Paul Brock (writer)

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Paul Brock (1950)

Paul Brock (born February 21, 1900 in Pagulbinnen (Lithuanian: Pagulbiniai), Ragnit district , Prussian Lithuania ; † October 26, 1986 in Bad Segeberg ) was a German seaman and writer.

Life

Paul Brock's great-grandfather was an inland boatman on the Rhine . Taken by Napoleon Bonaparte on the Russian campaign in 1812 , he stayed in Prussian Lithuania. His wife was a descendant of Salzburg exiles . Paul Brock's father Johannes was a third generation inland skipper and drove his own three-masted schooner. In 1900 he bought a small estate in Wischwill , which he foreshadowed sold two weeks before the start of the First World War . He took his wife, their two daughters and Paul on his "Emma von Wischwill". The homestead was destroyed by Russian soldiers after the occupation of East Prussia . The family spent the winter of 1914/15 on the frozen ship in Memel . The following summer, Paul Brock, who had already been driven, replaced his father's helmsman . 65 years later, Paul Brock reported in the Ostpreußenblatt about this fateful time . After he had made the helmsman's license in Pillau in 1917 , he got his own schooner .

seafaring

Called up for the Imperial Navy on September 13, 1918 , he came to Kiel , where he studied for a semester at the Naval Academy . He was released on September 26, 1919. He did not want to stay in the Imperial Navy and returned to the now Franco-Lithuanian Memelland . The daughter Ingeborg got married from the soon closed and failed marriage . Mayer out. Brock extended his patents to become a captain . After the restrictions of the Peace Treaty of Versailles , he was also hired on foreign ships. He made worldwide trips. After traveling East Asia on a French freighter , he was hired in Marseille in 1929 . He came to Cologne via Paris , the home of his father's ancestors in the Rhineland.

literature

At the new University of Cologne , Brock studied pedagogy and psychology for three semesters as a guest student without a high school diploma . Eugen Skasa-Weiß , Bert Brecht , Joachim Ringelnatz and Peter Wust met in his booth near St. Maria Ablass . He met Vicki Baum on a “rag ball ” in Em decke Tommes . Brock was already passionate about literature as a child, and it was through these acquaintances that Brock found writing. His first story Ecce tua mater was printed in 42 newspapers. According to Brock's testimony, the transition from the story to the novel happened automatically . The Stream Flows (1937) appeared as a preprint in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . The successful novel was followed by other stories, later also in anthologies . In Cologne he also found his second wife, Herta Ewers (* 1905 in Königsberg, † 1991 in Reinbek). Probably because of her, Brock moved to Hamburg in 1933, where they married on April 25, 1935. The church wedding followed in the Kreuzkirche (Berlin) .

Tilsit

In 1935 Brock returned to Tilsit , where his parents had died in 1932/33 and where a brother and two sisters lived. His daughter Uta was born there on December 5, 1935. She married Hellmuth Hecker . Brock's two-act Wrestling Nights (1937) was not a success. Funded by the Goethe-Bund and the city library, Brock made frequent recordings for the Reichsender Königsberg . He was involved in the East Prussian Authors' Association and wrote a lot for Tilsit newspapers. In 1938 he made a short trip to the Sudetenland :

“As a pupil I had a teacher who knew very well how to present history, especially German history, in such a way that it was deeply impressed on the consciousness of his pupils, and - I don't know why - one of his favorite subjects was the influence of Germanness in Bohemia , a highly eventful and exciting story, spanning centuries, loaded with tension to the point of bursting. "

- Paul Brock

Brock, of course, was even more motivated by the reorganization of the Memel area in March 1939 than the Munich Agreement. According to his own admission, Brock “was able to re-enter the house and the ground of his childhood and early youth on the most beautiful day of his life”.

Second World War

Even before the beginning of the Second World War , on August 22, 1939, Brock was drafted as a non-commissioned officer in the Navy . Used only in the typing service, he first came to the 7th port protection flotilla (mine clearance service) in Memel, then to the commander of the security of the Baltic Sea in Swinoujscie . Provided indispensable on March 9, he was able to turn to writing again in Tilsit.

When Operation Barbarossa was being prepared, Brock had to return. Via Kiel and Flensburg he came to the marine sports school in Berlin, where he stayed for a year and a half. Restored to the UK in November 1942 , he was drafted into the Reich Propaganda Ministry in the early summer of 1943 as part of the Total War . As a speaker, he had to select and edit the literature for foreign workers . One of his employees was the Russian Olga Obolenski . Brock's wife and daughter had to move to Berlin. Although the family was able to rent an officer's villa in Zehlendorf and live in their “own” house, they were exposed to Allied air raids on Berlin .

Thanks to Walther von Unruh's success in recruiting, he was able to use the war in 1944 and was called up for the third time. Brock came to Kiel, Bernau near Berlin , Kühlungsborn and (January 1945) Wilhelmshaven . For his novel Die auf den Morgen (1939) the Albertus University in Königsberg awarded him the Johann Gottfried von Herder Prize on its 400th anniversary in 1944 . Brock valued everything Lebendige muss mature (1942) more than this novel .

Released under his own responsibility by his commander in April 1945 , Brock met his wife and daughter in Flensburg during the days of the Wehrmacht's surrender .

post war period

With the Pomeranian family of a sister-in-law, the Brocks “went” to southern Germany, first to Freising in Bavaria , then to Möckmühl in Swabia . Brock wrote three novels and a dozen smaller publications under the roof of Möckmühl Castle , later in a new building on the outskirts. At the beginning of 1952 Brock and friends founded the literary society of German intellectuals "Ulrich von Hutten" , of which he became president. In order to be able to marry the divorced girlfriend Eva Fritz (with two daughters) “out of pity”, he divorced by mutual agreement from the Heilbronn District Court in July 1948 , but stayed with his family. Since his new wife did not like it, he divorced her and married Herta for the second time in November 1949.

Among the Württemberg Pietists - outsiders of Protestantism - Brock came across the writings of Jakob Lorber , who - as an outsider of Catholicism  - was influenced by the evangelical mystics Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg . She and Gustav Theodor Fechner brought Brock from nature, landscape, lake, home and life to psychology , which was reflected in the novel Das Glück auf Erden .

Hamburg

Paul Brock (1984)

For the three East Prussians Möckmühl was economically and socially unfavorable in the long run. The artistic disposition of the daughter and the seat of the East Prussian Landsmannschaft moved her to move to Hamburg and Großhansdorf in 1953 . Brock spent most of his life there in the same place, 33 years. With the "Brockhaus" the Brocks became homeowners for the first time in 1978.

Before moving to Hamburg, Brock had already written for the Ostpreußenblatt . Freelance worker since 1953, he was taken on as an employee on January 1, 1976 . From 1976 he was supported by the Deutsche Künstlerhilfe . In more than 30 years Brock wrote 700 features articles (short stories, conference reports, daily politics) and 500 reviews . An anthology of OB contributions East Prussia - History and Stories was published in 1979. In the culture department of the LMO, he edited The Memel region , East Prussian Oberland , The Salzburgers in East Prussia and Natangen . The paper was also published posthumously from his estate .

Three novels appeared as sequels only in the Ostpreußenblatt: The Homecoming of Florian Moen (1961), Jenseits des Stromes (1975) and Durststrecke (1977). Remained unpublished There is a knock on our door (1956) and Women Have a Conscience (1957).

The Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Uwe Barschel, congratulated Uwe Barschel on the golden wedding anniversary on April 25, 1985 . Brock died in the Bad Segeberg hospital without seeing East Prussia again since 1944.

Works

  • The skipper Michael Austyn . Koenigsberg 1935.
  • The eighth day of creation . Koenigsberg 1936.
  • Melody of blood. East Prussian Nights . Brock von Holle & Co. 1937.
  • The wait for the morning . 1939.
  • The current flows . Berlin 1940 (new edition 1979).
  • Outpost on the high seas . Franz Schneider Verlag 1941.
  • Everything living has to mature . Berlin 1942.
  • The journey into your own heart . Oertel & Sporer 1948.
  • Antek . Oncken 1949.
  • The Adventure in the Moor .Oncken 1949.
  • The lion hunt . Stuttgart 1949.
  • Happiness on earth . Bochum 1949.
  • A man's wife . Turm-Verlag 1950.
  • The prisoner . Bietigheim 1951.
  • East Prussia. History and stories . 1980.
  • East Prussian Oberland . 1983.
  • The Salzburgers in East Prussia . Leer 1984.

On Brock's 100th birthday, his son-in-law Hellmuth Hecker compiled a 100-page bibliography and biography.

Memberships

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Hellmuth Hecker, 2000
  2. ↑ Wischwill
  3. ^ The Ostpreußenblatt, March 22, 1980
  4. ↑ Herta studied German language and literature without a degree in Berlin, Tübingen, Göttingen and Cologne.
  5. ↑ GoogleBooks
personal data
SURNAME Brock, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Pagulbinnen, Ragnit district , Prussian Lithuania
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1986
Place of death Bad Segeberg