Robert Grötzsch

Robert Gottlieb Grötzsch (born March 10, 1882 in Naunhof near Grimma , † March 6, 1946 in New York ) was a German writer , journalist and poet . He also published under the pseudonym Bruno Brandy .

Life

Robert Grötzsch was a working-class son and lost his father at an early age. He learned the plumbing trade, which he practiced until 1905.

At the editorial office of the Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung he showed the features editor Franz Diederich his attempts at writing. He recognized Grötzsch's talent and invited him to work on the newspaper. In just one year, Grötzsch made it to editor and wrote on all sections of the paper.

In January 1919, the previous editor-in-chief of the Dresdner Volkszeitung, Georg Gradnauer, became Chairman of the Council of People's Representatives in Saxony, and Grötzsch was his successor. He wrote political and social satire, children's books, but also comedies, his petty bourgeois comedy “Dyckerpotts Erben” was performed by 150 German theaters, including the Royal Theater in Dresden, and later even made into a film. He traveled to the Balkans with his brother-in-law Hermann Wendel, who was a Balkan researcher .

In 1933, the newspaper revealed a Nazi Fememord and thereby had enmity of the leaders state drawn. His editorial colleagues Max Sachs and Kurt Heilbut were killed, Grötzsch had to flee and emigrated to Prague. There he worked regularly on the "New Forward" under the pseudonym Bruno Brandy. During this time he wrote his worker sports novel "Tormann Bobby", the drama "Gerechtigkeit", in which he glorified the February struggle of the Austrian workers against the coup d'état of Dollfuss in 1934 and his novel "Wir sucht ein Land", the fate of refugees.

Due to Hitler's pressure on Czech politics, the “New Forward” had to be relocated to Paris in 1938 and Grötzsch followed. But he was regarded as an "enemy alien" and was sent to a French internment camp at the beginning of the war. After his release he managed to escape to the south of France, where he met his wife again. In 1941 he emigrated to the United States of America via Lisbon. He arrived in New York in poor health. First he worked again in his trained profession as a plumber. Later he worked for the "Neue Volkszeitung", which was the mouthpiece of the GDL ( German Labor Delegation ) and was a social democratically oriented organization of German emigrants in the USA at the time of the National Socialist rule in Germany. After 1945 he tried to create an aid organization that should serve the "Arbeiterwohlfahrt" in Germany. Grötzsch died on March 6, 1946 in New York and was escorted to rest by his German companions in exile in a coffin covered with the Iron Front flag. Stampfer called him on the coffin "a working-class poet who brought the humor of the German craft boy with him in his luggage on his journey through life".

Works (selection)

• Muz the giant , Dresden: Kaden, 1913
• The coal mine u. other stories , Berlin: Fleischel, 1917, 2nd ed. 1920

• Zaubrer Burufu Berlin: JHW Dietz Nachf., 1922, 1. – 10. Thousand
• Cranky People , Berlin: Buchh. Forward Paul Singer, undated
• People and Constitution , Dresden: Kaden & Comp., 1922
• Saxon people , Berlin: O. Hendel, 1924
• Journalist overboard , Berlin 1930
• Justice Bratislava [Pressburg]: Prager, 1936
• We are looking for a country Bratislava [Pressburg]: Prager, 1936
• Goalkeeper Bobby Bratislava [Pressburg]: Prager, 1938
• Nauke's Air Travel and Other Miracles Berlin: Kinderbuchverl., 1986, 1st ed.
• Dyckerpotts Erben Norderstedt: sales office and publisher Dt. Stage writers and stage composers, [1994?], Reproduced as an unsaleable Ms.

literature

• Biographical Dictionary of Socialism Volume I . Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, pp. 104-105.

Web links

• Manfred Altner: Robert Grötzsch (1882–1946) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical Lexicon of Socialism Volume I Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH Hanover