Otto Conradt

Otto Conradt at the age of 69. Photograph from 1966

Otto Conradt (born February 1, 1897 in Idar ; † October 11, 1969 in Idar-Oberstein ) was a German journalist , chronicler , writer and librarian who worked mainly in central Rhineland-Palatinate and around the Idar-Oberstein painters Max Rupp and Rudolf Wild belonged.

Life

Conradt started out as a grinder in his father's gemstone cutting shop , whose family had practiced the agate cutting trade in nearby Algenrodt for centuries . He was then a soldier in the First World War , which he left seriously wounded.

After completing his Abitur from around 1930 , he began to write for regional, later national newspapers such as the Koblenzer Nationalblatt in the middle of the decade , and in 1936 published his first volume of poetry, Tor auf! . At the end of the 30s he was placed in the service of the Idar-Oberstein administration as city chronicler and headed the two libraries of the twin cities. During the Second World War , the house he had built in Obersteiner Blücherstraße was badly damaged and Conradt himself was drafted into the Volkssturm in the last days of the war .

Conradt's actual literary creative phase reached its peak in the post-war period. He had close friendships with the painters Rudolf Wild and, above all, Max Rupp, and was in close contact with Edvard Frank and Friedrich Griese . From this time on, Conradt published mainly in the Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung , while Südwestfunk broadcasted poems and prose from Conradt. In 1949 his second volume of poetry, Earth on the Mouth of Heaven , was published, and one year later he wrote his first and only dramatic work, the dance game of gemstones . In addition to in-depth local journalistic work in calendars, festival and annual publications (such as the editor-in-chief of the Birkenfeld home calendar ), the following twenty years brought four own publications on local history in 1951, 1957 and 1964 as well as five unpublished prose works, the exact date of which is unknown. At the beginning of the 1960s he was awarded the golden badge of honor by the city of Idar-Oberstein, and on October 11, 1969, Conradt died at the age of 72 in Idar-Oberstein.

Conradt had been married since 1918 and had four children by 1930.

Works (selection)

In addition to a large number of journalistic works, von Conradt appeared as his own publications:

Poetry

• Open the gate !, collection, 1936. DNB 572631944
• Earth at Heaven's Mouth, Collection, 1949

Local history

• Loder-empty fun and fun. Anecdotes from Nahetal, Idarbann and Hunsrück, 1951
• That the church stays in the village. Pictures from sixty years , 1957. DNB 450820815
• Around the grindstone and work board. Frohe Heimatgeschichten (Stadtgeschichtliche Schriftenreihe) , 1964. DNB 450820831
• In old Idar-Oberstein. Essays and reflections (Stadtgeschichtliche Schriftenreihe), 1964. DNB 450820823

drama

• The Dancing Game of Gems , 1950

Prose (unpublished)

• Conversations with Krimacker. Roman, undated
• Grinder Lennhard. Roman, undated
• Hunsrück summer. Novella, undated
• The suspect. Novella, undated
• I found Pawlik. Novella, undated

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Otto Conradt. I didn't need the big wide world . In: Association for local history in the district of Birkenfeld (Hrsg.): Messages from the association for local history in the district of Birkenfeld . tape 34 , 1979, ISSN  0341-6992 .