Otto Wohlgemuth
Otto Wohlgemuth (born March 30, 1884 in Hattingen ; † August 15, 1965 there ) was a novelist and poet . He is considered to be a representative of workers' poetry , and with him it consciously joins the recognized literature .
Life
Otto Wohlgemuth was born the son of a miner and grew up in very poor conditions in Hattingen / Ruhr. In 1898 the family moved to neighboring Linden (/ today Bochum-Linden), and he graduated from elementary school. He began an apprenticeship as a shaper, which he broke off in 1900 to work in the better-paid mining industry. In 1903 Wohlgemuth moved to Bochum, where he married the factory worker Anna Nöllecke. The family lived in dire poverty. The first literary attempts began, for which the miner-poet Heinrich Kämpchen was the godfather. The first poems appeared in the weekend supplement of the Bochumer Stadtanzeiger, which are now lost. In 1908 the first lecture took place at the Literary Society in Bochum . At the same time, he also tried drawing.
From 1908 to 1910 Wohlgemuth worked as an office clerk at the General Knappschafts Verein zu Bochum, which later became the Ruhr- or Bundesknappschaft, now the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Knappschaft-Bahn-See . This activity gave him more time for poetic work, so that in 1909 he presented his second volume of poetry. The role models were the late and neo-romanticists, u. a. Eichendorff , Emanuel Geibel and Theodor Fontane . His second volume of poetry made him known beyond Bochum. For the inauguration of the new administration building of the Allgemeine Knappschafts - Verein Bochum on June 18, 1910, he wrote a festival hymn to celebrate the day. The years 1916 to 1918 were artistically very productive. In 1917 he and Karl Peters founded the Hellwegbund, a free artists' association. The aim of this was to create a bridge between artist and reader. In addition to writers, musicians and visual artists were also involved. After the First World War, Wohlgemuth joined the union of workers at House Nyland around Josef Winckler and working-class poets such as Heinrich Lersch and Christoph Wieprecht , through whom he finally found his topic, life and experience in mining.
In 1920 Wohlgemuth met his second wife, the teacher Ottilie Kerper. A crisis of his first marriage that had been smoldering for years broke out, which had its cause in the growing intellectual inequality of the partners. At the beginning of the 20s he intensified his artistic and visual work under the mentorship of the painter and graphic artist Hermann Kätelhön , who later illustrated many of Wohlgemuth's literary works. In 1923 he founded the Ruhrlandkreis , the first artist community between the Ruhr and Emscher . It existed until 1926. In 1926, Wohlgemuth became head of the municipal public library in Gelsenkirchen-Buer . He gave lectures and lectures and organized art exhibitions. In 1933 he was dismissed by the National Socialists because of his membership in the SPD and because he had dared to acquire the large Jewish encyclopedia and make it accessible to the public.
In the following years, Wohlgemuth approached the ruling system out of economic hardship. In 1936 he joined the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Reich War Association, in 1937 the Reich Chamber of Culture and the Reich Chamber of Literature . In the same year he also joined the NSDAP , although he never got beyond the status of a candidate. Although he was discredited as a person, his literary work was appropriated by the National Socialists. Between 1935 and 1945 he continuously held poetry readings throughout the entire Reich. After 1945 it was not classified as particularly polluted during denazification . After the war, Wohlgemuth brought himself back to the public eye with a poem publication. As a miner and local poet, he remained present in the 50s. Wohlgemuth found his audience in the ranks of the mining industry. In March 1954 he received numerous honors on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Numerous honors for his 75th birthday in the press followed.
At the end of the 1950s, Wohlgemuth's work for the National Socialists was publicly exposed by his former friend Georg Breuker . At that time Wohlgemuth was suffering from severe cardiovascular problems. The death of his wife on November 7, 1960 was a severe blow. When he moved back to his native Hattingen in December 1961, his condition improved. The Heimatverein provided him with an apartment in the historic iron house . In 1962 he married the widowed Maria Wittenbecher. Wohlgemuth died in Hattingen in 1965.
Works
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Honors
- Otto-Wohlgemuth-Weg in Hattingen
Varia
Otto Wohlgemuth is the main character in the story "A poet and a boy wander through the city" by Willy Bartock .
literature
- Anita Overwien-Neuhaus: Myth, Work, Reality. Life and work of the miner poet Otto Wohlgemuth . Prometh-Verlag, Cologne 1986 (= writings of the Fritz Hüser Institute for German and Foreign Workers 'Literature of the City of Dortmund , Series 2: Research on Workers' Literature , Vol. 3), ISBN 3-922009-80-8 .
- Michael Klaus: Otto Wohlgemuth and the Ruhrlandkreis. A regional group of authors in the Weimar Republic . Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-7609-0537-4 .
- Fritz Hüser, Ferdinand Oppenberg (ed.): Experienced land - our area. The Ruhr area in literature, graphics and painting . Duisburg 1966.
Web links
- Literature by and about Otto Wohlgemuth in the catalog of the German National Library
- Otto Wohlgemuth in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
- HV Hattingen - Otto Wohlgemuth
- Gelsenkirchen Stories - Otto Wohlgemuth (1)
- Finding aid (D 72 Wohlgemuth estate Otto Wohlgemuth)
Individual evidence
- ↑ No. 140 Bochumer Zeitung Märkischer spokesman Rh. Westfl. Tageblatt Saturday, June 18, 1910, The new administration building of the General Knappschafts-Verein Bochum. and Ullrich Märker, Bochum 2010
- ↑ Willy Bartock: Night that won't let me sleep . Oberhausen 1987, pages 64 to 67
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wohlgemuth, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 30, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hattingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 15, 1965 |
| Place of death | Hattingen |