Peter Paul Althaus

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Peter Paul Althaus (born July 28, 1892 in Münster , † September 16, 1965 in Munich ) was a German writer and cabaret artist , best known for his dream city poems .

Life

Youth and teaching

Peter Paul Althaus was the elder of two sons of a hardware, leather and upholstery wholesaler. He passed the Abitur after changing schools several times (Domschule Gymnasium Paulinum Münster , Schillergymnasium Münster , private school in Telgte ) at the Gymnasium Georgianum in Lingen. He then began an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Ahlen , which he broke off that same year to volunteer for the First World War . Even then, he wrote his own poems and since 1916 has worked for the magazines Simplicissimus and Jugend .

World War I and Post War

He was injured several times in fighting and achieved the rank of lieutenant. After his return, he first founded the Musikalische Deutsche Ecke , an association for hobby poets and amateur musicians, in Münster , then together with his brother he set up an army goods collection point, which until 1922 was the first point of contact for artists returning from the war and Became a student. In 1919 he was one of the founders of the literary publisher The White Raven . From 1919 to 1922 Althaus studied philosophy , literature, art history and musicology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster. He also wrote satirical texts and poems - initially without much success.

Writer in Munich

In 1922 he moved to Munich. He got to know Hilde Supan , editor of the publishing house O. C. Recht, employee of the Münchner Kammerspiele and soon Althaus' partner, who introduced him to the Schwabing artist circle. Althaus u. a. with Stefan George , Karl Wolfskehl , Rainer Maria Rilke , Erich Mühsam , Thomas and Heinrich Mann . With Klaus , Erika Mann and Wedekind's children Pamela and Kadja, Althaus performed improvised house cabarets in Wedekind's apartment on Prinzregentenstrasse . During appearances in the artist bar Simpl he met Joachim Ringelnatz , to whom he dedicated a poem posthumously.

In 1923 his first poems appeared in the Göttingen Musenalmanach (publisher was Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen ), translations of Tartuffe in the original measure and old Indian poetry from English, the next year the volume of poetry Jack, der Aufschlitzer (prohibited by the police, also because of the frivolous drawings Rudolf Schlichters ) and a Voltaire translation.

From 1925 to 1926 PPA, as he usually called himself, was temporarily assistant director at the German National Theater Weimar . Around 1928 he began to write radio plays for the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation . a. Love, Music and the Death of Johann Sebastian Bach (broadcast in 1933). At the beginning of the 1930s he toured Europe, staying longer in Florence , Mallorca (together with a zoologist and a biologist to conduct studies there on the alarm system of native ants) and in England , where he also worked as a director.

Back in Munich, Althaus founded the literary cabaret The Onion Fish with Ludwig Kusche and Wolfgang von Weber in 1930 in the Weißes Haus restaurant on Barerstrasse. From 1939 to 1941 he was senior director at Berlin Germany's broadcaster , where he a. a. Revuen wrote and broadcast, but was dismissed at the personal instigation of Joseph Goebbels because he had dedicated the volume of poetry Das Vierte Reich (published in 1928, no political content) to the expelled Albert Einstein . From 1941 to 1945 he was captain of a transport company in World War II .

After the Second World War

Munich, Trautenwolfstr. 8: Memorial plaque for Peter Paul Althaus

After the war he returned to Munich and initially lived in Tutzing before moving back to Schwabing. He worked again for the Bavarian radio and as a freelance cabaret artist ( Schwabinger Brettl 1947, Monopteros (s) 1948). In addition, since October 1947 he was a freelance dramaturgical editor for the Desch theater publisher in Munich. In 1948 he founded the artist group Seerose , which still exists today. In 1951 his best-known work was published in the dream city (also dream city poems ). From 1952 he devoted himself exclusively to writing.

Old age and death

In Schwabing, Peter Paul Althaus was a recognized celebrity as a poet and “mayor of the dream city” (the then mayor Hans-Jochen Vogel addressed him as “colleague”). In 1961 he received the first Schwabing Art Prize , in 1962, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, he received the gold medal of the Bavarian Radio ( Theodor Heuss gave the laudatory speech ).

In the last years of his life, Althaus could no longer leave his apartment for health reasons; but once a year he let himself be carried down the 117 steps to his upper floor apartment when the mayor, as mayor of the dream city, invited him to the Seerose inn for a St. Nicholas celebration . Althaus had been completely bedridden since 1964. Nevertheless, in 1965 he called the first “dream city citizens' assembly” in the studio of the painter Oswald Malura .

Althaus died on September 16, 1965. He rests in an honorary grave of the City of Munich in the north cemetery (grave no. 25-4-2). Dream city evenings are still taking place today, now at Althaus' great-nephew Hans Althaus in Cologne .

plant

Althaus is best known for his poems, "Verses with echoes of Morgenstern and Ringelnatz, but still with their own character, delicate, filigree, mentally whimsical and playful structures full of bizarre humor and high poetic appeal". The poems thrive on puns and surprising punchlines, pure playfulness alternates with profundity and melancholy.

Quotes

From Althaus

  • "If I should say frankly, although I made it to the captain, I was always a civilian in disguise, my subordinates never took me seriously because they knew very well that I didn't take the whole magic seriously."
  • "Schwabing is not a state, Schwabing - these are states."

About Althaus

  • Dieter Hildebrandt : “The dream city, as Althaus wrote it, is a vision that I enjoyed and I can still read it with pleasure today. It is a Schwabing fantasy - it shows what the inside of a person should look like. Althaus sought consolation from reality with poetry. And we all need that. "

Works

Poems

  • Jack, the ripper. Around two dozen songs . E. Gottschalk, Berlin 1924.
  • The fourth empire. A symphony . Dornverlag Ullmann, Munich 1928.
  • in the dream city . Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1951.
  • Dr. Gentian . Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1952.
  • Flower Tales. Let flowers speak . Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1953.
  • We gentle lunatics ... Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1956.
  • Soul wandering tours . Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1961.
  • PPA sends its regards again . Stahlberg, Karlsruhe 1966.
  • Dream city and surroundings . Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1967.
  • What do you know, oh Uncle Theo, you ... Lechte, Emsdetten 1968.

Radio plays, plays and revues

  • Love, music and death of Johann Sebastian Bach . Batschari, Munich 1933.
  • The magic of the voice. A grotesque comedy . Höfling, Munich 1935.
  • Look here, it's me ... Höfling, Munich 1936.
  • The big autumn sheet music show . 1937.

Translations

  • Mystical poetry from the Indian Middle Ages . 1923.
  • Kalidasa : Sakuntala . 1923.
  • Voltaire: History of Charles XII, King of Sweden . 1924.
  • Old Russian hymns . 1927.
  • Molière : Tartuff . Höfling, Munich. 1936.

Collections

  • Walter Gödden (Ed.): Peter-Paul-Althaus-Reader . Nyland Foundation, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-936235-00-7 ( Nyland's small Westphalian library 1).
  • Hans Althaus (Hrsg.): The Peter-Paul-Althaus poetry book . Allitera, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-86520-025-7 ( Edition Monacensia ).
  • Peter Paul Althaus: Travel poems and a London picture sheet. Edited by Hans Althaus. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-8498-1370-3 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Althaus, Hans (ed.): Poetry and prose by and about Peter Paul Althaus. Munich: Allitera Verlag 2014. p. 11
  2. "That it goes on" - DER SPIEGEL 6/1950
  3. a b Peter Paul Althaus in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
  4. http://www.peterpaulalthaus.de/?page_id=8
  5. Althaus' illness is also interpreted as a protest against the new Schwabing of the entertainment district, for example on http://www.zeit.de/1965/39/peter-paul-althaus
  6. http://literaturline.stadt-muenster.de/lesung_detail.cfm?v_nr=1296
  7. http://www.oswald-malura-stiftung.de/sites/006_traum/traumstadt.htm