Paul Kornfeld

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Paul Kornfeld

Paul Kornfeld (born December 11, 1889 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † April 25, 1942 in the Litzmannstadt ghetto ) was a German dramaturge and writer .

Life

Paul Kornfeld was born in the New Town of Prague in house V Jámě no.1671 near Wenceslas Square . He came from a Jewish family. His ancestors were rabbis and Talmudic scholars, including his great-grandfather Aron Kornfeld (1795–1881), who led the last yeshiva in Bohemia . The father Moriz Kornfeld (1852-1934) owned a spinning mill and a dye works in Prague, but was also known as a connoisseur of philosophical, religious and literary works.

Kornfeld received his Matura in June 1908 after attending the Prague School on Panská Street and the Gymnasium on Šťepanská Street (Stephansgymnasium) and studied at the Karl Ferdinand University . His schoolmates at the Stephansgymnasium included Franz Werfel and Willy Haas , who later became the editor of the weekly newspaper Die Literäre Welt . Even while they were still at school, they orientated themselves on Georges Algabal , Goethe's Faust and the work of Byron . Together with Max Brod , the friends organized meetings where they read their own literary texts to each other. Franz Werfel reported on this in his work Der Abituriententag and Max Brod in his memoirs argumentative life . Occasionally the meetings took place in the Kornfelds 'parents' apartment.

Paul Kornfeld was a constant guest in the literary café Arco , where the Bohemian writers and poets met at the beginning of the 20th century . a. Oskar Baum , Rudolf Fuchs , Hans Janowitz and his brother, the poet Franz Janowitz , Franz Kafka , Egon Erwin Kisch , Otto Pick and Johannes Urzidil . Between 1911 and 1912, the Herder-Blätter served as a publication medium for the so-called Prague Circle .

After the death of his older brother in June 1905, the family expected that Paul Kornfeld would succeed him in his father's company after graduation. Because of his literary ambitions, but also to escape the Prague mood of an overheated and predominantly destructive intelligence , Paul Kornfeld moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1914 , where he achieved his poetic breakthrough. The first work, Die Verführung , written in 1913 and an early Expressionist work , appeared in 1916 and premiered in 1917 at the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt . And in Frankfurt, Paul Kornfeld and the actress Fritta Brod (* 1896, † 1988) married in 1919. In that year Kornfeld gave the address Kronberg im Taunus , Frankfurter Strasse 10. The marriage was divorced in 1926. The operatic mystery play Heaven and Hell was accepted by Hermann Bahr for the Burgtheater in 1918/19 , but was subsequently not allowed to be performed. In the period that followed, Kornfeld distanced himself from Expressionism and satirically processed it in the comedy Der Traum (published by Rowohlt in 1922).

In 1925 Max Reinhardt brought Kornfeld to Berlin as a dramaturge, and in 1927 he moved to Gustav Härtung at the Hessian State Theater in Darmstadt . A scandal broke out here : after a guest performance by Habima - a Hebrew theater company that had existed since 1916 - Kornfeld countered the clearly racist objections of local criticism. In this dispute, the publicist Stefan Grossmann took sides with Kornfeld in his magazine Das Tage-Buch , but he resigned anyway and moved again to Berlin in 1928, where he was now able to publish articles in Grossmann's magazine. In addition to Ernst Rowohlt , Hermann Ungar and Ludwig Marcuse were among his circle of friends. The play Jud Süss , which was played more than 30 times at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm , became his biggest stage success because of its topicality. Here Kornfeld traces the adaptation to an anti-Semitic environment, whose aim is to avoid contempt and humiliation.

In December 1932 he moved back to Prague after seventeen years. The impetus for his return was his father's 80th birthday. After Germany Kornfeld came because of the takeover of the Nazis in January 1933, not turning back. In the meantime he had received an offer from Ernst Rowohlt that he would publish Kornfeld's first novel. From 1933 to 1941 Paul Kornfeld wrote the so-called Blanche convolute, which was only published in 1957 by Rowohlt Verlag in a version shortened by Kurt Kusenberg under the title Blanche or The Atelier in the Garden .

Kornfeld lived in the Vinohrady district of Prague on Horní Stromce and Mánesova streets. Although he knew that he was not safe in Prague and could have fled to England with relatives, he did not want to leave Prague. Before his arrest on October 31, 1941 by the SS and deportation to Poland to the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) ghetto , where he died of typhus after six months, he managed to hide his novel manuscript with a Czech woman who did it after the war gave to his relatives in London .

In the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague , a plaque bears the name of Paul Kornfeld.

Works

  • The seduction. Tragedy in five acts. Fischer, Berlin 1916. online .
  • Legend . Fischer, Berlin 1917.
  • Heaven and hell . Tragedy in five acts and an epilogue. Fischer, Berlin 1919.
  • The Eternal Dream. Comedy. Rowohlt, Berlin 1922. online .
  • Palm or The Offended One . A comedy in five acts. Rowohlt, Berlin 1924.
  • Jud Süss . Tragedy in three acts and an epilogue. U: October 7, 1930 in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin. Script for the role at Rowohlt Theater Verlag, Reinbek.
  • Kilian or the yellow rose . Comedy (stage manuscript from 1926). Rowohlt, Hamburg around 1950.
  • Blanche or the studio in the garden. Novel. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1957. New edition 1980 ISBN 3499125374
  • Revolution with flute music and other critical prose 1916–1932 . Edited and commented by Manon Maren-Grisebach . Schneider, Heidelberg 1977.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Paul Kornfeld  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Haumann: Paul Kornfeld: Life - Work - Effect , Würzburg 1996, p. 3.
  2. ^ Norbert Abels: Franz Werfel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg, 2002, p. 17.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Born, Michael Müller (Ed.): Franz Kafka. Letters to Milena. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 349.
  4. ^ A b c Walter Dimter: Kornfeld, Paul . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)
  5. ^ Autograph Paul Kornfeld: Postcard from August 29, 1918. Kristen Antiquariat, Berlin. ZVAB of September 1, 2009.
  6. ↑ Hermann Bahr: Love of the Living. Diaries 1921/23. Hildesheim: Borgmeyer 1925, II, 63 and 89.
personal data
SURNAME Kornfeld, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dramaturge and writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1942
Place of death Litzmannstadt ghetto