Otto Elster

Otto Wilhelm Philipp Elster (born November 11, 1852 in Eschershausen , † December 1, 1922 in Braunschweig , pseudonyms Otto von Bruneck and Ludwig Hasse ) was a German journalist, historian, writer and politician.

Life

Elster, son of the Eschershausen doctor Robert Elster and his wife Johanne, joined the Ducal Braunschweig Infantry Regiment as a recruit after graduating from high school, which he took in Wolfenbüttel in 1872 . There he became the last adjutant of Duke Wilhelm, whom he admired . Even as a soldier he published his first works under a pseudonym. In order not to have to take an oath on the Prussian king, Elster, a staunch supporter of the Welfenhaus , resigned from service as prime lieutenant after the Duke's death in 1884. In 1890 he helped found the Guelf Braunschweig Right Party .

He became editor of the Braunschweiger Tageblatt , the Kreuznacher Tageblatt and finally editor-in-chief of the Kölner Tageblatt .

In 1889 Elster settled in Berlin as a freelance writer. Due to political difficulties, he left the city from 1901 to 1910 and worked as an archivist for Prince Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe at his Nachoder Castle in Eastern Bohemia . In the last year of his life he returned to Braunschweig.

Elster sought to meet the writer Wilhelm Raabe, who he admired and was born in Eschershausen like him, and was like him a member of the sociable artists' associations of the " Kleiderseller " and the " Feuchten Brush ". At the same time, Elster Raabe took himself as a role model, without, of course, achieving the literary quality of his well over a hundred war stories, light social and romance novels and theater pieces, which were widely distributed at the time. Some of Elster's books are set in his homeland or in the immediate vicinity, for example "Giants and Dwarfs" in Holzminden , "The Convent Student of Corvey " in the monastery of the same name or "The Hussars of Lord von Riedesel ", a story from the Seven Years' War , in Wickensen . He wrote over a hundred society, war and crime novels, books for young people, short stories and plays. The pro-Guelph play "Unter dem Totenkopf", published in 1895, was particularly successful.

In addition, Elster worked as a military historian . As such, he published, among other things, a description of the Piccolomini regiments of the Thirty Years' War and a treatise on the history of Guelph troops.

After Raabe's death from 1911 to 1914 he published a "Wilhelm Raabe Calendar" with his son Hanns-Martin.

Works

Novels and short stories

• Maria Stuart's fight for Scotland's crown. Historical novel, 1913
• Giants and Dwarves
• Corvey's convent pupil
• The hussars of the Lord von Riedesel
• The Lippoldshöhle
• By your own strength
• Fritz Ohlsen, Kaiser Wilhelm's NCO
• Klaus Erichsen, Prince Heinrich's cabin boy

Plays

• Under the skull (1895)

Treatises

• The history of the standing troops in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (2 vols., 1899 and 1901)
• The Piccolomini regiments during the Thirty Years' War especially the Alt-Piccolomini Cuirassier Regiment, regular troops of the Austro-Hungarian Dragoon Regiment No. 6, Prince Albrecht of Prussia. According to the files in the archives at Schloss Nachod by O. Elster. Vienna: Seidel, 1903.

literature

Otto Wilhelm Philipp Elster . In: German Gender Book , Volume 15. Görlitz 1909; Text archive - Internet Archive .

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Elster in the catalog of the German National Library