Victor Otto Stomps

Victor Otto Stomps (born September 26, 1897 in Krefeld , † April 4, 1970 in Berlin-Kreuzberg ) was a German publisher and writer . He was mostly called VauO or VO by friends and artist colleagues and also published under various pseudonyms.

Life

After dropping out of his studies and briefly at Ufa , Stomps completed an apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank in 1923. In 1926 he founded the publishing house Die Rabenpresse together with Hans Gebser , in which, among other things, the literary magazine Der Fischzug appeared under the editorship of Walther G. Oschilewski . In the years 1932 to 1934 the literary magazine The White Raven appeared . As an editor, Stomps compiled some of these issues himself. During this time a large literary circle crystallized around Stomps and his raven press . These included Walther G. Oschilewski, Gertrud Kolmar , George A. Goldschlag , Jens Heimreich , Horst Lange and his wife Oda Schaefer , Peter Huchel , Werner Bergengruen , Georg Zemke , Herbert Fritsche , Joachim Maass , Robert Seitz , Rolf Bongs , Werner Helwig , Eberhard Meckel , Heinz Oskar Wuttig and Hans Gebser, who later became known in Switzerland as the philosopher Jean Gebser .

In 1937 Stomps had to sell the publisher under pressure from the National Socialists and for financial reasons. All books that were published under the publisher's name Rabenpresse after mid-1937 are therefore no longer his responsibility, but that of Ernst Winkler, his successor as publisher. After his departure, however, Stomps produced numerous private prints on his own responsibility until 1943.

After the Second World War , Stomps founded a new publishing house in Frankfurt am Main in 1949, the Eremitenpresse , with which he moved to Stierstadt im Taunus in 1954 . The publishing house helped numerous authors such as Christa Reinig , Wolfgang Bächler , Ernst Meister , Gabriele Wohmann , Christoph Meckel , Heinrich Ost , Guntram Vesper , Aldona Gustas , Hans Neuenfels , Klaus Staeck , Horst Antes , Dieter Hoffmann , Fred Viebahn and others to first or early publications . After around 10 years of interruption, Stomps was able to resume and continue its pre-war work.

In 1967 he left the Eremitenpresse publishing house, went back to what was then West Berlin and founded his third publisher, the Neue Rabenpresse , in the rooms of Vera Ziegler's gallery in the evening . By 1969 there were around 20 publications before Stomps had to give up his work for health reasons.

The common grave of the Stomps siblings at the Zehlendorf cemetery

Victor Otto Stomps died in Berlin in 1970 at the age of 72. He was buried in the Zehlendorf cemetery (field 12-204 / 206). The grave monument, titled Mother Earth , was created by his sister, the sculptor Louise Stomps (1900–1988) for her parents' grave. She is buried in the same place.

Work and aftermath

As a result of his intensive publishing activities, Stomps' own literary work, for which he received the Fontane Prize in Berlin in 1965 , was somewhat out of focus. A comprehensive bibliography of the publications of all three publishers appeared in DAS GROSSE RABENBUCH .

On the occasion of the Mainz Minipressen-Messe (MMPM) , the City of Mainz awards the Victor Otto Stomps Prize every two years . In 2007, on the occasion of the 110th birthday of Victor Otto Stomps, an exhibition with books from his publishers took place in the foyer of the university library of the Free University of Berlin . The exhibition was initiated by the publisher of the Corvinus Presse , Hendrik Liersch, and was fed from his collection. An exhibition of a similar kind took place in 2008 in the Johannes a Lasco library in Emden and in the same year in the university library of the University of Giessen . The book by Guntram Vesper Stomps appeared in Giessen in the Corvinus press.

Honors

• 1965 Fontane Prize, Berlin
• 1967 plaque of honor of the city of Krefeld
• The Victor Otto Stomps Prize has been awarded in Mainz in his memory since 1979

Publications (selection)

• Victor Otto Stomps: Fables of Dream Faces. With an introduction by Hans von Eckhardt , Siegel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1947
• Victor Otto Stomps: Fables of Encounter with a cover picture by Alfred Kubin , Alfons-Bürger Verlag, Lorch 1948
• Victor Otto Stomps (ed.): The controversial Pegasus , with three drawings by Inge Becker , Eremitenpresse, Stierstadt 1955, contained therein: The delicacy of VOStomps
• Victor Otto Stomps: Laughter. A poetic biography , European Publishing House, Frankfurt 1962
• Victor Otto Stomps (Ed.): Cookbook for Holidays. Blossom picking of pictures, recipes and poetry , Eremitenpresse, Stierstadt 1964
• Victor Otto Stomps: Interview with Ladislaus Kapovitch. Corvinus Presse, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-910172-86-9
• Victor Otto Stomps: Artistic ABC. 26 Knittler , graphically designed by Thomas Bayrle and Bernhard Jäger, Hansen & Hansen, Itzehoe 1964
• Victor Otto Stomps: Babylonian Freedom. A satirical novel cover design by Arno Waldschmidt, Hochstadt-Verlag, Isny ​​1964

Literature (selection)

• Günter Bruno Fuchs (ed.): The arguable Pegasus. A breviary for the 70th birthday of VOStomps , FAHerbig, Berlin 1967
• Albert Spindler , Arno Waldschmidt (Ed.): THE GREAT RAVEN BOOK. News of one and Cour for a rare and strange bird that, by the name of Victor Otto Stomps, lived among us, swallowed and joked, fabulated, published and printed and now circles over the towers , Merlin, Hamburg 1977
• Martin Ebbertz : Four decades of Eremiten-Presse , Eremiten-Presse, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-87365-250-1 ( description )
• Hendrik Liersch: The almost complete history of the Rabenpresse , on the occasion of the exhibition in the foyer of the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin from September 26 to November 30, 2007, Corvinus Press, ISBN 978-3-910172-99-9
• Hendrik Liersch: Abgesegelt, ABC after 40 years, on the 40th anniversary of VO Stomps ' death , Corvinus Presse, 2010

Web links

• Literature by and about Victor Otto Stomps in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Victor Otto Stomps in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Previous winners of the VOStomps Prize, Mainz

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eberhard Heinatsch (Ed.): The fish haul. An anthology , Gutenberg publishing house, Berlin 1926
2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 679.
3. ↑ Albert Spindler , Arno Waldschmidt (ed.): DAS GROSSE RABENBUCH , Merlin, Hamburg 1977
4. ↑ Guntram Vesper: Stomps in Gießen , Corvinus Presse, Berlin 2008