Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind

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Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind (born June 10, 1901 in Weilheim in Upper Bavaria , † April 17, 1970 in Tutzing ) was a German author , translator , editor and journalist .

Origin and education

Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind was the son of the Munich veterinarian and Ministerialrat Paul Süskind (1873–1947). His mother Hedwig (1875–1943) was the daughter of the Swabian poet Emil Engelmann .

Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind studied history and law at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich .

Writer and critic

However, he gave up his studies to become a writer. In 1927 his short book Tordis was published . With Youth (1930) and Mary and her servant (1932) was followed by two novels. Since 1928, Süskind worked in the editing department of the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt .

Süskind made a name for himself as a literary critic as early as the late 1920s, primarily through his reviews for the magazine Die Literatur , whose editor he became on July 1, 1933 and was until 1943. As the editor, Süskind adapted to the National Socialist cultural policy. However, his own literary criticism showed no proximity to the literary policy of the Third Reich . Süskind was an employee of the Frankfurter Zeitung and directed its literary paper from May to August 1943, when the publication of the newspaper was banned. From November 1943 to February 1945, Süskind edited the literary sheet of the Krakauer Zeitung from his residence on Lake Starnberg , which appeared in the annexed Generalgouvernement , and from September 1944 he was co-editor of the Krakauer Monatshefte , a "wild National Socialist propaganda periodical" (von Harbou). To do this, according to Knud von Harbou, he drove once or twice a month to the general government led by Hans Frank , whose policy, according to Süskind in 1946 to Heinz Stroh , aimed at reconciliation with the Poles . From 1940 he also wrote for the weekly newspaper Das Reich .

Editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung

After 1945, Süskind joined the newly founded Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), for which he first worked as a special reporter for the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals and was present during the entire main trial. He collected his reports in 1963 in the volume The Mighty in Court . He then worked as a senior editor in the field of politics for the SZ.

Süskind had also been working as a translator since 1922 (including works by Tania Blixen , Herman Melville , Robert Louis Stevenson , William Makepeace Thackerays ) and was recognized as a language critic and nurse as early as the 1940s ( Vom ABC zum Sprachkunstwerk , 1940). His language-critical work after the war includes contributions to the column, for which Dolf Sternberger and Gerhard Storz were responsible, from the Unmenschen dictionary on the language of National Socialism in the monthly Die Wandlung . Excerpts from these were published in book form in 1957 and found a large readership.

Süskind is the father of the journalist Martin E. Süskind and the author Patrick Süskind . He was a childhood friend of Erika and Klaus Mann , after their emigration the two of them broke off contact with him demonstratively: You could have been a friend and protégé of our house and still hold a Nazi office in the "General Government". But you couldn't do the latter and continue to be called our friend , according to Erika Mann in 1946. He was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry and the PEN Center Germany .

Works (selection)

  • The morning light - story, Stuttgart 1926
  • Youth novel, Stuttgart 1930
  • Mary and her servant - Roman, Stuttgart 1932
  • From ABC to language artwork. A German language lesson for adults . Stuttgart: Deutsche Verl. Anst., 1940. Düsseldorf 1960, 2nd edition of the new edition edited by Thomas Schlachter , Edition Epoca, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-905513-42-0
  • Horse racing , Munich 1950
  • with Dolf Sternberger and Gerhard Storz : From the dictionary of the inhuman . Hamburg 1957
  • Who would have thought that of us - 10 years of the Federal Republic of Germany , 1959
  • Decals - Notes from the everyday life of a contemporary , Stuttgart 1963
  • End of religious language - and then what? . In: Heinz Zahrnt / Axel Seeberg (ed.): Farewell to Christianity? Hamburg 1964, p. 160ff.
  • The not entirely iron chancellor - youthful years of the Federal Republic of Germany as publisher, Boppard 1965
  • Known, adored, loved - 50 necrologists from our time , Munich 1969
  • I have something against it - language stumbling , Stuttgart 1969

literature

  • Wilhelm Hausenstein: Light Below the Horizon - Diaries from 1942 to 1946 , Munich 1967.
  • Daniel Göske: Hermann Melville in German , Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-6314-2394-2 .
  • Wolfgang Beutin: Preschool of writing , appendix in German lesson by Siegfried Lenz. Hartmut Lüdke Verlag, Hamburg 1970, review: Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg, first edition 1968, ISBN 3-455-04211-2
  • Knud von Harbou : When Germany wanted to save its soul. The Süddeutsche Zeitung in the founding years after 1945. dtv, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-423-28055-6 .
  • Hartwig Wiedow: Wilhelm E. Süskind - studies . Hagen: Ardenkuverlag, 2004 ISBN 3-932070-58-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Habel (ed.): Who is who? , Berlin 1970.
  2. ↑ Hans Michael Körner (Ed.): Large Bavarian Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 3, Munich 2005, p. 1931.
  3. ↑ The occasional reference that the second novel was banned in 1933 is incorrect (but Tordis and the two novels were not reissued).
  4. ↑ Knud von Harbou: When Germany wanted to save its soul , 2015, p. 83
  5. ↑ Knud von Harbou: When Germany wanted to save its soul , 2015, p. 85f.
  6. ↑ Stephen Braese: Rechenschaften . Wallstein Verlag, 2004, ISBN 9783892447566 , p. 31.
  7. ↑ Knud von Harbou: When Germany wanted to save its soul , 2015, p. 85
personal data
SURNAME Süskind, Wilhelm Emanuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Süskind, WE
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Weilheim
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1970
Place of death Tutzing