Max Dreyer

Max Dreyer

Max Dreyer (born September 25, 1862 in Rostock , † November 27, 1946 in Göhren (Rügen) ) was a German writer and playwright .

biography

Max Dreyer was born on September 25, 1862 in Rostock as the son of a teacher. He studied theology and philology at the University of Rostock from the summer semester of 1880 . After a stay at the University of Leipzig , he returned to the Rostock University in the summer semester of 1883. During this time he and other Rostock students founded the Rostock Academic Gymnastics Association on July 9, 1883, which in 1884 became the Rostock gymnastics club . In 1884 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD.

He then worked as a high school teacher. Disappointed with the school system, he left school in 1888. In his comedy Der Probkandidat (1899) he processed his experience in the teaching profession into a time-critical satire that sharply attacked the state and its school policy.

Dreyer was initially editor of the Daily Rundschau in Berlin . From 1920 he lived as a freelance writer in his summer house built in 1901 by the Wolgaster Actien-Gesellschaft für Holzverarbeitung, the "Dragon House" which still exists today on the level of the Göhrener Höft on the island of Rügen . He became an honorary citizen of the community of Göhren / Rügen.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, he published the local novel Der Heerbann calls (1933), which was placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone in 1948 .

Artistic creation

Max Dreyer first appeared as a playwright at the height of German naturalism. In 1894 the play Three appeared. Drama in three acts published by S. Fischer in Berlin. Samuel Fischer was one of the most important publishers of the young naturalists, who also published Gerhart Hauptmann at the time. In 1896, Dreyer's play Winterschlaf , also published by S. Fischer, was a naturalistic tragedy in which the protagonist Trude kills herself. This was followed by the comedies In Treatment (1897), Grandmama , a so-called bachelorette swank (1897), Love Dreams (1898), Under blond beasts (1899) and The Pastor's Daughter of Streladorf (1910), as well as the dramas Hans (1898), The Trial candidate (1899), The winner (1901), Rogue games (1902), The Seventeen Years Old (1904), The Smiling Boy (1912) and The Commander's Wife (1913).

Popular poems and natural poetry led Dreyer away from naturalism. B. in the Low German poetry book Nah Huus. Plattdütsche poems (1904). Dreyer's stories include Die Insel. Stories from the angle (1920), The corner of the world (1921), The settlers of Hohenmoor. A book of anger and confidence (1922) and decrepit (1925).

After this interim phase as a narrator, Dreyer finally changed genre and changed from playwright to novelist. The early novel Nachwuchs (1918) was followed by the novels Das Gymnasium von St. Jürgen (1925), Der siegende Wald (1926), Das Himmelbett von Hilgenhöh (1928), König Kandaules (1929), Der Weg durch Feuer (1930), The break in marriage (1931), Brave little Renate (1932), The Heerbann calls (1933), Vacation to Europe (1936), Erdkraft (1941), Two return home (1942), The lion bride (1943) and Spuk. A happy novel (1943). Dreyer's last work published during his lifetime is The Head. A student story from the old days (1945).

Although Max Dreyer was not one of the first directors of the Neue Freie Volksbühne , which was founded in 1892 , he was appointed as a new employee in its Artistic Committee in 1896, when it came to an end in autumn 1896 after tough battles with the Berlin theater censorship police, which had paralyzed the activities of this theater association Resumed activity.

Dreyer often worked on topical issues - especially in his plays - which was one of the reasons for the success of his plays during his lifetime, but was later seen critically by literary scholars as "showmanship". But homeland themes were also a focus of his work in poetry, prose and drama.

Positioning in the Nazi state

In October 1933 Dreyer was one of the 88 writers who signed the pledge of loyal allegiance to Adolf Hitler . During the “ Third Reich ” years , which can be regarded as the most successful in his literary career, 21 independent publications by the poet were published, four of them in the party-owned publishing house of the NSDAP , with which he had been under contract since June 5, 1941. Dreyer's most politically unambiguous novel is Die Siedler von Hohenmoor - Ein Buch des Zornes und der Zuversicht, published in 1922 . Here folk ideologems are served by taking up the so-called stab in the back legend , propagating an emerging Third Reich and addressing the fight and the cult of the leader:

Where is he, the Führer! The hero of iron! The great caller in dispute! The dragon killer! Who first slays the dragon in his own country. And then the hellhounds out there. [...] The enemy is in the country! Where is the king of the army! Let his flag wave! We all come, we all follow you! A sea breaks up, a sea of ​​flames - a storm surge of fire, so we roar over the enemy!

Four of Dreyer's works were filmed during the Nazi era, some with prominent cast. Recognition for his "calculable, politically usable works [...], which result from a steadily growing affinity for folk ideology", was rewarded by the regime with five literary prizes: As a member of the Wartburg Association, Dreyer was awarded the Silver Wartburg rose awarded. In 1939 he took third place (RM 8,000) with his novel Erdkraft (RM 8,000) in a competition for a novel by the Völkischer Beobachter . In the same year he took part in another competition for a novel, in which he won the Ernst Moritz Arndt Prize of the Pomeranian Province. In 1941 he received the John Brinkmann Prize (RM 500-1,000) and a year later he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science for his life's work .

Impact history

"Poet of the Baltic Sea"

Max Dreyer is often referred to as the “poet of the Baltic Sea”. He is considered to be the discoverer of the Baltic Sea region for processing in literature.

Film adaptations

The importance of Dreyer in his time can be seen in the number of templates that he provided for large productions of German film, in addition to his success in the theater.

Pieces

Dreyer's play Das Thal des Lebens (1904) was used as a reference text for the Centropa feature film Der Ammenkönig , directed by Hans Steinhoff , which premiered on December 5, 1935. In 1919 Dreyer's play The Seventeen Year Olds (1904) was released as the silent film The Seventeen Years Old (!), Directed by Hanna Henning . Two years later, Amleto Palermi filmed the play in Italy under the title L'età critica . In 1929 there was a German sound film version with prominent figures featuring Carl Balhaus , Grete Mosheim and Eduard von Winterstein ; another followed in 1934, directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt .

The film director Carl Froelich successfully brought the film version of Dreyer's play The Graduation , in which Robert A. Stemmle was responsible for the script, to the screen with Reifende Jugend 1933 . Hertha Thiele and Heinrich George played the leading roles. The film even ran with respectable success in the United States. In 1955 Ulrich Erfurth took up the subject again .

Novellas

In 1937, Hans Deppe successfully filmed a novella by Dreyer, Das Himmelbett von Hilgenhöh (1928) with 2 × 2 in a four-poster bed, also with a large star cast , just as television adapted its best-known novella Old Age under the title Late Summer , in which Martin Held and Röbbe Klingenbarg could shape a grateful age role.

radio play

In 1966, NDR produced its dialect radio play Dat Sympathiemiddel under the direction of Curt Timm . The leading roles were spoken by Uwe Friedrichsen , Hilde Sicks , Otto Lüthje and Ilse Seemann . In addition to Karl-Heinz Kreienbaum , Ernst Grabbe and Christa Siems , Henry Vahl and his brother Bruno Vahl-Berg also played other roles . The playing time of this still preserved radio play is 52'44 minutes.

Present meaning

Dreyer is hardly the subject of theater studies today, nor is it the repertoire of the more important theaters, although he was considered an important contemporary author of modern theater during his lifetime. Not a small amount of space was devoted to it in standard contemporary works. Today he is often accused of the simple drawing of his characters and his penchant for theatrics. The performance rights of the plays are held by Felix Bloch Erben .

A low German version of his fishing comedy Das Sympathiemittel by Karl-Otto Ragotzky around 1999 is one of the few publications that have dealt with Dreyer and his work since the 1950s.

The prose and novelist Max Dreyer can also be rediscovered today. It starts with the prose sketch Hunger from 1894 , which was re-published in April 2013. Committed to naturalism, but already pointing beyond it, Dreyer depicts the decline of a writer in a tragicomic manner. The text is based on Knut Hamsun and his well-known novel Hunger (1890).

literature

• Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 149–184.
• Fritz Raeck: Pomeranian literature. Samples and dates. Pomeranian Central Association, Hamburg 1969, p. 326.
• Willi Passig (Ed.): "He wasn't a loud author" Karl-Ewald Tietz on Max Dreyer. A fragment. Edition Pommern, Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2012, ISBN 978-3-939680-13-0 .
• Max Dreyer: Hungry. Sketch [1894], (including: from the early days of German naturalism. Jugenderinnerungen by Max Dreyer [1946]), ed. by Martin A. Völker , illustrations by Franz Peters, Potsdam: Udo Degener Verlag, 2013. In it: The runaway naturalist: Max Dreyer (1862–1946) . Pp. 38-47 (afterword). ISBN 978-3-95497-062-9 .
• Max Dreyer: Nah Huus - Plattdütsche Gedichte [1904], newly published, Edition Pommern, Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2018. ISBN 978-3-939680-45-1
• Willi Passig: On becoming and wanting - The writer Max Dreyer Edition Pommern, Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2018. ISBN 978-3-939680-44-4

Web links

Commons : Max Dreyer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Max Dreyer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Max Dreyer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Secondary literature on Dreyer on tour

• Works by Max Dreyer in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matriculation (1) from Max Dreyer in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ^ Matriculation (2) from Max Dreyer in the Rostock matriculation portal
3. ↑ Max Mechow: Renowned CCER, Historia Academica, Volume 8/9, pp 42-43; http://frankfurter-verbindungen.de/korporierte/d.html ; Archived copy ( memento of the original from May 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Hans-Ulrich Bauer: wooden houses from Wolgast. Icons of resort architecture. Part II, IGEL Usedom-Verlag, Seebad Heringsdorf 2011, pp. 92-100. Cf. also Max Dreyer: My dragon house and what it says about me , Leipzig 1924.
5. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-d.html
6. ↑ In Kosch 1.377 erroneously stated as The Seventeen Years , MM
7. ↑ In the 1895/96 season the Neue Freie Volksbühne was only able to perform four pieces; see. Heinrich Braulich: The Volksbühne. Berlin 1976, p. 254.
8. ^ S. Nestriepke: History of the Volksbühne Berlin. Part 1: 1890 to 1914. Berlin 1930, p. 194.
9. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 122.
10. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, pp. 171, 175, 181.
11. ↑ Max Dreyer: The settlers of Hohenmoor. A book of anger and confidence . Leipzig: Staackmann 1922, p. 59. Quoted in Herdegen (2018), p. 171f.
12. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 175f.
13. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 176.
14. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 172f.
15. ^ Eva Dambacher: Literature and Culture Awards 1895-1949. A documentation. Marbach / N .: German Schiller Society 1996, p. 17f.
16. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 179f.
17. ↑ Florian Herdegen: Max Dreyer - from naturalist to National Socialist . In: Rolf Düsterberg (Ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Volume 4. Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2018, p. 165.