Waldemar Bonsels

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Waldemar Bonsels (1923)

Jakob Ernst Waldemar Bonsels (born February 21, 1880 in Ahrensburg , † July 31, 1952 in Ambach am Starnberger See ) was one of the most widely read German writers in the 1920s . His book Maya the Bee and Her Adventures , published in 1912 and translated into over 40 languages, and the sequel Himmelsvolk published in 1915 made him world famous. The main character of both novels is Maya the bee .

Bonsels was an outspoken anti-Semite and in 1933 expressed his approval of the Nazi policy against Jews , in a widespread newspaper article (“NSDAP und Judentum”) he called the Jews “a deadly enemy” who “poisoned the culture”.

Life

origin

Waldemar Bonsels was born on February 21, 1880, the second of five children in Ahrensburg (Holstein). His father Reinhold Bonsels (1848–1923) gave up his pharmacy in Ahrensburg in 1884 and studied dentistry in Berlin . From 1890 to 1897 he had his own dental practice in Kiel , in 1898 he moved to the v. Bodelschwingh institutions in Bethel in Bielefeld - Gadderbaum .

Training and first activities

Waldemar Bonsels at the age of 15

Waldemar Bonsels attended the Oberrealschule am Knooper Weg in Kiel (today's Humboldt School), comparable to today's grammar school. His little brother was shot there in 1893 by a 15-year-old. He left school on Easter 1896 at the age of 16 without a degree. He then completed a commercial apprenticeship in Bielefeld and worked from the end of 1900 to June 1902 as a businessman in a Karlsruhe printing company. In Bethel, Basel and England he trained as a mission salesman and went to the Dutch East Indies on behalf of the Basel Mission in 1903 , where he only stayed from October 1903 to April 1904.

Shortly after his return from India, Bonsels founded the EW Bonsels and Co. publishing house in Munich- Schwabing with his friends Hans Brandenburg , Bernd Isemann and Carl Strauss . This publisher published his open letter My Exit from the Basel Mission Industry and its Reasons in 1904 , in which he formulated his criticism of the work of the Basel Mission in India.

Upheavals

Villa Isemann in Oberschleißheim
The Bonsels house in Ambach

In 1906 he married Klara Brandenburg, the sister of one of his co-publishers, but separated from her in the year the second son was born. A few years later he married Elise Ostermeyer, through whose father Johannes Ostermeyer he had come to the Basel Mission. Two sons were born from this marriage.

In the early 1910s, Bonsels and his family moved into the house of their friend and co-publisher Isemann in Oberschleißheim near Munich. There he wrote the book Maya the Bee and Her Adventures , which appeared in 1912, was later translated into over 40 languages ​​and made him world famous. Also in 1912 Bonsels withdrew from E. W. Bonsels and Co.-Verlag.

During the First World War , Bonsels was a war correspondent for the War Press Office of the Great General Staff, first in Galicia , later in the Baltic States . In July 1918 he became a member of the foreign department of the OHL . In the same year he bought and moved into a house in Ambach on the east bank of Lake Starnberg , where he lived until his death. However, his wife Elise and his sons did not come to Ambach, as Bonsels preferred a life without a family; the marriage was divorced. With the dancer Edith von Schrenck , Bonsels had another son, but did not marry her.

In 1925 Bonsels accompanied the documentary filmmaker Adolph von Dungern ( Pori , Urwelt im Urwald , Am Großer Strom ) and the cameraman August Brückner (who died of a tropical disease on a similar expedition in 1931) on a “biological film expedition” to Brazil. According to von Dungern, however, “the fever of welcome camaraderie in hunting and fishing, research and photography came to an early end, and Waldemar Bonsels felt compelled to return to the temperate climate of Europe after a few months”.

Waldemar Bonsels became one of the most widely read authors in Germany in the 1920s. Until the 1940s, he published new books every one to two years. He gave lectures and read from his books in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the USA.

Relationship to National Socialism

Bonsels was known as an anti-Semite , so that there was already a closeness to National Socialism. In contrast to "the avant-garde of the Weimar Republic" ( list of banned authors during the Nazi era ), he was not banned from writing, but was accepted into the Reich Chamber of Literature. After the student book burnings on May 10, 1933, the newspapers published an article sent to them by the Propaganda Ministry of Bonsels, NSDAP and Judaism . In it he welcomed the fact that the "overwhelming influence of Jewish people" was being ended in culture too. “The Jew is different from us,” he remarked. Jews represented a "penetrating element of influence". They spread "poison". Their influence is to be seen as a “deadly enemy” of “our movement” and the national community as a whole. This is especially true for art and culture, it was Jews who decided which writers and poets were successful. During National Socialism, Bonsels experienced no restrictions on his writing activity.

During the Second World War he was the editor of the war propagandist Munich Feldposthefte .

In 1941 he gave with The Guardian of the Threshold. Die Welt des Novalis produced an anthology of which the literary scholar Herbert Uerlings said it contained “open racist agitation” against Heinrich Heine , while the poet Novalis was exposed to “anti-Semitic exploitation” by Bonsels.

In 1943, Bonsels' novel The Greek Dositos was published in an edition of around 100 as a private print “not intended for the public”. He sent a copy to the then Reich Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick , emphasizing the intended anti-Semitic effect of the book.

post war period

With the end of National Socialism, Bonsels was banned from publication in the American and British occupation zones . In 1947 he joined the denazification of Henriette von Schirach on as a witness. He revised Dositos and published the work in 1948 with Corona Verlag in Neustadt (Haardt) in the French occupation zone. In 1952 he gave the book the new title The Forgotten Light .

In 1949 Waldemar Bonsels fell ill with lymphogranulomatosis (Hodgkin's disease). In the following year he married his longtime partner Rose-Marie Bachofen. Bonsels died on July 31, 1952 in his house in Ambach, his urn was buried in the garden of the house.

reception

Since 1932 there has been a Waldemar-Bonsels-Weg in Bonsels' hometown Ahrensburg. Also in Kiel, where he attended high school, there is a street with his name in the Pries - Friedrichsort district . The Bonselsweg is named after him in Oberschleißheim, the place where Maya the Bee was born .

The Waldemar Bonsels Foundation , established in 1977, is dedicated to the literary legacy of Waldemar Bonsels. She has also owned his former home in Ambach since 1978. The villa was renovated in 2014. The Waldemar Bonsels Foundation has set up a memory room in the house with Bonsels' desk and his library, which, however, cannot be visited due to the use of the building by private tenants.

On a website of the Schleswig-Holstein state government you can find the literary history and aesthetic classification, Bonsels' books can be attributed to the neo-romanticism , a reference to the fact that he was one of the most widely read writers of the Weimar Republic, and the note that he was a well-known anti-Semite who was able to continue writing undisturbed under National Socialism and, among other things, has now come out with war propaganda. He was later forgotten, but then became known again through the television series Maya the Bee in the 1970s.

In cooperation with the Waldemar Bonsels Foundation, the Literaturhaus München held the conference 100 Years of Maya the Bee - Waldemar Bonsels' literature and its consequences on March 3rd and 4th, 2011 . The reporting about it put Bonsels' anti-Semitism and his relationship to the Third Reich in the foreground.

Works (selection)

  • My departure from the Basel mission industry and its reasons: An open letter to the Basel mission community in Württemberg and Switzerland . E. W. Bonsels Verlag, Munich 1904
  • Ave vita morituri te salutant . E. W. Bonsels Verlag, Munich 1906
  • Mare. A girl's youth . F. Fontane & Co., Berlin 1907
  • Kyrie eleison . E. W. Bonsels Verlag, Munich 1908
  • Blood . Janssen, Hamburg 1909
  • Don Juan's death . Carl Friedr. Strauss, Munich 1910
  • The fire . Carl Friedr. Strauss, Munich 1910
  • The deepest dream . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1911
  • The dead of the eternal war . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1911
  • Maya the bee and her adventures . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1912
  • The Anjekind . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1913
  • Heavenly People . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1915
  • India trip . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1916
  • The vicar of Norby . Schmidkunz, Munich 1916. From 1919 as Norby - A dramatic poem by Schuster & Loeffler reissued
  • Human ways. From a vagabond's notes . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1917
  • Don Juan . Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1919 (epic poetry, begun in 1906; the last four songs were published in 1910 by Carl Friedrich Strauss in Munich as Don Juan's death ; the work was finished in 1914). First edition: 3000 copies
  • Life, I salute you . Otto Janke, Berlin 1921
  • Eros and the Gospels. From a vagabond's notes . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1921
  • Fools and heroes. From a vagabond's notes . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1923
  • The wanderer between dust and stars . German Book Community, Berlin 1926
  • Mario and the animals . German publishing house, Stuttgart 1928
  • Brazilian days and nights. (with Adolph von Dungern) Berlin 1931.
  • Days of childhood . Ullstein, Berlin 1931
  • The rider in the desert . German publishing house, Stuttgart 1935
  • Mario's homecoming . German publishing house, Stuttgart 1937
  • The journey around the heart . Cotta, Stuttgart 1938
  • Encounters . West-East, Berlin 1940
  • as editor: The Guardian of the Threshold. The world of Novalis , 1941
  • Dositos. A mythical report from the turn of the century . Münchner Buchverlag, Munich 1943
  • Mortimer. The one driven by dark duty . Kissner, Hamburg 1946
  • Runes and landmarks . Occident, Wuppertal 1947
  • The rule of the beast . Gustav Spielberg Chronos Verlag, Berlin 1949
  • Complete edition . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt 1992, ISBN 3-421-06482-2 .

literature

  • Fritz Adler : Waldemar Bonsels. His worldview and his characters . Rütten & Loening, Frankfurt am Main 1925.
  • Günther Becker: Bonzel - history of the village Bonzel (city Lennestadt) and the family of Bonslede. Lennestadt 1979, DNB 800686500 .
  • Adalbert Elschenbroich:  Bonsels, Waldemar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 449 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Lini Hübsch carer: Waldemar Bonsels. A biographical study. In: Waldemar Bonsels. Complete works , edited by Rose-Marie Bonsels. Stuttgart 1992, Volume 1, pp. 11-65.
  • Lini Hübsch-Pfleger: Letters and documents on the "India trip". In: India as a fascination: Voices on Waldemar Bonsels' “India trip”. Ambacher Schriften No. 6, edited by Rose-Marie Bonsels. Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-447-03125-5 , pp. 94-119.
  • Karl Rheinfurth : Waldemar Bonsels. A study . Schuster & Löffler, Berlin 1919.
  • Karl Rheinfurth: The New Myth. Waldemar Bonsels and his work . German publishing house, Stuttgart 1930.
  • Jürgen Schwalm: A journey around the heart. The writer Waldemar Bonsels (1880–1952). Publishing house literary tradition, ISBN 3-86672-026-2 .
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 , pp. 87f.
  • Sven Hanuschek (Ed.): Waldemar Bonsels. Career strategies of a successful writer. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-447-06571-9 .
  • Bernhard Viel: The honey collector . Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95757-148-9
  • Harald Weiß: Maya the Bee's flight through the world of media. Book film, radio play and cartoon series . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-447-06572-6 .
  • Harald Weiß: Waldemar Bonsels' literary contribution to the First World War . In: Claudia Glunz / Thomas F. Schneider (eds.): Literary processing of the war from the 17th to the 20th century (= War and Literature, Yearbook XVI, 2010), V&R unipress, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-389971-637 -5 , pp. 47-60.

Web links

Commons : Waldemar Bonsels  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Waldemar Bonsels  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Plöger: History of the Humboldt School in Kiel . Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster, 1986, pp. 73f.
  2. ↑ Lini Hübsch-Pfleger: Waldemar Bonsels and the dancer Edith von Schrenck. O. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, p. 102f.
  3. ^ Waldemar Bonsels, Adolph Freiherr von Dungern: Brazilian days and nights. Berlin: Hobbing 1931.
  4. ↑ Joy in strength. In: taz.de. February 19, 2005, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Waldemar Bonsels, NSDAP. and Judaism, quoted here. according to: Siegener Zeitung, May 23, 1933.
  6. ↑ Bonsels: The Jew Heine had drawn "the whole world of ideas of Romanticism [=" highest and purest German spirituality and self-reflection "] and its poetry into the sewage of a sensational intellectuality", see: Herbert Uerlings, Friedrich von Hardenberg, called Novalis, Stuttgart 1991, p. 540.
  7. ↑ More than the father of Maya the bee. In: zeit.de. November 17, 1978, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  8. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 67.
  9. ↑ More than the father of Maya the bee. In: zeit.de. November 17, 1978, accessed December 9, 2014 .
  10. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Waldemar Bonsels
  11. ^ Website of the Waldemar Bonsels Foundation
  12. ↑ Waldemar Bonsels House in Ambach completely renovated merkur.de, October 3, 2014
  13. ↑ Article about Waldemar Bonsels schleswig-holstein.de (the article is partly a reproduction of the Wikipedia article).
  14. ^ The foundation and conference program (PDF) waldemar-bonsels-stiftung.de
  15. ^ Nazi allegations against Bonsels: Was "Maya the Bee" author an anti-Semite? n-tv.de, March 3, 2011
  16. ↑ Children's literature and National Socialism: Our brown bee Maja sueddeutsche.de, March 8, 2011
  17. ^ Full text in the Gutenberg project
personal data
SURNAME Bonsels, Waldemar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bonsels, Jakob Ernst Waldemar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Ahrensburg
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1952
Place of death At the river