Polly Maria Höfler

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Polly Maria Höfler (born April 30, 1907 in Metz ; † February 17, 1952 in Frankfurt am Main ) is the author of the pacifist bestseller André and Ursula , written in 1937 , which was intended to contribute to Franco-German understanding. Her real name was Paulina Sophie Höfler.

biography

Little is known about her childhood in Metz, which was awarded to France as part of Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War . In the course of the expulsion of German citizens to Germany, her family also had to leave their homeland in June 1919. Together they settled in Frankfurt am Main, where Höfler began a commercial apprenticeship. However, her passion was writing. She began working on her first completed novel in 1932, after visiting Metz, the city of her birth, for the first time since she was expelled:

“These short days turned out to be the turning point in my life. I suddenly knew that I had to write the novel of the Germans who had been driven out of Lorraine in order to erect a memorial to them who had sealed their loyalty to Germany with the loss of their homeland. "

This novel ( The Way to Home ), which was actually only intended for her closest circle of friends, was only published after Hitler came to power .

time of the nationalsocialism

Before the novel The Way to Home was finally published in 1935 by the central publishing house of the NSDAP , Höfler said he had already made a few appearances on the radio. Like the author, the protagonist has to build a new life for herself after being driven from her homeland of Metz. Although the novel, according to Clausing-Schweers (2015), cannot be identified at first glance as a classic propaganda novel, it is based on a "manipulative narrative technique that only turns into blunt propaganda on the last few pages ":

“With the protagonist's experiences, the reader also goes through a catharsis that leads him to his real destiny at the end of the novel: National Socialism . [...] The way home is less striking and therefore suitable for addressing a bourgeois, non-fanatical audience by using the experience report of a good German girl to 'enlighten' about the 'true' political and social backgrounds. "

Since 1935, the year she joined the RSK , she worked as a freelance writer and devoted herself to new novel projects. The novel André and Ursula (1937), with which she had her greatest literary success, was written on the basis of an extended study visit to France over the next two years . The novel published by Frundsberg-Verlag gave her the breakthrough she wanted and is the reason why Schneider (2004) rated her as the most successful romance novelist of the “ Third Reich ”.

With the novel André and Ursula , which takes place in the interwar period, Höfler expresses her desire for a reconciliation between the Germans and the French. In doing so, she invokes elements of the Volkish ideology, in that her protagonist, who comes from Frankfurt, feels a tremendous belonging to the German people and lets her stand behind Hitler and his alleged will for peace with full conviction. The propagandistic function of the novel is therefore “on the one hand to advertise the regime and on the other hand to appease the reader's fear of a new war.” The soldiers at the front of World War I are glorified and heroized in André and Ursula, and this is also the language of the text shaped by military metaphors, so that the "alleged war damnation and peace message of the Höfler novel [...] is in truth more to be understood as a propaganda phrase". Despite the success of her novel, Höfler continued to ask the Schiller Foundation for financial support, which she was granted.

On the occasion of the occupation of her hometown of Metz by German troops in 1940, she wrote an article ("Heilig Herz Lothringen") for the magazine Die Westmark , in which she says:

“As long as Germany lives, the German soul of our home Lorraine will live on, in our love, our blood, our thoughts and actions. This land is sacred. It is German country and we are German. This is how you will be forever, German home on the Moselle. "

In February 1941 she moved back to Metz with her mother and two sisters. Her father had previously died in April. Also in 1940, Höfler's only short story The Man Who Pushed the Cart appeared in the anthology Die neue Auslese. Voices of our poets .

As a result of the Allies' entry into Normandy , Höfler had to leave her home again in September 1944. She first moved to Marktschorgast (Bavaria), then back to Frankfurt after the end of the war.

After the Second World War

In the course of the denazification process, Höfler noted in the so-called registration form in April 1946 that, apart from the RSK, she did not belong to any National Socialist organization and had received no benefits from the regime, thus concealing the payments from the Schiller Foundation / RSK . Höfler denied "any political or moral co-responsibility for the Nazi regime, but also any beneficiary." Arbitration proceedings were not initiated.

In 1948 she published a new edition of her successful novel André and Ursula , which now no longer contained any ethnic or National Socialist ideologues and had been expanded with a three-page foreword. The new edition was also a great success. In the foreword

"She distances herself from certain passages of the pre-war edition of the text, at the same time trivializes them and thereby absolves herself of any responsibility, rather sees herself as a seduced innocent victim who was unable to recognize the true character of the regime."

Höfler died on February 17, 1952 in a Frankfurt hospital. The death certificate lists cachexia , severe malnutrition and cardiac and circulatory weakness as the cause of death.

After her death

In 1952, Höfler's third novel Das dreifache Leben was published by Amandus Verlag , which she probably wrote at the end of the 1940s. In 1955, the new edition by André and Ursula was filmed by Werner Jacobs.

Works

  • The way home , 1935, Franz-Eher-Verlag
  • André and Ursula , 1937, Frundsberg Verlag
  • The man who pushed the cart , 1941, Gutenberg Book Guild
  • The threefold life , 1952, Amandus Verlag

literature

  • Polly Maria Höfler: Sacred Heart Lorraine . In: Die Westmark 8 (1940), p. 168.
  • Polly Maria Höfler: Polly Maria Höfler . In: Lorraine poet . Edited by the Gauverband Westmark. OO: n.v. 1941, pp. 19-22.
  • Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 105–128.
  • Tobias Schneider: Bestseller in the Third Reich . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 52 (2004), 1, pp. 77–99.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 105.
  2. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 107.
  3. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 108; Polly Maria Höfler: Polly Maria Höfler . In: Lorraine poet . Edited by the Gauverband Westmark. OO: n.v. 1941, p. 20.
  4. ↑ a b Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 108.
  5. ↑ Polly Maria Höfler: Polly Maria Höfler . In: Lorraine poet . Edited by the Gauverband Westmark. OO: n.v. 1941, pp. 20f.
  6. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 108f .; Polly Maria Höfler: Polly Maria Höfler . In: Lorraine poet . Edited by the Gauverband Westmark. OO: n.v. 1941, p. 21.
  7. ↑ a b Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 109.
  8. ↑ a b Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 111.
  9. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 111; Polly Maria Höfler: Polly Maria Höfler . In: Lorraine poet . Edited by the Gauverband Westmark. OO: n.v. 1941, p. 21f.
  10. ↑ Tobias Schneider: Bestseller in the Third Reich . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 52 (2004), 1, p. 94; Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 112f.
  11. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 114.
  12. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 115–117.
  13. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 120.
  14. ↑ a b Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 119.
  15. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 113.
  16. ↑ Polly Maria Höfler: Sacred Heart Lothringen . In: Die Westmark 8 (1940), p. 168.
  17. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 121.
  18. ↑ a b Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 122.
  19. ↑ a b c Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 123.
  20. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 123f.
  21. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 125f.
  22. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 125.
  23. ↑ Johanna Clausing-Schweers: Polly Maria Höfler - the bestselling author. In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology. Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 126.
personal data
SURNAME Höfler, Polly Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 30, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Metz
DATE OF DEATH 17th February 1952
Place of death Frankfurt am Main