, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manufacturer, businessman and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Ratibor
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1957
Place of death Munich