Paul Münch (Author)

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Paul Münch at his front door, ca.1935

Paul Münch (born December 10, 1879 in Ruchheim , now Ludwigshafen am Rhein , † January 2, 1951 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ) was a German teacher who became known throughout the region as a Palatinate dialect poet .

Family, education and work

Münch was born in 1879 as the son of a Protestant pastor in the then still independent community of Ruchheim ( Vorderpfalz ). His older brother Ernst (1876-1946) later became an important forest scientist; his son was the concentration camp doctor Hans Münch .

Münch spent his childhood in the small town of Kusel in West Palatinate , he attended high school in the southern Palatinate ( Germersheim and Landau ). After graduating from high school in 1898, he studied at the School of Applied Arts and the Technical University in Munich , where in 1902 he took the examination for a higher teaching post.

After intermediate stops at secondary schools in Marktbreit ( Lower Franconia ) and Weierhof (today Bolanden in the Donnersbergkreis ), Münch came to Kaiserslautern in 1907 . Here he worked for 43 years at the Oberrealschule (there as deputy headmaster), at the grammar school and at the teacher training institute, mainly as an art teacher. He also worked as an illustrator, especially for his own books . His most famous drawing is the design of a black and white Art Nouveau - wine label , which he in 1919 for the winery Hahnmühle at the close made and is still in use today.

time of the nationalsocialism

During the time of National Socialism , Münch's dialect works were taken over by those in power, who did not know that the poet and illustrator had made caricatures in 1932, before the Nazis came to power, that made Adolf Hitler look ridiculous. A working group of students from Hohenstaufen-Gymnasium Kaiserslautern , which emerged from the Oberrealschule, investigated the alleged Nazi past of the former school principal and superior in Munich from 2009 to 2011. Contrary to expectations, it turned out that Münch and his headmaster, who were friends from studying together , had saved fellow teacher Arnold Lehmann and his relatives from the Holocaust . Lehmann was removed from school service in 1936 as a so - called half - Jew and was to be deported to the concentration camp in 1942. Münch, the headmaster and other helpers hid those at risk in an apartment in Kaiserslautern until the end of World War II .

Meaning and honors

Paul Münch Memorial in Ruchheim

During his long professional activity in the West Palatinate, Münch adopted the dialect of the area almost completely; elements from the front or south of the Palatinate can hardly be identified in his language. With his extensive literary work in the field of dialect poetry, he became the Palatinate poet par excellence, who is still present today thanks to his popular and often timeless choice of topics as well as his skillful handling of language and rhyme.

So was z. For example, the “Pälzer Weltachs” proclaimed by Münch with its caricatured need for lubrication in the Palatinate proverbially and even immortalized in a memorial: In the 19th century (see History of the Palatinate ), the Bavarian administration had  on the 459  m high Kleiner Roßrück im Palatinate Forest , between Waldleiningen and Johanniskreuz , set a pillar-like landmark in a sandstone block in order to be able to topographically measure the area. Without further ado, Münch turned the brand into the axis of the world by composing:

"Thou the Weltachs will be smacked and paid attention that nothing will go wrong."

This quote was later carved into the stone block. Many other literary creations of the poet also found their way into everyday life in the Palatinate without the speakers being aware that they were parts of Münch's poems.

After Münch died in 1951 in the Hetzelstift hospital in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, he was buried in a municipal grave of honor in the Kaiserslautern forest cemetery.

Münch dedicated a monument made of light sandstone and a fountain to his place of birth, Ruchheim. In Kaiserslautern the Paul-Münch-Straße , the Paul-Münch-Schule and the Paul-Münch-Brunnen are named after him.

  • Paul Münch Fountain in Kaiserslautern

  • Paul Münch Fountain in Ruchheim

For his 100th birthday in 1979, the sculptor Otto Kallenbach commissioned the Rotary Club to create a cast bronze wall relief with the portrait of the poet, which has found its place in the Theodor Zink Museum in Kaiserslautern.

Works

Paul Münch's best-known work, Die Pälzisch Weltgeschicht , was distributed in this guise from the 1930s to around 1970.

  • So-called trench editions of Paul Münch's volumes of poetry, left 1916, right 1918

  • Festschrift for the 100th birthday in 1979, with a drawing by the local poet on the front page

  • Mei 'dilation of the heart
  • Trutz not so! (Don't be so unruly!)
  • The Derke and their Harem (The Turks ...)
  • De Darwin and Pälzer
  • Marvelous violets
  • The Palatine world history
  • De construction war
  • The Countess Eva von Neileininge
  • The Palatinate in America
  • the decline of the West
  • The Babylonian distortion of speech
  • 's paradise
  • 's Liselottche

Literature / sound carrier

  • Paul Münch: Meim Schatz I sang a song . Booklet for the CD: songs and poems by Paul Münch . With: Hans-Erich Halberstadt, tenor, Roland M. Höbel, guitar, Christine Leyser, soprano, Südwestfunk radio orchestra, conductor: Emmerich Smola. Kaiserslautern 1996.
  • Paul Münch: The Palatine World History . 2 records, verses and poems about the Palatinate. From the "Babylonian distortion of speech" to "Caesar". Speaker: Elsbeth Janda, Hans Moster, Klaus Rothenbücher. Compilation: Oskar Bischoff. Production: Comes-Musik, Ludwigshafen / Rhein.
  • The Rheinpfalz , Ludwigshafen: The Palatinate bestseller - On the 100th birthday of the Palatinate world history , June 6, 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gunther Strauss: Deadly game of hide-and-seek. In: Die Rheinpfalz , April 29, 2011.
  2. ^ Art in the cityscape: Paul Münch. (PDF; 4,977.25 KB) In: kaiserslautern.de. P. 11 , accessed October 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Münch, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and dialect poet
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Ruchheim (now Ludwigshafen am Rhein )
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1951
Place of death Neustadt an der Weinstrasse