Paul Coelestin Ettighoffer

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Paul Coelestin (PC) Ettighoffer (born April 14, 1896 in Colmar / Alsace , † October 15, 1975 in Zülpich ) was a German writer . Frank Löhr von Wachendorf is also one of his pseudonyms .

Life

Ettighoffer is of rural origin and grew up with his grandparents until he was later placed in an orphanage . Because of his talent, he was able to attend a Jesuit- run grammar school in Mons , Belgium . In 1914 he volunteered for the Imperial Army in World War I and was wounded several times. First he fought on the Western Front and in May 1916, like almost all Alsatians who were not trusted as former French citizens, he was transferred to the Eastern Front. From 1917 he came back to the Western Front and was deployed near Verdun . In 1918, seriously wounded, he was taken prisoner by the French .

Ettighoffer's experiences in war and in captivity became the subject of his most successful novels. He was an author of widely read war novels in the 1930s and during World War II , most of which were autobiographical. Initially influenced by Erich Maria Remarques nothing new in the West , he dealt with issues critical of the war. Later, his work came closer to the National Socialist ideology : Ettighoffer now propagated militancy and belief in authority. His books have been published by Bertelsmann Verlag since the mid-1930s .

With the front novel Gespenster am Toten Mann (1931), Ettighoffer, himself a shock troop leader in World War I, wrote his first bestseller in 1931. The novel was seen as the literary response of the political right to Remarques Nothing new in the West : “In the East there is nothing new either!” It says with a wink in Ghosts of the Dead Man . In this novel you can also find the résumé: The greatest crime against humanity is war . Despite all the atrocities, the war at Ettighoffer remains a heroic event, the millions of deaths are only "a sum of self-sacrifice and heroism." And: "Man is nothing, the whole is everything." Alf Mentzer and Hans Sarkowicz write about his novel Shot at Nanzig. The upright life and heroic death of a German man : “The racist and anti-Semitic novel, which was supposed to stir up hatred of France and create a new National Socialist martyr, was dedicated to the notorious Gauleiter of Baden . Ettighoffer also defended the pogroms against the Jewish population in France. "

In two colonial books from 1938 and 1943, Ettighoffer uses the colored people as a backdrop for his portrayal of the German “master race ...”. He describes the Indians in East Africa as "vampires", who with their "Semitic eyes" made their "victims" compliant.

Ettighoffer was drafted into the Wehrmacht as an officer in World War II , but was only used as a successful author at the front towards the end of the war. He came into British captivity.

After his release in 1946, Ettighoffer lived on a small farm in the small town of Niederkastenholz , which has been part of Euskirchen since 1969 . From 1949 he wrote for the Kölnische Rundschau , also published novels, which were, however, denied success. Ettighoffer wrote numerous commissions for anniversary publications for industrial companies (e.g. chronicle of the HJ Bünder company, Euskirchen. 100 years of tough work. 1855–1955 ) and also published technical works.

In the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR , numerous writings written and edited by him were placed on the list of literature to be sorted out.

Paul Coelestin Ettighoffer died at the age of 79. A street in Großbüllesheim has been named after him since 1980.

Awards and honors

Works

  • The train of the last. Factual report from the world war. Printed and published by W. Crüwell, Dortmund approx. 1930
  • Ghosts on the Dead Man , 1931
  • From Devil's Island to Life The tragic fate of the Alsatian Alfons Paoli Schwartz , 1932
  • Feldgrau creates dividend , 1932 (later title: Das Gefesselte Heer. My prisoner of war )
  • Hello buddy , 1932
  • The Chained Army , 1932
  • Tent 27 is torn down. 10 men in German distress , 1933
  • Will you one day become a recruit ...! (The everyday life of the German soldier) Cologne, Bachem, ca.1933
  • The Lene bites through. A German girl in the whirlwind of the World War , 1936
  • Verdun. The great judgment , 1936
  • Moscow, Compiegne, Versailles. Experiences of a German intelligence officer , 1936
  • Revolver over the city. The battle for Mönchengladbach in 1923. Völkischer Verlag Mönchengladbach approx. 1936
  • An army mutinies. The fateful hour of France in 1917 , 1937
  • German tanks go to hell , 1937
  • Night over Siberia. A German escapes the Tsar's secret service , 1937
  • Sturm 1918. Seven days of German fate , 1938
  • Where are you - comrade , 1938
  • That's how I saw Africa. Through our colonies by car and camera , 1938
  • Escaped the barbed wire , 1939
  • O Strasbourg , 1939
  • Tannenberg. An army is marched to death , 1939
  • Rhinos fighting in the Valley of Death , 1939
  • Shot at Nanzig. The upright life and heroic death of a German man , 1942
  • Peter in luck , 1943
  • Sisal. The blonde gold of Africa. The act of Dr. Hindorf , 1943
  • Atomic City , novel, 1949
  • All Guilt on Earth , novel, 1950
  • 44 days and nights. The western campaign in 1940 , 1953
  • The girl without a star , 1952
  • My American brother, 1963

Revisions

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Tobias Schneider: Bestseller in the Third Reich. In: VfZ , 2004, no. 1, pp. 77–98, here p. 90 ( PDF ).
  2. Tobias Schneider: Bestseller in the Third Reich. P. 90.
  3. ^ Alf Mentzer / Hans Sarkowicz: Literature in Nazi Germany. A biographical lexicon. 2000, p. 147; compare also Jürgen Hillesheim and Elisabeth Michael on Shot at Nanzig : Lexicon of National Socialist Poets . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1993, pp. 163–167.
  4. Ettighoffer: So I saw Africa (1938), quoted in. after Timm Ebner: National Socialist Colonial Literature . Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2016, p. 93 .
  5. Ettighoffer: So I saw Africa (1938), quoted in. after Timm Ebner: National Socialist Colonial Literature . Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2016, p. 185 f .
  6. http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-e.html / http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1947-nslit-e.html / http://www.polunbi.de /bibliothek/1953-nslit-e.html / http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1947-nslit-w.html / http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-w.html
  7. http://www.hans-dieter-arntz.de/der_schriftsteller_ettighoffer.html