Robert Brendel

Robert Brendel (* 3. September 1889 in Pachuca , † 29. May 1947 in Hamburg ) was a teacher and writer .

Life

Robert Brendel was born in Mexico in 1889 . His father was a German mining director who later worked as a general manager for an American company. After attending a grammar school in Hanover from 1899 , he studied at universities in Munich and Strasbourg from 1908 . He studied German, history and philosophy and completed his studies in 1913 with a doctorate. In his doctoral thesis he dealt with the plans to regain Alsace-Lorraine in 1814 and 1815 . In 1915 he passed the state examination. He then had to do military service during the First World War . The impressions gained in the meantime strengthened his view of resolutely rejecting wars. After the end of the war he married Xenia Bernstein in 1918, whom he knew from his time in Strasbourg. The marriage had three children. In 1919 he took over an apprenticeship as a teacher at the Wilhelm Raabe School in Lüneburg .

Since 1920 Brendel belonged to a so-called "Round Table", in which people from the cultural life around Hans W. Fischer came together. He also became a member of the Hamburg Protection Association of German Writers and of the PEN. From 1927 he was a member of the board of directors of the Lüneburg theater community. In this position he contacted Erich Ziegel , who directed the Hamburger Kammerspiele , and was able to arrange for current productions to be performed weekly in Lüneburg. Brendel called a "Republican Association" into being and expressed himself expressly in favor of the Weimar Republic , which was due to his Christian-humanistic attitude. For this he received massive criticism from the right before 1933. Brendel did not join any party, but advocated for marginalized people because of his sense of social responsibility.

Since Brendel stood by his Jewish wife, he was forced to move to Wesermünde in 1934 and was forced into retirement in 1936. In the same year the family moved to Hamburg. Brendel hoped to avoid further repression in the anonymity of the big city. He wrote a few short texts that appeared in the Hamburger Anzeiger , among others . From 1938 he was finally banned from further publications. In the period that followed, the repression against Brendel's family increased significantly. Robert Brendel was used for forced labor at the Todt organization . His wife was to be deported to Theresienstadt in February 1945 , but this did not happen due to a brief delay.

After the end of the Second World War , Brendel worked actively in the emergency community of those affected by the Nuremberg Laws . He applied to be allowed to work as a teacher again, which was initially rejected and later approved. In addition to his work as a teacher, he presented Jewish-German writers in lectures.

Robert Brendel died in mid-1947 of heart disease resulting from political persecution.

Works

Robert Brendel wrote poetry and short stories. The first works, which were primarily printed in newspapers, show that Brendel was closely associated with Expressionists . In particular, Ernst Stadler and René Schickele , with whom he had known since the time in Strasbourg, influenced him. In 1920 he wrote the novel The Great Whore , which deals pathetically with the fall of Sodom and Gomorrhah. The work Centauro from 1925 describes in a more sober choice of words the problems of people who are socially excluded because of physical problems and who should therefore be helped from the author's point of view.

In the writings Der Schiffer and Der Aufstand Brendel described experiences that he had gained during and after the First World War. The first is a chemist and engineer who feels guilty about the design of weapons. In the second work, a poet who dreams of a better society experiences a popular uprising. When these thoughts are no longer needed during and after the riots, he dies. In addition, Brendel wrote a major anti-war novel entitled "The Garbage Shovels" during this time. The book has not yet been published.

After the end of the Second World War, Brendel wrote a new series . These were reading books for schoolchildren. Brendel's most important work was published in 1946. It is the volume of short stories Die Heimkehr , in which a member of the Waffen SS, faced with his hometown bombed out, has to deal with his own feelings of guilt and responsibility for war crimes he committed himself. The book Die Urne , which Brendel had already written in 1937/38, was also published in 1946 . It deals in detail with the feelings of a Jewish family who were persecuted in Germany during the National Socialist era . The fourth edition of the book was published in 1969.

Max Sidow published an anthology of poems by Brendel in 1952. The book with the title Change and Duration shows that Brendel was familiar with several forms of poetry and that he dealt with a wide range of topics, including war and persecution, nature and religion.

literature

• Hans-Gerd Winter: Brendel, Robert . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 2 . Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 68-69 .