Maria Charlotte Sweceny

Maria Charlotte Sweceny (born: Stein ; * June 6, 1904 in Vienna ; † March 15, 1956 there ) was a partner at Manz Verlag and from 1939 to 1942 the friend of the Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia . She served as a model for the figure of the Cuba Pistohlkors in Lernet-Holenias novel Mars in Widder and was the dedicatee of his poetry collection The Trophae .

Family background

Maria Charlotte Sophie Nanette Felicitas Stein, called “Lotte”, was born on June 6th, 1904 in Vienna and baptized HB on October 9th in the Evangelical Confession. Her father was the publisher Dr. Richard Stein , her mother Frieda Klinkhardt, who came from a German publishing family. Nothing is known about Lotte Stein's educational path. She grew up with her three siblings Robert (1899–1970), Walter (1901–1979) and Edith (1910–1985). The family "belonged to that highly cultivated class of the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie who, with their enthusiasm for progress, were enthusiastic about new impulses in art and science [sic!] And promoted creative talents with commissions and purchases [sic!]". I.a. instructed to Adolf Loos to build a portal for the bookstore Manz on Kohlmarkt 16 and promoted Arnold Schoenberg , whose students Lotte's uncle Erwin Stein counted. In 1909, father Richard had Oskar Kokoschka paint himself and his two children Lotte and Walter .

Marriage and Friends

On December 25, 1925, Lotte Stein married the industrialist's son and engineer Otto Carl Adolf Sweceny (1900–1969), who was four years older than him, and a partner in Sirocco-Werke White, Child & Beney, a company founded in 1888 specializing in industrial ventilation technology . In 1934, the childless couple moved into an apartment in the recently built high-rise in Vienna's Herrengasse, where numerous artists and intellectuals lived. Her friends included the publicist Milan Dubrović , his wife, the art historian Erika Kriechbaum , the architects Hans A. Vetter and Max Fellerer as well as the police officer and Torberg friend Alexander Inngraf ("Blümerl"). Lotte Stein, now Sweceny, is mentioned in Dubrovic's memoirs in connection with this circle of friends. There it is said, among other things, that Lotte Sweceny was at the center of an "opposition-minded circle of friends" that usually met in Hochrotherd (near Breitenfurt in the Vienna Woods ). Sweceny and her brother Walter Stein owned a farmhouse there, where they and their family or friends often spent the weekends.

World War II and relationship with Alexander Lernet-Holenia

Approx. In 1938 Sweceny met the Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia - probably in the Herrenhof café . On January 8, 1939, the two undertook a multi-week trip to the Caribbean and North America with the KdF ship MS Milwaukee, from which they returned as a couple. Lernet-Holenia's participation in the attack on Poland forced the young couple to separate; a constellation that can be found in Lernet-Holenias in the novel Mars in Aries , which reflects the campaign . Sweceny was the model for the mysterious fictional character of the Cuba Pistohlkors; The Hochrotherd Circle of Friends also found its way into the novel. When Lernet-Holenia was assigned to the Heeresfilmstelle in Berlin as head of the development staff in September 1941 , the two began to become estranged from each other until they finally separated at the end of 1942. Lernet had not allowed Sweceny to visit him in Berlin, partly because he considered the city too dangerous for a " first degree hybrid ", who she was according to Nazi terminology, and partly because he had a relationship there his future wife Eva Vollbach entertained. However, Sweceny continued to work for Lernet - as before - by compiling and copying manuscripts, including the volume of poetry Die Trophae , which he “dearest” of his books. The Stein family archive contains 150 letters from Lernet-Holenia to Sweceny, which were first published in 2011 in the form of a scientific edition of letters .

Last years of life and death

After 1945 Sweceny divorced her husband, but maintained a good relationship with him and his second wife Heidi Ebenstein until the end. Sweceny spent the last years of her life in her apartment in the skyscraper. She went on numerous study trips, learned foreign languages ​​and maintained numerous correspondence with friends who had emigrated from before the Second World War and new, mostly American friends, whom she had met while working as a tour guide in Vienna. Maria Charlotte Sweceny died of a weak heart on March 15, 1956 and was buried in the family grave at the Döblinger Friedhof in Vienna.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On this and in the following: Christopher Dietz: Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Letters 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna 2013, pp. 335–399 ( Maria Charlotte Sweceny: attempt at a portrait ).
2. ↑ Milan Dubrovic: Misappropriated history. The Viennese salons and literary cafes. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna and Hamburg 1985, p. 262.
3. ↑ Playing children hangs today in the Lehmbruck Museum of the city of Duisburg. In 1924, the controversial picture was attacked in an exhibition by an angry visitor, cf. Tobias Natter (ed.): Oskar Kokoschka. The modern portrait 1909 to 1914. Edited by Tobias G. Natter on behalf of the Neue Galerie New York. Dumont, Cologne 2002. The portrait of Richard Stein (oil on canvas, approx. 91 × 71 cm) has been lost (cf. Johann Winkler and Katharina Erling: Oskar Kokoschka. The paintings 1906–1929. Verlag Galerie Welz, Salzburg 1995, p. 12). In 1937 the Nazis removed the picture as " degenerate " from the Dresden National Gallery (see Eric Kandel: The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. Random House, New York 2012, p. 158).
4. ↑ See Iris Meder Judith Eiblmayr: Haus Hoch. The Herrengasse skyscraper and its famous residents. Metroverlag, Vienna 2009 passim.
5. ↑ Milan Dubrovic: Misappropriated history. The Viennese salons and literary cafes. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna and Hamburg 1985, p. 262ff.
6. ↑ Ibid. P. 262.
7. ↑ The house had previously belonged to Anna Freud , who, after the “ Anschluss ” in 1938, had to sell it in the course of her emigration and wanted to put it in trustworthy hands. Hans A. Vetter, a close friend of the Sweceny couple, brokered the purchase; Otto C. Sweceny was the “Aryan” front man in the transaction (cf. Christopher Dietz: Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Letters 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna 2013, p. 391).
8. ↑ Ibid. P. 21.
9. ↑ See above all Christopher Dietz: Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Letters 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna 2013, p. 43 ff.
10. ↑ "[...] this book, which is my favorite of all I've written [...]" (Alexander Lernet-Holenia: Letter to Peter Suhrkamp. St. Wolfgang. December 8, 1943, quoted from A. Lernet -Holenia: Das lyrische Gesamtwerk. Ed. By Roman Rocek. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna and Darmstadt 1989, p. 656).
11. ↑ Christopher Dietz: "I am probably the poet with one of the most ridiculous fates" - Alexander Lernet-Holenia's letters to Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2011; 2013 in book form: Christopher Dietz: Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Letters 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna 2013.

literature

• Christopher Dietz: Alexander Lernet-Holenia and Maria Charlotte Sweceny. Letters 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna 2013.
• Christopher Dietz: Lernet and his Lotte . In: Der Standard (album), 24./25. August 2013 ( http://derstandard.at/1376534501296/Lernet-und-seine-Lotte )
• Milan Dubrovic: Misappropriated story. The Viennese salons and literary cafes. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna and Hamburg 1985.
• Iris Meder and Judith Eiblmayr: Haus Hoch. The Herrengasse skyscraper and its famous residents. Metroverlag, Vienna 2009.