Max Mohr (writer)

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Max Ludwig Mohr (born October 17, 1891 in Würzburg , † November 13, 1937 in Shanghai ) was a German doctor , playwright and storyteller .

Life

Mohr was born in Würzburg as the son of a Jewish malt manufacturer. Even during his high school days, he rebelled against external constraints and made several attempts to break away. Before starting his medical studies in Munich , which he completed with the state examination, he set off on a trip to the Alps without his parents' knowledge.

He took part in the First World War as a medical sergeant and was taken prisoner by the British in 1917 .

After his release, he lived with his wife Käthe (née Westphal) and daughter Eva (1926–1992; married Humbert) in Wolfsgrub, a farm near Rottach am Tegernsee , where he practiced little as a doctor and primarily focused on his literary interests dedicated. In the meantime he also lived in Berlin and undertook three major trips to the Orient .

As a writer, he first emerged with the novel Frau Marie's Gast , published in 1920, and more successfully with Venus in Pisces in 1928 . However, he became better known as a playwright. His first piece of improvisations in June 1922 was a great success. In Wolfsgrub he also wrote his five novels. With his twelve plays Mohr was one of the successful playwrights of the Weimar Republic . His works were shaped by the dichotomy between technology and nature and by a critical distance to the attitude of his time, which he felt as materialistic, superficial and cultureless. In his comedies he preferred everyday subjects in which mostly simple people with idiosyncratic and often grotesque features were shown in conflict with their environment.

At the beginning of the Third Reich , Mohr emigrated to Shanghai in 1934 without a wife or daughter, where he continued to work as a doctor and died of heart failure at the age of 46. His body was cremated but was not allowed to be transferred to his family in Germany. The urn was therefore secretly buried near Heligoland at sea.

Mohr's grandson Nicolas Humbert made the documentary Wolfsgrub in 1985 , in which Eva Mohr tells of a childhood and youth in Germany under the rise of National Socialism and the story of her father Max Mohr.

His life is the subject of the novel Mohr (2006) by the American author Frederick Reuss.

In 2020 a street in Würzburg was named after Max Mohr.

Works (selection)

  • Sonnets in the shelter. Berlin 1917.
  • The dadacracy. Comedy in three acts. 1920.
  • Improvisations in June. Comedy in three acts. Munich 1920.
  • Mrs. Marie's guest. A novel. Munich 1920.
  • with E. Singer: The rheumatism primer. A brief textbook on rheumatism, its origin, its nature and its healing. Folk medicine, Munich 1921.
  • Gregor Rosso. Tragedy in three acts. Berlin 1921.
  • The man who wanted to laugh tears. 1922, published in 1935 under the title Das Lachen im Schnee .
  • The yellow tent. Play in 3 acts. Munich 1923.
  • Sirill on the wreck. Comedy in 3 acts. Munich 1923.
  • Esau the worker. Comedy in 3 acts. Munich 1923.
  • The caravan. Comedy in 5 acts. Munich 1924.
  • Ramper. Play in 3 acts and 1 prelude. 1925.
  • Platinum pits in Tulpin. Comedy in 3 acts. With music for the stage by Arthur Chitz (3 acts). Munich 1927. Premiere September 16, 1926 Dresden ( Staatliches Schauspielhaus ; director: Georg Kiesau, with Willi Kleinoschegg [Columbus Meier], Erich Ponto [Christy Meier], Harry Liedtke [Gogolin], Rudolf Schröder [Savitzky], Stella David [Mimi Meller ], Martin Hellberg [Stephan Casson], Alfred Meyer [Martin Casson], Lotte Gruner [Sarah Casson], Alice Verden [Anna Zeske], Alexis Posse [Friday], Ida Bardou-Müller [widow Dale])
  • Venus in Pisces. Novel. Berlin 1927 ( reading in 13 parts ).
  • The pagan. Munich 1929.
  • The friendship of Ladiz. Novel. Berlin 1931.
  • The world of the grandchildren (or: Philemon and Baucis in the Valepp). Comedy in 3 acts. Berlin 1932.
  • The seven sonnets of the new Noah. Chemnitz 1932.
  • Woman with no regrets. Novel. Berlin 1933.
  • The Unicorn. Novel fragment. With letters from Max Mohr from Shanghai, 1934–1937. Bonn 1997.

literature

  • Gabriele Geibig-Wagner: Max Mohr - a rediscovered writer. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 997-1001 and 1352 f.
  • Barbara Pittner: Max Mohr and literary modernity. Shaker, Aachen 1998, ISBN 3-8265-4220-7 .
  • Carl-Ludwig Reichert (Ed.): Better not have a compass than a wrong one. Würzburg - Wolfsgrub - Shanghai. The writer Max Mohr (1891 to 1937). A-1, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-927743-33-X .
  • Harald Salfellner (Ed.): With pen and scalpel. Crossing the border between literature and medicine. Vitalis, Prague 2014, ISBN 978-3-89919-167-7 .
  • Jana Schindler: The theater poet Max Mohr - celebrated and forgotten. A contribution to the theater history of the Weimar Republic. Master thesis. University of Munich, 2001.
  • Florian Steger: Max Mohr. Literary man, doctor and adventurer, Regensburg: Pustet 2019, ISBN 978-3-7917-6147-3 .

Web links

Works in full text

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Georg Rötter: "Würzburg reads" wants to rediscover the forgotten Max Mohr Mainpost , July 22, 2019.
  2. ↑ Wolfsgrub - Portrait Of My Mother jpc, accessed June 2, 2020.
  3. ^ Karl-Georg Rötter: Würzburg: Street is named after the writer Max Mohr Mainpost , December 10, 2019.
  4. ↑ Diana Hisamudin: "Max Mohr" gets its own street in Würzburg January 7, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Mohr, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mohr, Max Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, playwright and storyteller
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1937
Place of death Shanghai