Margarete zur Bentlage

Max Heilmaier : relief portrait of Margarete and Rudolf Schiestl (1916)

Margarete zur Bentlage (also known as Margarete Schiestl-Bentlage ) (born March 24, 1891 on the Bentlage farm near Menslage ; † February 16, 1954 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ) was a German writer .

Life

Margarete Bentlage grew up as the fifth of eight children of the farmer Heinrich Bentlage and his wife Emma, ​​nee. Ostendorff from Bippen, in the Wierup farming community near Menslage . The Artländer Hof was mentioned in a document as early as 1393. Members of the Bentlage family got involved in the Menslager Reading Society (founded in 1796) and in the Artländer Trachtenbund (1905). In 1912/13 Margarete completed her budget year at Gut Oberlödla / Thuringia with the family v. Poellnitz . She began to write and draw at an early age. In 1915 she was admitted to the Nuremberg Art School . In 1916 she married her teacher, the graphic artist Rudolf Schiestl (1878–1931). The first stories were written in the 1920s. In 1930 the story Der Mann aus der Heide appeared in the " Deutsche Rundschau ". After the death of her husband, she lived with her daughter Notburg in Nuremberg.

Through her friend, poet Jakob Kneip , she met the Leipzig publisher Paul Walter List (1899–1989), whom she married in 1936. Paul W. List was the son of the publisher's founder Paul List , who had taken over the management of the publishing house from his father in 1929. Margarete Bentlage and List had a daughter named Beatrix.

Work during the Nazi era (1933–1945)

In 1933 her first book, Unter den Eichen, was published by Paul List Verlag in Leipzig . From the life of a German tribe , a collection of short stories. The work, which can be assigned to the homeland poetry , was received with great acclaim by literary critics - including those from other American countries. By 1950, Unter den Eichen had a circulation of 100,000 copies. In 1938 her story Bernat's Homecoming and Marriage at Reclam was published. In the following year, the novel Robbers and Soldiers or the "bad" Gustav appeared , in which some ethnic-national ideologemes can be identified: the so-called leader principle , men have the say, dichotomous worldview, take up the so-called stab in the back , fight against the political left , " Hindenburg reminiscence". Published shortly after the attack on Poland , this propaganda text served to encourage young German people to fight unconditionally in the face of the current war. At the beginning of the work, the author's dedication to the readers says:

Dear German boys and girls!

I wrote this book out of love for you. When I started I didn't think we'd be at war again when it was done. But now it has become a war gift. And now I greet you with this book at the same time with firm belief in our Führer and the victory of Greater Germany .

Margarete Schiestl-Bentlage

In 1941 she took the stage name Margarete zur Bentlage. Though not in intensity as robbers and soldiers (1939), yet, even in the 1941 novel, wandering near Leipzig insofar Nazi ideas presented, than this racist image of the "inferior Poland" to the German "master race" is drawn . With the secret of Hunebrook , in 1943 zur Bentlage brought out “yet another novel of the local literature saturated with racist phrases and political agitation”. In the same year, together with Max Dehnert , she received the “Cantata Poet Award” from the city of Leipzig because she “made her special contribution to the liberation struggle of our people and to the rebuilding of the empire”. SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Ihde had suggested her for the award . Against this background, Margarete zur Bentlage was not only a supporter, but also a beneficiary of the Nazi regime, although she will certainly have positioned herself critically on individual points.

A Wehrmacht edition of her best-known volume of short stories, Unter den Eichen, and Gert Ruwe and August field post editions were published . The novel The Blue Moor was translated into Dutch in 1942 under the title Nevelen boven de heide .

In 1943 she moved to Hippach / Tyrol until the end of the war .

After 1945

In 1947 she moved with her family to Garmisch-Partenkirchen , where she died on February 16, 1954. The third edition of her work Robbers and Soldiers , published in 1939 by List and reprinted in 1940 and 1944, was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out by the German Administration for Popular Education in the Soviet zone of occupation in 1946 . There were no objections in the American occupation zone, and in 1946 the volume of stories, Durchsonte Nebel, appeared . After the collapse of the “ Third Reich ”, Margarete zur Bentlage defended herself against the accusation of being a Nazi-burdened writer. Paul Walter List also campaigned for the good reputation of his late wife in this sense by claiming that she was uncomfortable with the public award of the Nazi regime, the cantata poet award, and that she refused to accept it.

Her last novel The Thousand Window House was published posthumously in 1954. Margarete zur Bentlage was one of the most widely read German authors until the 1950s. It was present in specialist magazines and in “ Westermann's monthly books ”, as well as on the radio and in German, Austrian and Dutch daily newspapers. Her stories and novels take place in Emsland and Osnabrücker Nordland as well as in Leipzig and Nuremberg.

Margarete zur Bentlage is buried next to her husband Paul Walter List in the cemetery in Partenkirchen.

In Quakenbrück , a street is named after Margarete zur Bentlage.

Works

• Under the oaks , 1933
• Gert Ruwe , 1933
• The blue moor , 1934
• Love's sorrow and lust , 1936
• The betrothed , 1938
• Bernat's homecoming and marriage , 1938
• Robbers and soldiers , 1939
• Hohage's daughters , 1940
• The first night , 1941
• Odyssey near Leipzig , 1941
• Nevelen boven de heide , uit het Duits vertaald door Elisabet Antonio Voogd-Pull, Amsterdam, De Arbeiderspers 1942 (a second edition was published ibid. 1943)
• Secret of Hunebrook , 1943
• Sunlit fog , 1946
• On the outskirts of the city , 1949
• The beautiful Jütter , 1951
• The thousand-window house , 1954
• Margarete zur Bentlage tells , 1962

literature

• Herbert Günther: Artistic dual talent , Munich 1960.
• Doris Urbanek: Margarete zur Bentlage. Attempt to create a monograph [Diss. Vienna], Vienna 1969.
• Kurt Böttcher / Johannes Mittenzwei, dialogue. German-speaking writer as painter and draftsman,   Leipzig 1980.
• Wilhelm Kosch u. a. (Ed.): German Literature Lexicon. The 20th century. Vol. 2: Bauer-Ose - Björnson . De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin 2000. ISBN 3-908255-02-3 . Col. 315 f.
• Gudrun Wedel: autobiographies of women. A lexicon . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2010. ISBN 978-3-412-20585-0 . P. 969.
• Martin Espenhorst / Klaus Stutte (eds.): Vom Artland in die wide Welt , Ankum 2015 [companion volume to the exhibition of the same name at the Quakenbrück City Museum].
• Martin Espenhorst / Klaus Stutte: Margarete zur Bentlage (1891–1954): Writer of Artlandes , in: Heimat-Jahrbuch Osnabrücker Land 2015, pp. 172–181.
• Rainer Drewes / Martin Espenhorst:, To the highest German women's poetry - Margarete zur Bentlage and the reception of her work during the Third Reich, in: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch (Görres-Gesellschaft) 57, 2016, pp. 157–178.
• Martin Espenhorst: 'My way of writing is probably more related to Breughel's style of painting'. On the life and work of Margarete zur Bentlage (1891–1954), in: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 121, 2016, pp. 113–126.
• Rolf Düsterberg : Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artlander . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 45–82.

Web links

• Literature by and about Margarete zur Bentlage in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Margarete zur Bentlage: Origin and Work . In: Bernat's homecoming and marriage. Novella. With an autobiographical afterword by the author . Reclam, Leipzig 1938. pp. 64-73.
2. ^ Paul Walter List: Afterword . In: Margarete zur Bentlage tells . Paul List Verlag, Munich 1962. pp. 609-613.
3. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 68–74.
4. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 68, 75.
5. ^ Margarete Schiestl-Bentlage: Robbers and soldiers or the "bad" Gustav . Leipzig: List 1939. Quoted in Düsterberg (2018), p. 68.
6. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 64f.
7. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 77.
8. ↑ "Magical Realism", interview with Martin Espenhorst, in: Leipziger Volkszeitung, March 24, 2016, No. 71.
9. ^ OV: "Price distributions". In: Der Autor 18 (1943), 6, p. 107. Quoted in Düsterberg (2018), p. 76.
10. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 79.
11. ^ List of literature to be discarded
12. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 78.
13. ^ Rolf Düsterberg: Margarete zur Bentlage - the Artländerin . In the S. (Ed.): Poet for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 76. Reference is made to List, Paul W .: "Study on a picture of memories". In: List. 150 years of bookselling tradition. 70 years of Paul List Verlag . Munich: List 1964, p. 201f. u. List, Paul W .: Annual Rings. Life picture of a publisher . Munich: List 1982, p. 222.
14. ↑ City map of Quakenbrück  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.