Oskar Walzel

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Oskar Walzel around 1912

Oskar Franz Walzel (born October 28, 1864 in Vienna , † December 29, 1944 in Bonn ) was an Austro-German literary scholar . As a professor of modern German literature, he worked in Bern , Dresden and Bonn.

Life

Oskar Walzel was born as the son of the columnist, librettist and temporary artistic director of the Theater an der Wien, Camillo Walzel . He studied at the universities of Vienna and Berlin , received his doctorate in 1887 and completed his habilitation in his hometown in 1894. In 1897 he was appointed to the University of Bern , in 1907 he succeeded Adolf Stern at the Dresden University of Technology and in 1921 went to the University of Bonn . In 1933 he retired, but continued to give lectures.

Gravestone of Oskar Walzel in Bonn's south cemetery

In 1936, the rector of the University of Bonn Walzel withdrew the venia legendi because of "Jewish infiltration". He died in 1944 under not entirely clear circumstances during a bombing raid. He was buried in Bonn's southern cemetery. His Jewish wife was deported to Theresienstadt in the same year and murdered there.

science

With his treatise Mutual Enlightenment of the Arts (1917), Walzel tried to stimulate an interdisciplinary approach in the humanities . His friendship with the art scholar Heinrich Wölfflin led him to differentiate between “ tectonic ” and “atectonic” leitmotifs in poetry, which was based on Wölfflin's art-theoretical terminology.

Walzel's ideas are still alive in drama theory ( closed and open form in drama ). Recently they have been discussed again in media studies .

Oskar Walzel's students included the writer Maria Waser , the literary scholar Harry Maync , the writer Hermann Gschwind , the Swiss journalist and publicist Max Rudolf Kaufmann , who later became famous for his commitment to German-Turkish relations in the 1950s, and the publicist and women's rights activist Helene Horse mackerel . Helene Stöcker wrote about him: “Walzel was insightful enough to treat his students not just as his students, but as independent people. One could express one's own convictions more freely and openly than is otherwise possible between teacher and student ”.

Walzel's estate is in the University and State Library of Bonn and in the German Literature Archive in Marbach .

Awards

  • Saxon Medal Bene merentibus (1914)
  • Knight's Cross of the Saxon Order of Merit (1915)

Works

  • German Romanticism, 1908
  • Leitmotifs in seals, 1917
  • German poetry since Goethe's death, 1920
  • Content and shape in the poet's work of art, 1923
  • The word work of art, 1926
  • Florence in German Poetry, Cologne 1937
  • Growth and change. Life memories. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1956

editor

Honors

Stumbling block for Hedwig Walzel in front of the family's former residence at Reuterstraße 114, relocated in 2002

A street in the southern part of Bonn has been named after Walzel since 1978.

Since 2002, a stumbling block in front of his former residence has reminded of his murdered wife.

literature

  • Festgabe for Oskar Walzel, presented by his students to celebrate his 65th birthday. Bonn 1929, Walzel II estate, University and State Library Bonn.
  • Peter Goßens: Oskar Walzel. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1980–1983.
  • Klaus Naderer: Oskar Walzel's approach to a new literary study. Bonn 1994. ISBN 3-928799-12-6
  • Werner Brück: How does Poussin tell? Samples on the applicability of poetological terms from literary and theater studies to works of visual art. Attempt at a “mutual illumination of the arts”. Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-7877-2 .

Web links

Wikisource: Oskar Franz Walzel  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Part of the estate of Oskar Walzel. Finding aid. Edited by the University of Bonn, edited by Letitia Mölck and Birgit Schaper. Bonn 2007, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Max Rudolf Kaufmann: Experiences in Turkey 50 years ago. In: Journal for Cultural Exchange, ed. from the Institute for Foreign Relations , Volume 12, 1962, pp. 237–241
  3. ↑ Helene Stöcker: Memoirs. The unfinished autobiography of a pacifist who was passionate about women. Edited by Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin and Kerstin Wolff. Boehlau Verlag, Cologne 2015, p. 76 f.
  4. ↑ Helene Stöcker: Memoirs. Edited by Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin and Kerstin Wolff. Böhlau, Cologne 2015, p. 76 f., S. also 97.
  5. ↑ Stumbling block at openstreetmap.org  on OpenStreetMap
  6. ^ Oskar-Walzel-Straße in the Bonn street cadastre
  7. ↑ Catalog of the Stolpersteine ​​laid in Bonn so far (as of 2016). (PDF) Memorial for the Bonn Victims of National Socialism - An der Synagoge e. V., accessed on June 23, 2018 (pdf file).
personal data
SURNAME Walzel, Oskar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walzel, Oskar Franz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-German literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1944
Place of death Bonn