Marie Luise Becker

Marie Luise Becker with hat and muff (1911)

Marie Luise Becker around 1905

Marie Luise Becker's grave in the Lichterfelde cemetery

Marie Luise Julie Becker , ad. Kirchbach, former Strube, (born December 28, 1871 in Eberswalde , † January 8, 1960 in Berlin ) was a German writer .

Life

She was born as the daughter of the businessman and councilor Adolf Becker in Eberswalde, who, like her mother, died early. From 1889 Becker lived in the house of her uncle Ernst Scherenberg in Elberfeld . She went to Berlin, where she studied philosophy and archeology and was then accepted into the master class at the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts. Becker joined the women's movement in Berlin and wrote in a self-assessment: “Women’s questions have never found me idle for 'conscious action'. Unfortunately, I have no real talent and no patience for political polemicism ”. In 1896 she became editor of the Illustrierte Frauen-Zeitung , for which she wrote articles on fashion and art history, among other things. During the Second Boer War she was the second chairwoman of the “Women's Aid Association for Boer Women and Children”. This was followed by trips to Italy , France , Austria and Switzerland . Becker's first children's song book Im Wolken-Kuckucksheim appeared in 1899 . Above all, the success of her second volume of poetry, Sonnenkinder (1901) and the first novel Kanalkinder (1905), prompted Becker to focus primarily on writing.

Becker married the writer Wolfgang Kirchbach in 1904 . The common house in Berlin became a popular meeting place for the Wandervogel movement , with Becker mainly advocating the integration of girls into the movement. Becker's husband died in the second year of their marriage in 1906. In 1910, Becker published his estate together with Karl von Levetzow .

After her husband's death, Becker worked as an art and theater correspondent in Paris and processed her experiences in numerous German-national novels. After the outbreak of the First World War , she returned to Germany and worked as a nurse and war correspondent in Hungary , among other places . Her second marriage was in 1917 with the school principal Paul Gerhard Strube and moved with him from Berlin to Remscheid and soon afterwards to Essen . The couple separated in 1934 and Becker finally settled in Berlin. She welcomed National Socialism , joined the women's association of the NSDAP and the Reichsschrifttumskammer and wrote, in the spirit of the times, for example the novel Woman Behind the Front in 1933 , which she wrote to her war comrade Paul Strube, Captain the Elder. L., dedicated. Your novel Fritz Ullmanns Brautfahrt was filmed in 1940 under the title Heart goes anchor with Gustav Fröhlich and Viktoria von Ballasko in the leading roles by Joe Stöckel . Some novels have also been published internationally, including in Sweden and France.

Becker fell seriously ill in the 1940s, so that she hardly wrote any works after 1941. Her last years she lived in a retirement home in Berlin-Schlachtensee, where she died in 1960. She was buried at the Lichterfelde cemetery as "Marie Luise Strube" in Wolfgang Kirchbach's grave. Your estate is administered by the Berlin State Library.

Works

Novels

• Canal children. Novel. Krüger, Berlin 1905.
• The heirs of Babette Niebenschütz. Novel. Reissner, Dresden 1909.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Karsten and his grandchildren. Reissner, Dresden 1910.
• The iron ring. Dresden, Reissner 1912.
• The children of genius. Reissner, Dresden 1913.
• The green petticoat. Reissner, Dresden 1914.
• Fritz Ullmann's bridal trip. Reissner, Dresden 1917. (New edition 1941 as heart drops anchor! )
• Fritz Ullmann's wedding trip. Reissner, Dresden 1917. (New edition 1941 as dangerous journey. )
• The squandered legacy. The selection, Weimar 1922.
• Paris fire! Seyfert, Dresden 1926.
• Babette Niebenschütz at the Schleitmühlenteich. Oestergaard, Berlin-Schöneberg 1927.
• The aviator. Enßlin & Laiblin, Reutlingen 1931.
• Woman behind the front. Schlieffen Berlin 1934.

Further publications

• In cloud cuckoo home. (Children's songs) 1899.
• Sun children. A song cycle. Seemann, Leipzig 1901.
• Love in the German fairy tale. Seemann, Leipzig 1901.
• Italy and me. Travel pictures. Seemann, Leipzig 1902.
• Wolfgang Kirchbach in his time. Correspondence and essays from the estate. (Ed. With Karl von Levetzow). Callwey, Munich 1910.
• Castles. Seals. Reissner, Dresden 1911.
• From the little girl. Concordia, Berlin 1914.
• A contribution to clearing up the enemy's atrocity reports. Concordia, Berlin 1915.
• The guard. Dramatic game. Sales office of the Association of German Stage Writers, Berlin 1916.
• Stories based on dramas from German classics as an introduction to Lessing, Schiller, Goethe. (Participation). Dieterich, Leipzig 1904.
• Earth blessing. A game for harvest day or midsummer day. Strauch, Leipzig 1920.
• Bergische Märchen Told according to old traditions and according to the Montanus records. Niederrhein-Verlag, Solingen 1925.
• Poems. Beisswanger, Nuremberg 1931.
• Princess donkey skin. A fairy tale game. Theater Verlag Langen / Müller, Berlin 1941.

literature

• Marie Luise Becker . In: Fritz Abshoff: Bildende Geister . Volume 1. Oestergaard, Berlin 1905, p. 15.
• Kirchbach, Marie Luise . In: Franz Brümmer : Lexicon of German poets and prose writers from the beginning of the 19th century to the present . Volume 3. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1913, p. 326.
• Becker, Marie Luise . In: Petra Budke , Jutta Schulze (Hrsg.): Writers in Berlin from 1871 to 1945. An encyclopedia on life and work . Orlanda, Berlin 1995, pp. 46-48.
• Strube, Marie Luise . In: Elisabeth Friedrichs: The German-speaking women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. A lexicon . Metzler, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-476-00456-2 , (Repertories on the History of German Literature 9), p. 304.

Web links

Commons : Marie Luise Becker  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Marie Luise Becker. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fritz Abshoff: Fine spirits . Volume 1. Oestergaard, Berlin 1905, p. 15.
2. ↑ No copy can be found