Schmallenberg poets' dispute

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The Schmallenberg poets' dispute in 1956 was a debate among writers and literary scholars about the past and future of literature in Westphalia . He started a process "which led to a fundamental setting of the course in Westphalian literary history." ( Walter Gödden )

At the invitation of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe , a number of authors, critics and literary scholars met in the town of Schmallenberg . The initiator and leader of the meeting was the press officer of the landscape association and editor of the magazine Westfalenspiegel Clemens Herbermann .

German studies specialist Clemens Heselhaus , who teaches in Münster , provided an important impetus for the debate . He qualified the older literary production as "spiritual blood group research" and "mysticism of blood ". Instead, "the spiritual structure of time" should be addressed. Heselhaus denied that there was ever an independent Westphalian literature. The allegedly genuinely Westphalian in Christian Dietrich Grabbe , Ferdinand Freiligrath and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , for example , is a subsequent mystification. “The Westphalian” stands for “false pathos”.

City hall in Schmallenberg

The participating authors were Josefa Berens-Totenohl , Friedrich Wilhelm Hymmen , Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš , Maria Kahle , Heinrich Luhmann , Ernst Meister , Paul Schallück , Hans-Dieter Schwarze , Erwin Sylvanus , Hertha Trappe , Walter Vollmer , Werner Warsinsky and Josef Winckler .

The most important regional daily newspapers, radio and television were represented, among others by Walter Dirks and Roland H. Wiegenstein . The local response was also great. The conflict continued in the press for months and was discussed in the interested public outside of Westphalia, for example in letters to the editor. An author reading in the Schmallenberger Stadthalle had more than 1,000 visitors. The actual debate took place in the inner circle in the Hotel Störmann.

The focus of general interest, through controversial discussions and their media evaluation, was the semi-public professional debate on the questions of what is “what is actually Westphalian about Westphalian literature” and whether this literature “still has the intellectual level” it had in the 19th century have had. This was accompanied by the criticism of the younger authors (Erwin Sylvanus, Friedrich Wilhelm Hymnen, Hans Dieter Schwarze, Paul Schallück, Ernst Meister) that after the end of National Socialism "Westphalian blood-and-soil poets ... could continue to publish unmolested". The focus of criticism was not only on writers from the older generation burdened by the Nazi regime such as Maria Kahle, Heinrich Luhmann and Josefa Berens-Totenohl, but also on the "influential literary multiplier " Josef Bergenthal , a high National Socialist literary functionary who continued to "direct from Münster". In the context of the poets' meeting, this side “instigated a real scandal against the young authors who were looking for a connection to literary modernism .

As a result of the conflict, a reorientation took place in Westphalian literature. The Westphalian Heimatbund withdrew from funding for literature. He assumed an attitude described as being between "irritation and fear of striking the wrong note". "Much was in motion, a lot of encrustations broke open", stated Walter Gödden looking back in 2000, although he criticized the Schmallenberg critics for a "half-hearted implementation" of the demand for a new Westphalian literature and a real "new beginning" only with the later justification of Group 61 began.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Schmallenberg event. Background - meaning - aftermath, in: Landesbildstelle Westfalen and Literature Commission for Westphalia (ed.), Audio testimonies to Westphalian literature. The Schmallenberger Dichterstreit 1956, accompanying booklet, o. O. (Münster) 2000, p. 6.
  2. ↑ Stephanie Jordans: The Truth of Images - Time, Space and Metaphor in Ernst Meister , Würzburg 2009, p. 33.
  3. ↑ Previous quotations: The Schmallenberger event. Background - meaning - aftermath, in: Landesbildstelle Westfalen and Literature Commission for Westphalia (ed.), Audio testimonies to Westphalian literature. The Schmallenberger Dichterstreit 1956, accompanying booklet, o. O. (Münster) 2000, pp. 11, 14, 16, 18.
  4. ^ Walter Gödden, Das Schmallenberger Dichtertreffen - on the historical background, in: ders./Reinhard Kiefer, Utopische Dichter. The Schmallenberg poet dispute 1956, Ernst Meister and the consequences. Analyzes and documents, Münster 2000, pp. 11–25, here: p. 24.

literature

  • Georg Bühren, Walter Gödden (Hrsg.): The Schmallenberger Dichterstreit 1956. The original speeches and discussions . Landesbildstelle Westfalen 2000 (1 CD and booklet). New edition. Ardey-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-87023-133-5 sound excerpt
  • Walter Gödden, Reinhard Kiefer : Utopian poets. The Schmallenberg poet dispute 1956, Ernst Meister and the consequences. Analyzes and documents . Ardey-Verlag, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-87023-150-5 ( Books of the Nyland Foundation, Cologne series documents 1)
  • Stephanie Jordans: The Truth of Images - Time, Space and Metaphor by Ernst Meister , Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8260-4005-4
  • The Schmallenberg event. Background - meaning - aftermath, in: Landesbildstelle Westfalen and Literature Commission for Westphalia (ed.), Audio testimonies to Westphalian literature. The Schmallenberg poets' dispute 1956, accompanying booklet, o. O. (Münster) 2000

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