When Martha is dancing

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Tom Saller reads from "When Martha Dances" (April 2019)

When Martha dances is the title of the debut novel by psychotherapist Tom Saller from 2018, in which he tells the life of the fictional Martha Wetzlaff from Pomerania, who was born in 1900, studied for a few years at the Weimar Bauhaus and after 1945 in New York made a career as a dance teacher. The narrative is linked to real events and people. Saller was inspired by the story of his own grandmother, Hedwig Saller, who was born in Pomerania.

structure

The book consists of ten chapters with headings such as New York (2001), Türnow (1900-1919), Weimar (1919-1924). The chapters of the time level from 1900 to 1945 are divided into sections, which are preceded by the geometric figures square, equilateral triangle and circle. These figures were an important basis for the theory of forms in the Bauhaus style . The novel is preceded by a dedication and a quote from William Faulkner . At the end there is a acknowledgment and references, which also contain a reference to the Wikipedia article on Adolf Bartels .

People and content

In his novel, Tom Saller uses not only fictional characters but also people from contemporary history and adapts their behavior and actions to his ideas. In addition to the famous masters of the Bauhaus, such as Walter Gropius , these are the photographer Ella Heldt, the daughter of the well-known photo and film pioneer Louis Heldt , who became the first woman in Thuringia to become a photo master in 1918, and the ethnically-anti-Semitic cultural politician Adolf Bartels , den she marries in the novel.

The novel contains a framework story that begins in September 2001 in New York and ends in 2002 in Cologne. The past time frame that describes Martha's life from her birth to her disappearance in 1945 extends from 1900 to 1945. In 2000, after the death of his grandmother Hedwig Wetzlaff, called Hedi, the German studies student Thomas Wetzlaff finds an old music book in a backpack, that served as a diary. It was run by his great-grandmother, Martha Wetzlaff, who has been considered missing since the disaster on the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff . The text breaks off in the middle of the sentence. Thomas' endeavor is to reconstruct Martha's life. He travels to New York to have the magazine auctioned off at Sotheby’s for a minimum bid of 30 million dollars, since it contains previously unknown sketches and drawings by their contemporaries at the Bauhaus such as Lyonel Feininger , Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky and other artists. The book was eventually bought by an anonymous person over the phone for 45 million dollars. After the auction, Thomas unexpectedly receives an invitation from the buyer to her suite in the Marriott World Trade Center , who wants to learn more about the seller of the diary, who she believes is a fraud.

The buyer turns out to be the missing 101-year-old Martha Styp, née Wetzlaff, born in 1900 in Türnow / Pomerania. She is the daughter of Kapellmeister Otto Wetzlaff and his wife Elfriede, who leads an entertainment orchestra in Türnow. Wolfgang, family friend and pianist in Otto's chapel, who later turns out to be the brother of Walter Gropius , discovers the girl's unusual talents, which are encouraged by her father. Martha can visualize sounds, she perceives them as different shapes such as squares, spheres, triangles or small circles ( synesthesia ). At Wolfgang's suggestion, she enrolls at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Walter Gropius becomes aware of her and uses a Martha's brooch to establish a connection with his family, which he does not share with her. Martha discovered dancing for herself and won the admiration and respect of the Bauhaus members. She works with Oskar Schlemmer on the visualization of his Triadic Ballet until the National Socialists close the art school in Weimar and Martha returns to her homeland. In her luggage she has the diary, which is valuable for herself and posterity, in which there are also letters from Wolfgang to Otto and Elfriede as well as to Martha, from which it emerges that Wolfgang is Martha's biological father.

She brought an illegitimate child, a girl, with her from her time at the Bauhaus, whose origins Martha does not disclose, but who is lovingly welcomed by Martha's musical family and given the name Hedwig (Hedi). Martha married her childhood friend Johann Styp in Türnow in order to give the child a father. But at the end of the Second World War , Martha's trail is lost on the run. Hedi also never reported about her origins and always ignored the time until the events on the Wilhelm Gustloff.

In an interview with Martha Styp, Thomas learns that Hedi is the illegitimate daughter of the photographer Ella Heldt and her future husband, the ethno-anti-Semitic cultural politician Adolf Bartels, and that he is therefore the great-grandson of Ella and not Martha. Martha had a brief lesbian love with Ella in the spirit of optimism of the Bauhaus movement. The child stood in the way of career-conscious Ella, who dreamed of a way like Leni Riefenstahl , and was handed over by Ella to her friend, who Hedi always passed off as her own child. With the support of her parents, she opened a dance school in Türnow during the Nazi era, where Adam, a talented boy from the city's Polish quarter, is also starting an apprenticeship. After the German invasion of Poland , Adam joins the Polish resistance.

In January 1945 Martha and Hedi flee, whereas the now old Kapellmeister Otto and Elfriede stay in their house and die under the rubble in a low-flying attack. Martha and Hedi hope to get a seat on the Wilhelm Gustloff in Gotenhafen . But Martha has to leave the ship because SS men have priority. She tries to hide Hedi under abandoned luggage so that she can stay on board in the chaos and somehow be rescued. Martha finally made her way to Türnow, where she found out about her parents' death; Johann was missing. Adam finds Martha again in Türnow; both go to the USA. They join the classical company of George Balanchine ; Adam as a dancer, Martha as a dance teacher.

Martha never found out that Hedi was discovered after all and had to leave the ship as well and, due to the knowledge of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff , assumes her death. But Hedi is taken by other refugees and also survives the war. She dies in 2000 without having had any further contact with Martha. Through a foundation that Ella brought into being, Martha becomes wealthy and can retire as a very rich woman - and as a woman over a century, buy back the diary of her youth for 45 million dollars. Martha dies after an intensive conversation with Thomas Wetzlaff on September 11, 2001 in the terrorist attack on September 11 in her hotel suite in the World Trade Center.

reception

Ullstein-Verlag has taken extensive marketing measures for the book in order to "enable it to have a nationwide presence right from the start". In addition, numerous readings with Tom Saller have been booked in bookstores and chain stores who are supposed to “help with sales”. The book “is well received by the book trade” and “has been discussed very positively”, especially since “the title hero is simply a popular figure.”

The book was not only positively reviewed.

  • In the Free Press from Chemnitz, Christian Schmidt complains that “the characters are described sparingly, but only inadequately. One would have expected more distinctive portraits, especially from Saller, who works as a psychotherapist. ”In addition, he sometimes misses“ logical connections ”and finds that“ the construction, whose language tries to be so straightforward and yet often seems awkward, has a lot of ornaments and artificialities in terms of content shows that the contradiction between content and form could hardly be greater. "
  • Katharina Mahrenholtz, editor at NDR Info , writes that "this reads excitingly, even if the review chapters are a bit confused"
  • In a dpa report in the Hamburger Abendblatt it says: “He (Saller) manages figures like the young Martha and her parents effortlessly and impressively. The passages that take place in New York, where Martha, who is over 100 years old, has a somewhat strange appearance, fall behind it. "

expenditure

  • Tom Saller: When Martha is dancing: Roman . Paul List Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-471-35167-3 .
  • Tom Saller, Anne Ratte-Polle, Barnaby Metschurat: When Martha dances . Unabridged reading edition. Audiobook Hamburg HHV, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 3-95713-108-1 (6 CDs - approx. 422 minutes).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Saller: When Martha is dancing . Ullstein, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-548-06052-1 , p. 287
  2. ↑ Tom Saller: When Martha is dancing. SWR2 online, August 12, 2018, accessed on September 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b "When Martha dances": Debut novel about the Bauhaus Weimar . Hamburg April 10, 2018 ( abendblatt.de - restricted access).
  4. ↑ a b audio book: Tom Saller - When Martha dances . Audiobook, Hamburg 2018 ( hoerbuch-hamburg.de ).
  5. ↑ Book charts - the current bestseller lists - New at number 21: When Martha dances. In: boersenblatt.net. September 18, 2018, accessed September 18, 2018 .
  6. ^ Christian Schmidt: Art as a small wide world In: Free press. 15th March 2018.
  7. ↑ Verbal contribution: Books with a historical background. on ndr.de.