Walter Stanietz

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Walter Leo Josef Stanietz (born August 31, 1907 in Katowice ; † May 13, 1965 in Kritzenast , Upper Palatinate ) was a German writer and playwright as well as a member of the literary circle around Gerhart Hauptmann .

Stanietz became known during the National Socialist era for his plays, some of which can be attributed to the blood-and-soil ideology . The stage works - some in Silesian dialect - deal with simple peasants in Silesia and their tragic fates as well as the search for the sublime in respectable work and in nature. After the Second World War, Stanietz dealt with esotericism and became a student of the Indian philosopher Paramahansa Yogananda . His late work revolves around ultimate questions of being in meditations, essays and stories.

Life

Walter Stanietz spent his early childhood in Katowice in Upper Silesia, whose landscape and people shape his work. During his school days, the family moved to Landeshut in Lower Silesia. Here the boy attended Real-Gymnasium, but left school without a degree. Afterwards, at the request of his parents, he began a commercial activity in Glogau, but encounters with the Benedictine prior Justinus from Grüssau and the writer Gerhart Hauptmann as well as performances on a traveling stage were decisive for his career . Stanietz sought contact with the literary circle around Gerhart Hauptmann and began to write himself.

His first play Die Grunerts , which premiered in Bochum in 1935 and then played on 28 other stages, was successful . A little later, the drama The Peasant Chancellor appeared , which thematized the events of the Peasant War. In 1936 it was premiered at the same time on the stages in Münster, Königsberg and Breslau.

After a stay in the artists' colony on Hiddensee, Stanietz stayed in the theater metropolis of Berlin. In the mid-thirties, however, he returned to Silesia, where he found the relevant abode for his work in Steinseiffen, near Krummhübel in the Giant Mountains. Here he mainly wrote dramas about the difficult, but respectable, nature-related life of the Silesian rural population.

The tragedy Das Kind Gustl and the play The Path of Marie Tschenscher were created at this time . The latter was premiered in 1936 at the Old Theater in Leipzig and then saw performances on 50 other German theaters. The mother , premiered in Mannheim in 1938, went over 90 stages, was translated and went to Paris in French. Even the less well-known play Johann Hesse , published in 1939, was performed on 20 stages. In 1940 a novel with the title The Daily Bread was published by Fischer Verlag in Berlin. The work was an immediate success and saw four more editions. In 1941 Stanietz received the Upper Silesian Culture Prize from the Katowice Gauleiter Fritz Bracht . In 1942 another novel, The Brothers and the Maid , was published, the material of which was reworked into a drama a few years later.

The high point of his career as a playwright was the successful staging of the 1941 ballad am Strom by Heinrich George . The first performance of this piece under the title Katrin took place in 1943 at the Schillertheater in Berlin. In addition to Heinrich George, the well-known actors Berta Drews , Horst Caspar and Ernst Schröder took part.

After the end of the war, Walter Stanietz initially stayed in Silesia, which was now occupied by Poland, and was briefly imprisoned. He was dismissed at the intercession of Gerhart Hauptmann . After the death of his great role model, the poet was a passenger on the Gerhart-Hauptmann special train to Dresden on July 21, 1946. In 1948 he finally came to the remote town of Kritzenast in the Bavarian Forest, far from the theater world of the post-war period. The last stage play was performed by Stanietz in 1952. His drama Die Brüder , written in 1945 , for which he was awarded the Adalbert Stifter Prize at the Whitsun festival of the Sudeten Germans in 1950 in Kempten, was performed in Donaueschingen.

In the last phase of his life, Walter Stanietz was preoccupied with a certain "dedication", which in this world already takes the otherworld into consideration. The late work (partly published posthumously) with titles such as The Steps to the Self (1964), Zum Paradies des Menschen (1965), The Perfected (1971), Introduction to Silence (1977), Temple Without Doors, Without Gates (1999) especially appreciated in esoteric circles.

Walter Stanietz died on May 13, 1965 of a heart attack in Kritzenast. The grave is still in the cemetery in the neighboring village of Ast (Waldmünchen district).

Walter Stanietz was married to Gerda Czechne for the first time. Since 1945 he was married to Uta Charlotte Schibura and had a daughter. The widow died on January 15, 2016 in Rottach-Egern. Three other daughters and one son come from other connections.

Works

Dramas

  • Rolf Grunert. A tragedy (alternative title: The Grünerts). Albert Langen-Georg Müller, Berlin 1935. Premiere in Bochum in 1935 under the title Die Grünerts.
  • The peasant chancellor. Play. Albert Langen-Georg Müller, Berlin 1935. Premiere 1936 simultaneously in Münster, Königsberg (production by Hans Tügel) and Breslau.
  • The child Gustl. A tragedy. (1935?).
  • The path of Marie Tschenscher. Play. (alternative title: Die Tschenschermarie, The poor love). Albert Langen-Georg Müller, Berlin 1937. Premiere in 1936 at the Old Theater in Leipzig.
  • Johann Hesse. Play. S. Fischer, Berlin 1939. Premiere June 6, 1940 at the State Theater in Braunschweig.
  • The mother. Play. Badische Bühne, Karlsruhe 1939. Premiere on November 12, 1938 at the Nationaltheater in Mannheim.
  • Katrin. Play. (Working title: Ballade am Strom.) Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1941. Premiere 1943 at the Schillertheater in Berlin; Director: Heinrich George; with Heinrich George, Berta Drews, Horst Caspar and Ernst Schröder.
  • The brothers. Play. Rohrbacher, Donaueschingen 1952.

prose

  • Secret . In: Gerhart Hauptmann - How I experienced work and people. With an unpublished poem by Gerhart Hauptmann . In Die Schlesische Reihe , ed. by Egon H. Rakette, 1st issue, Wilh. Gotl. Korn Verlag, Breslau 1938.
  • The daily bread. Fischer, Berlin 1940.
  • The brothers and the maid. Adam Kraft Verlag, Karlsbad and Leipzig 1942.
  • The cruel mountain. In: Ernst Günther Bleisch (Ed.): Magic Silesia . Gräfe and Unzer Verlag, Munich 1962.
  • The step path to the self. Schwab, Gelnhausen 1964.
  • To the paradise of man. Baum, Pfullingen / Württemberg 1965.
  • The perfect one. Drei-Eichen, Munich 1971.
  • Introduction to silence. Verlag der Helfenden, Krün 1977.
  • Temple without doors without gates. Annapurna, Munich 1999.

Poetry

literature

  • Walter Stanietz: archive.org: Childhood in O / S ( Memento from March 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Jochen Hoffbauer (Ed.): You land of my childhood Silesia . Aufstieg Verlag, Munich 1966.
  • Konrad Werner: Walter Stanietz to commemorate his 100th birthday on August 31, 2007 . In the local Bunzlau newspaper . No. 10/2007.
  • Arno Lubos : History of the Literature of Silesia, III. Band . Bergstadtverlag Wilh. Gottl. Korn, Munich, 1974, cf. v. a. Pages 282-286.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-100-39326-5 , p. 584.
personal data
SURNAME Stanietz, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stanietz, Walter Leo Josef (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, playwright and member of the literary circle around Gerhart Hauptmann
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Katowice
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1965
Place of death Kritzenast , Upper Palatinate