Vincent Erath

Vinzenz Erath (born March 31, 1906 in Schramberg -Waldmössingen, † November 10, 1976 in Vaihingen an der Enz ) was a German narrator.

With five novels, some of which were autobiographical, he gained a large readership in Germany and Switzerland in the period after the Second World War . Another novel was published posthumously in 2007.

biography

The writer Vinzenz Erath in Altheim / Alb in 1959

Vinzenz Erath was born on March 31, 1906 in Waldmössingen, today a district of Schramberg in the Black Forest , into a small farmer's family with many children; he was the tenth child. After the first years of school in Waldmössingen, he attended high schools as a boarding school student in Rottenburg am Neckar and Rottweil , where he graduated from high school in 1926. He then studied Catholic theology in Tübingen . After a year and a half, he switched to philosophy and philology and also studied in Munich for a few semesters. Mainly because of economic hardship, he broke off his studies shortly before the state examination. Factory work continued at first.

Vinzenz Erath then got by as a private tutor with tutoring and occasional lectures and buried himself in philosophy. During this time he wrote a lot without publishing.

In 1938 he married Edith Balle from Reutlingen, and two daughters resulted from this marriage.

In 1939 he took over the management of the Reutlingen People's Education Center , but in the same year volunteered for the Wehrmacht . As a radio operator he took part in the French campaign and later in the war against the Soviet Union , was taken prisoner by the Soviets and was released in October 1945 due to illness.

After the war he found his family, who had been bombed out in Stuttgart, in Altheim (Alb) . There he earned his living, among other things, as a forest worker and track worker on the railway until 1951 when the first novel Bigger Than Man's Heart was published and became a bestseller. The blind game followed in 1954 , In 1956, This is how the fathers light the fire and in 1962, So high heaven .

In 1963 the family moved to Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt . The urban environment gave Erath new impetus for short stories, which not all were finished. In 1966 he completed the novel Between Dust and Stars . From 1971 the family lived in Vaihingen an der Enz , where Vinzenz Erath died on November 10, 1976 after a long illness.

plant

In the partly autobiographical trilogy from the novels Bigger than Man's Heart , The Blind Game and So hoch der Himmel Vinzenz Erath first paints the picture of a small-scale Catholic family in the Black Forest, surrounded by all sorts of lovable and bizarre types, in the field of tension between village tradition and piety and the lure of the new time. In the middle is the young Florian Rainer, with whom the mother - she comes from a middle-class family - has special plans; he should become a Catholic priest following their family tradition. After a year of preparation with a spiritual uncle, he spent eight years in a boarding school, studied theology, fell in love, changed subjects, got to know factory work. He fell into the clutches of National Socialism and freed himself again by voluntarily reporting to the Wehrmacht.

The author gives his reader a deep insight into the social conditions of village society at the beginning of the 20th century, lets him experience how a young person stumbles into life, and takes him on an exciting journey through a turbulent half a century.

The third novel The Fathers Light the Fire provides a hearty, tragic-comic father-son story .

Between Dust and Stars tells of the end of the war and captivity, of long walks and train transports, hunger and thirst, life in the open air, storms, humanity and meanness, culture in the low point of existence, illness and hope and a long journey home.

Vinzenz Erath left one last, ready-to-print manuscript when he died in 1976. The following characterization comes from his own pen: “A mysterious, living symbol - a magical symbol: green mistletoe in winter - a woman in winter - mistletoe Monika in the bright winter of the post-war period. He picks her up, the man. She nests with him. He can't get away from her. The two are magically attracted to each other, but every time they meet something dark happens that tears them apart again. The woman has her God, in whom she firmly believes, who torments her, from whom she almost perishes. He seeks to redeem them from this God. The god represented in the dark cathedral of the destroyed city. "

A collection of (planned) eight cheerful stories under the title Traumstadt am Neckar remained unfinished . The Rainer Wunderlich Verlag was not interested in it. Following a competition call from the East German Cultural Council in 1972, the author submitted the story Allah in Cannstatt from this collection. A year later she was in the club of the twelve best stories in Fremd in Deutschland? released. The narrator helps a young guest worker who is ignorant of the location and the language to find an address in Cannstatt, but misunderstandings thwart success.

The time of origin of the humorous story The Dragon is unknown , with other titles also The Father Murderer or Erbtante Moira .

reception

Bigger than the human heart , on sale from October 5, 1951, brought undreamt-of success for the publisher and author. The press in the entire German-speaking area dealt with the book. Almost all reviews and letters to the readers agree in praise of the simple but powerful and well-formed language. In a book review on May 20, 1957 at Radio Vorarlberg, it was said: “He talks openly and quickly. His style is actually not modern, strongly reminiscent of the realism of the past century and yet is more than a Rosegger or Hebel. For what he gains from the present are the finely chiseled currents of the soul, [...] the knowledge of the real primordial ground in which being, becoming and passing away are expressed. A gifted writer without a doubt ”.

"Erath's relationship with Stefan Andres, Edzard Schaper and Werner Bergengruen is noticeable," wrote Roland Löffler in a contribution to the anniversary book 1000 Years of Waldmössingen .

The German-speaking Cóndor in Santiago de Chile on August 13, 1952 almost exploded with enthusiasm: “In recent years we have heard a complaint from Germany that the great German novel does not want to come. […] Please, here it is! Something like that isn't written every year, yes, maybe not even every decade. [...] But as it is, it is the one book among the books . [...] I am calling for the Nobel Prize for the author who deserves it ”.

In January 1952, the Süddeutsche Rundfunk broadcast a program with Vinzenz Erath and on January 30, 1952, the Südwestfunk let the publisher speak.

As early as November and December 1951, four poetry readings were held in southern Germany, and in November 1952 the first reading was held in Switzerland, after a large group of readers and soon a group of friends had already formed there.

The total edition of Greater Than Man's Heart is ultimately more than a quarter of a million. In 1976, the Rainer Wunderlich Verlag printed a new edition on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. In 1956 the novel was published in Antwerp under the Flemish title "Groter dan des mensen hart".

The four subsequent novels by Erath were also very successful, but no longer achieved these very large numbers of copies. Again there were many very positive press reactions, increasingly from abroad, from France, from Israel, from New York, Chicago, Oklahoma.

In 1955, the Badische Zeitung Das blinde Spiel (The Blind Game) and in 1956 the Neue Winterthurer Tagblatt The Fathers Light the Fire were printed in continuations . License editions have been published by the European Book Club, the German Book Association, the Evangelical Book Community, the German Book Community, the Fackelverlag, the Francke bookshop in Marburg, the Droemer Knaur as paperback, the European Book and Phonoclub, the Swiss People's Book Community Lucerne and at the Swiss Book Club Ex-Libris.

Erath read twice on Swiss radio.

More than 10 German and Swiss reading books printed individual stories. In 1955, a reader for German studies students in Japan took over the chapter "The New Era" from the first novel. Over 40 book excerpts or other short stories were printed in anthologies, house calendars and weekly newspapers.

The Zurich-based “ensemble lunaire” awarded the novel Between Dust and Stars a special consecration by combining the text with Olivier Messiaen's composition “Quatuor pour la fin du temps”. Erath texts are performed between the musical movements, e.g. B. the beginning of the 20th chapter: “It was a desert in which no blade of grass grew, an endless desert of dust. The sky was dust. The earth dust. ... "

A total of 76 reading dates have been documented up to 1976, 19 of them in northern and western Germany and 19 in Switzerland.

The Deutsche Blindenstudienanstalt eV lists five Erath novels in its catalog blista, three of them as audio books and in braille, one each in braille and one as audio book. The Swiss Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Reading Disabled sbs offers two audio books.

In November 1996, the city of Schramberg named Vinzenz-Erath-Strasse near Erath's parents' house in the Waldmössingen district.

In 2006, on the 100th birthday of Vinzenz Erath, Harald Frommer gave a lecture on the writer's work on six evenings at the Volkshochschule Schramberg. The lecture manuscripts form the core of a book that he published on behalf of the city of Schramberg in the same year. Further contributions to this book were made by Klaus Simon, Heinz Kirchherr, Margit Hess and Sigune Hirlinger.

After the early death of Vinzenz Erath in November 1976, the Swabian artist Friedrich Mundi wrote a condolence letter to the widow: “When I visited Hermann Hesse in Montagnola in 1957 and we talked about the Swabian poets' circle, there was also talk of Mr. Erath and his book. At that time Hesse said to me: 'There is the book there' and pointed to a sea of ​​books. 'An excellent and very well written book!' That was Hesse, who in general could rarely be induced to criticize. "

Rainer Wunderlich Verlag was partially taken over by Rowohlt in 1984.

In 1986 a reader asked the widow Edith Erath to name her sources of supply for Erath books because the book trade was no longer offering anything. In 1991 a bookseller asked the widow for a book "for a good customer". With the exception of mistletoe in the snow and an edition of So the Fathers Light the Fire in Estonian , the novels have long been available only as antiquarian books. Harald Frommer looked for an explanation for this development in the foreword to his book: “The great success of these novels is not least due to the fact that the readers of that time found their own experiences processed in a valid form.” In the absence of this experience in the younger one Generation sees Frommer the reason for the dwindling interest. But he looks further: "But his importance as a chronicler of a bygone era has risen all the more; his novels have now the status of unique historical documents, the precision of remembering is combined with unusual language power."

Novels and short stories

• Greater than the human heart. A book from real life . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1951.
• The blind game . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1954.
• This is how the fathers light the fire . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1956.
• So high the sky . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1962.
• Between dust and stars . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1966.
• Mistletoe in the snow. The cathedral is still standing . BoD, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 978-3-8370-0355-0 .
• The ancestor / the stone . Good writings, Zurich 1962.
• Allah in Cannstatt . In: Hans Joachim von Merkatz (Ed.): Foreign in Germany? Radio plays / radio stories / essays. Giesking, Bielfeld 1973, ISBN 978-3-7694-0364-0 .
• Hereditary aunt Moira . In: Schwarzwälder Hausschatz, Oberndorf 1976.

literature

• Harald Frommer on behalf of the city of Schramberg (ed.): Vinzenz Erath . City of Schramberg 2006, ISBN 3-9807406-5-X .
• Margit Hess: Vinzenz Erath - Bigger than the human heart and the blind game - Narrated childhood from the Black Forest - Literature of a region as the subject of German lessons in year 9 . Scientific homework for the 1st state examination at the Ludwigsburg University of Education, Seedorf 1999.
• Roland Löffler: Vinzenz Erath. A documentation . Published by the Friends' Association for Home Care Waldmössingen, 1987.
• Roland Löffler: Unpublished letters on the interpretation of the life and work of Vinzenz Erath . In: D'Kräz: Contributions to the history of the city and space Schramberg , Issue 8, published by the Museums- und Geschichtsverein eV, Schramberg 1988.
• Roland Löffler: Vinzenz Erath . Article in the city of Schramberg (Hrsg.): 1000 years Waldmössingen . District town Schramberg, local administration Waldmössinge, 1994, DNB 944349056 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Vinzenz Erath in the catalog of the German National Library

swell

The content of this page is largely based on the correspondence between the main author and the publisher, on other letters from the author and on a large collection of press documents that the publisher has collected for the author, all in the possession of Sigune Hirlinger, the daughter of Vinzenz Erath .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erath's letter to the publisher at Christmas 1968.
2. ↑ Erath's letter of December 3, 1972 to the publisher and reply of February 14, 1973.
3. ↑ A copy of the text is in the estate.
4. ↑ 1000 years of Waldmössingen , p. 112.
5. ↑ A copy of the text is in the estate.
6. ^ Letter from Erath of December 6, 1951 to the editor, Mrs. Kauffmann and Kauffman postcard of January 28, 1952 to Erath.
7. ↑ A list of all poetry readings is in the estate.
8. ↑ Klaus Simon, in: Harald Frommer (Ed.): Vinzenz Erath , p. 118.
9. ^ Letter from the publisher dated June 16, 1955 to the author. Specimen copy in the estate.
10. ↑ Copies are in the estate.
11. ^ Letter from the publisher of May 26, 1955 to the author.
12. ↑ Klaus Simon, in: Harald Frommer (Ed.): Vinzenz Erath , p. 122.
13. ↑ Specimen copies in the author's estate and mail from the publisher.
14. ↑ Recording on January 26, 1955 on Radio Basel (broadcast date unknown) and broadcast on March 30, 1958 on Radio Beromünster . Preserved sound and photo in the estate.
15. ↑ Robert Schinzinger , Ichirô Nomura: Modern German Japanese German studies . Ukubundo publishing house Tokyo 1955.
16. ^ Directory in the estate, mostly with specimen copies.
17. ↑ German: Quartet on the end of time. Composed and performed for the first time in 1941 in the Görlitz prisoner of war camp.
18. ↑ Email from Michael Klaiser of August 20, 2007.
    ensemble lunaire: Repertoire . Retrieved December 29, 2016.
19. ↑ blista: Homepage of the German Study for the Blind as of November 14, 2014.
20. ↑ www.sbs.ch as of November 14, 2014.
21. ↑ Harald Frommer (Ed.): Vinzenz Erath . Schramberg 2006.
22. ^ Letter of November 18, 1976.
23. ↑ University test viidud . OÜ Steinwaldchen Tartu, 2014.
24. ↑ Harald Frommer (Ed.): Vinzenz Erath. Schramberg 2006.