Rudolf Kalmar junior

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Rudolf Kalmar junior (born September 18, 1900 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † January 18, 1974 in Vienna) was an Austrian journalist and writer.

Rudolf Kalmar (around 1950)

Life

Rudolf Kalmar visited the Stiftsgymnasium Seitenstetten and then studied at the Vienna University of Law and Political Science, where he in 1927 to Dr. rer. pole. received his doctorate. As a student he began his journalistic career in 1919 as an editor of local and art articles at the Deutsche Volksblatt , where his father, the also well-known journalist Rudolf Kalmar senior , was editor-in-chief.

With the re-establishment of the daily newspaper Der Wiener Tag in 1922, Kalmar worked for this newspaper and successfully managed its local section. From 1934 he was with Vincenz Ludwig Ostry as political editor-in-chief, the non-political editor-in-chief of this newspaper and of the Monday newspaper Der Morgen , which represented an Austrian course on Monday with their affiliated ten groschenblatt and sharply rejected National Socialism . Kalmar wrote, among other things, the weekly column “Social Policy of the Day” and was particularly committed to the rights of the “little man”.

Registration card of Rudolf Kalmar junior as a prisoner in the National Socialist concentration camp Dachau

Rudolf Kalmar was arrested on March 17, 1938 , immediately after the " Anschluss of Austria " and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on April 1, 1938 on the so-called " Prominent Transport " . He was temporarily interned in the Flossenbürg concentration camp . On June 13, 1943, one of the most bizarre open-air theater premieres of the 20th century took place on the “Small Roll Call Square” of the Dachau concentration camp. A group of Austrian, German and Czech concentration camp inmates played Die Blutnacht auf dem Schreckenstein in front of other inmates and the SS guards . The play style Pradler jousting , where traditionally rolled many heads was one written by Kalmar Hitler - persiflage . Erwin Geschonneck was the star and director of the six performances . In September 1944 Kalmar was assigned to a criminal unit of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, which was taken by surprise and captured by the Red Army on one of its first missions .

After returning from a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp on September 4, 1945, he worked for a short time in the arts section of the Ministry of Education ( Federal Theater Administration ), but in the same year he joined the editorial team of the newspaper Neues Österreich , of which he was local manager and editor-in-chief from 1947 to 1956. In addition, he wrote manuscripts for radio and television series as an employee of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation . From 1957 to 1960 Kalmar worked for the daily newspaper Die Presse . From 1960 he was head of the literary office of the federal theater administration.

In recognition of his services to journalism and the cultural life of Vienna, Kalmar was elected President of the Austrian Press Club Concordia in 1958 , of which he was Vice-President in the years before 1938. Under his presidency, he made the press club a forum where most of the most interesting press conferences and the most important presentations by foreign personalities were held. With the first Concordia Ball after the Second World War in 1960, which he suggested, he also moved the press club into the focus of society. He was also a member of the Austrian PEN Club .

He was buried in the family grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 42A, row 11, number 26).

meaning

The collection of reports published by Kalmar from the concentration camp Time Without Mercy is one of the most literarily valuable and objective documents of this genre. With his other work, Kalmar was an early champion against the suppression and forgetting of the Nazi era in Austria.

Quotes
"The confrontation with fascism is a political one, its attack against the spirit of the West a cultural one."
Time without mercy , p. 9.
“In order to keep the memory of the monstrous events in Mauthausen alive, so that it stands as a warning light over the Austrian future, we propose: Dig one up, any of the hundreds of thousands who went through the killing mills, and solemnly bury it here, in the middle the city. On Stephansplatz , in front of Karlskirche , in front of St. Peter am Graben. Light the eternal fire over his tortured bones and announce to those who will pass, because they must pass, that here lies one of the victims of sin against the spirit of freedom. ”
Article in Neues Österreich , 1949.

Awards

plant

  • Daily guide for practical life. What do I say - what do I do in all situations? . Compiled and edited by Rudolf Kalmar with the help of well-known experts. Wehle & Höfels publishing house, Vienna / Leipzig 1933.
  • The Bloody Night on the Horror Stone or Knight Adolar's Bridal Ride and its gruesome end or That is not true love. A comical-scary knight's piece in three acts with music . Manuscript. Dachau 1943.
  • Time without mercy . Schönbrunn-Verlag, Vienna 1946
    new edition; edited, commented and with an afterword by Stefan Maurer and Martin Wedl. Metroverlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-902517-84-5 .
  • Land of the Kahlenberg . Feature sections. Book decorations by Erika Wolf. New Austria Publishing House, Vienna 1949.
  • Manuscripts for the radio series One Week Austria , Das kleine Leben , Kulturbericht , Austrian personalities and the television series Der Fenstergucker .

literature

  • Fritz Hausjell : Journalists Against Democracy or Fascism. A collective biographical analysis of the professional and political origins of Austrian daily newspaper journalists at the beginning of the Second Republic (1945–1947) . (European University Theses, Series 40, Communication Studies and Journalism, Volume 15; At the same time dissertation at the University of Salzburg 1985.) Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. u. a. 1989, ISBN 3-631-41774-8 .
  • Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna. Volume 3: Ha-La. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-218-00545-0 , p. 437.
  • Siglinde Bolbecher , Konstantin Kaiser : Lexicon of Austrian exile literature . In collaboration with Evelyn Adunka, Nina Jakl and Ulrike Oedl. Deuticke, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-216-30548-1 , pp. 359f.
  • Volker Kühn (Ed.): Germany's awakening. Cabaret under the swastika 1933–1945 . Volume 3. Quadriga, Weinheim 1989, ISBN 3-88679-163-7 , p. 377 (short biography)
  • Austrian National Library (Ed.): Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin, 18th to 20th centuries . 3 volumes. tape 2 . KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 632 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ghost from the roof. In the Dachau concentration camp, prisoners performed a satire on Adolf Hitler - under the eyes of the SS. In: Der Spiegel, June 10, 1985. (Accessed July 18, 2012)
  2. ↑ Future culture of remembrance or: the "squid effect". (Retrieved July 18, 2012)
  3. ↑ https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Rudolf_Kalmar_junior#tab=Auslösungen
  4. ↑ Prize winners - Prizes of the City of Vienna (accessed on February 9, 2017)
  5. ^ Nine new award winners from the City of Vienna In: Rathauskorrespondenz of April 30, 1963, accessed on February 9, 2017

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kalmar, Rudolf junior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kalmar, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 18th January 1974
Place of death Vienna