Workers at House Nyland

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The eponymous house Nieland in Hopsten

The workers at House Nyland were an artist association founded in 1912 by Josef Winckler , Wilhelm Vershofen , Jakob Kneip , Theo Rody and Severin Kirfel , which existed until 1925. Programmatically, the aim was a realistic synthesis of "art, science and economy" (statute), ie culture, industry and art, of modern economic life and freedom - in short, industrial poetry. Until its 'dissolution', bourgeois writers, workers 'writers and expressionist authors from the Rhenish-Westphalian region joined the association and thus formed an avant-garde of industrial poetry that created the basic requirements for the later recognition and reception of workers' literature.

founding

The workers at House Nyland - Nothing romantic, nothing mysterious is hidden under this name. All those who will speak in these papers have lingered for a longer or shorter time under the broad roofs of the house of Nyland, that somewhere in the realm has its very real existence. And if they seemed to have symbolism in the name of the hospitable house, this was only a secondary reason why they named their work on German culture and freedom after this house.

At Easter 1912, Josef Winckler (1881–1966), Wilhelm Vershofen (1878–1960), Jakob Kneip (1881–1958), Theo Rody (d. 1957) and Severin Kirfel met in the Nieland House's Blue Salon to found a writers' association , which was to endure until the mid-1920s, the union of "Workers on House Nyland". The “Bund” was evidently founded on the Easter weekend of 1912 when Kirfel, Kneip, Rody, Vershofen and Winckler moved to Haus Nieland in Hopsten near Rheine / Westf. met. Haus Nieland was an old Töddenhaus that had been in the possession of the relatives of Winckler's maternal line, the Nieland family, for generations. The “work people” were increased in personnel by members of the former Bonn student group “Academic Association for the Care of Art and Literature”, who met in December 1912 in Düsseldorf. This is also the reason why Winckler, Vershofen and Kneip designed the first issue of the “Quadriga” completely on their own. The membership base was continuously expanded.

The "Bund" was a loose association of writers and painters who dealt artistically with the industrial and working world. Citizens interested in literature who identified with the program also joined the association. In the decade before the First World War , approaches to a literature on industry and technology developed, which found their form in the rise of the " Deutscher Werkbund " and the constitution of the "Werkfolk" who felt committed to the goals of the "Werkbund". But what led to innovative developments in the field of fine arts, architecture and design among the members of the “Werkbund” seemed to get stuck with the “Werkleuten” within the apparently unreflected idealization of the industrial landscape on the Ruhr. Still, at

Despite all the vagueness of the program, the “workmen” corresponded to the educational policy ideas of the (non-communist) labor movement and the trade unions far more than the “cultural Bolshevism” of those left bohemians who, in the face of revolts and uprisings, had dedicated themselves to the proletarian cult. The aim of their efforts, the cultural promotion and integration of the “fourth estate”, with regard to the state of consciousness of the German working class, also revealed that they assessed social conditions more realistically than, for example, the Actionists and Dadaists.

The intention of the “workmen” in no way corresponded to what is understood today by the term “workers' literature”. For example, at the Dortmund “ Gruppe 61 ” around Fritz Hüser and Max von der Grün or the “ Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt ”, the “Werkleuten” lacked those socially critical or environmentally conscious aspects that were necessary for B. uncovered the connections between industry and pollution, the reality of work and the reality of workers, or capital and domination. Pathos and affirmation of technology characterize the time-related language of the “workmen”, who never wanted to be understood as “worker poets” but as “industrial poets”. Over 30 years after its founding, Winckler retrospectively assessed the "Bund" as follows:

For the first time, poets, painters, industrialists, merchants, philosophers and workers were united in joint creative work on a national basis against economic imperialism, mammonism, materialism from a thoroughly life-affirming dynamic world feeling in contrast to the fin de siècle mood, disaffection with the Reich, political hatred, against the doctrine of work impoverishment and called upon not to abuse those immense powers of life which modern research and technology have opened up to mankind not in self-destructive negation, but to creatively increase them to a positive way of life, in the belief that we are only at the beginning of the technical age and all of them Machine-busters be fools! How much the development has shown us right - but the incantations faded away, a gigantic annihilation loomed! So for us the time problem was not a technical, mechanical one, but a moral one! In this sense, we also celebrated the joy of work, the pride in the unheard of violence, the triumph of the working people and issued the first industrial folders that showed no Kollwitz figures, no Zille types, but the self-confident worker as well as the responsible industrial leader, dignity of the workman, the mission of the industrialist!

Writers such as Gerrit Engelke (1890–1918), Carl Maria Weber (1890–1953), Karl Bröger (1896–1944), Heinrich Lersch (1889–1936), Max Barthel (1893–1975) or Otto Wohlgemuth (1884–1965) and painters such as Ernst Isselmann (1885–1916), Franz M. Jansen (1885–1958) or Carlo Mense (1886–1965) belonged to the "Bund" as well as Winckler, Vershofen and Kneip or were friends with it. Supporting and honorary members were the chairman of the Berliner Handelsbank and later Reich Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (1867–1922) and the poet Richard Dehmel (1863–1920), to whom the “workmen” dedicated a special issue of their “Quadriga” magazine in autumn 1913. Richard Dehmel, Alfred Walter von Heymel and Anton Kippenberg , who in 1914 added Winckler's Iron Sonnets to the Insel-Bücherei, which he had relocated as No. 134, were members of the voluntary artistic advisory board. Regular meetings, the so-called work conferences, were part of the life of the “Federation” and took place at least twice a year. In addition, the members were in close personal and correspondence contacts. For the majority of the members z. B. Josef Winckler maintained friendly contact throughout his life, and the founders never lost sight of each other. This may also have been due to the family relationship that culminated in the person of Josef Winckler.

Since the participation in the organs of the "workmen" did not depend on membership, the names of the members can no longer be fully researched today. In literary research, however, employees are often referred to as members. The members present only record the minutes of the “workers' meetings”. Since the establishment of a Nyland archive began in 1918, it can be assumed that all the logs were also collected centrally. This Nyland archive can no longer be found today. Part of the holdings are in the Jakob Kneip estate, Rommersdorf, and in the archive of the Nyland Foundation , Cologne.

"Workers" magazines

Between 1912 and 1914 the “Werkeople” published the magazine Quadriga , which served the “Bund” as a forum for literary debate and was published by Bernhard Vopelius in Jena . It was edited and edited by Wilhelm Vershofen and Josef Winckler. The magazine was financed primarily by the publishers, who not only had to pay all the fees incurred, but also contributed to the printing costs with 800 RM per year. The members of the "Bund" received the magazine free of charge.

The Quadriga is considered to be the source for the program of the “Bund” , along with the later “Werkeople” magazine, Nyland, and was accordingly frequently evaluated. The magazine Nyland remained a literary hodgepodge during its publication, which could not prevail over other literary magazines. Compared to the Quadriga, the editors did not succeed in giving the publication an independent profile. This was primarily due to the political situation in Germany after the First World War. Winckler and Vershofen shared the editorship of the Nylandheftweise, as the travel opportunities due to the occupation of the Rhineland made frequent meetings impossible. While Vershofen was in Thuringia, lost contact with most of the "workmen" in the Rhineland and was unable to escape the growing influence of the publisher Eugen Diederichs, Winckler, who had remained in the Rhineland, was given editorial responsibility - including for Diederichs' growing influence. After Vershofen's exit and Winckler's refusal to submit to Diederich's wishes, Eugen Diederich-Verlag terminated the two-year contract with the "Werkleuten" for the publication of Nyland with issue 8 in 1920 , one year after issue 7 in spring Appeared in 1921. Although the "workmen" announced a series of pamphlets at the publisher, the alienation between Diederichs and them was so advanced that not only did the pamphlets not appear, but the publisher gradually removed all of the "workmen" publications from the publisher's range and terminated the collaboration.

The above-mentioned minutes of the “workers” meetings, the correspondence between the members and internal “worksheets” are important sources for the organization. This is where the structures of the “Federation” are revealed, both in terms of members and opinion-forming as well as the organizational structure.

After the constituent assembly, which took place in December 1912 in the main building of the Düsseldorf construction company Rheinhof, Rody, Winckler and Vershofen worked out what should prove to be the "engines" of the "Bund" in the future. At the “Werkagung” in Niederlahnstein on May 17, 1913, the statutes were discussed, changed, adopted and finally published in their final version in the fifth issue of the Quadriga (summer 1913). These statutes were preceded by an opinion-forming process that belies the previous claims of the authoritarian leadership style of the “workmen”. The process from the first draft of the statutes to the final version took over a year and is documented by letters. Against Vershofen’s objection, an arbitration body, the Artistic Advisory Board, was also introduced to democratize the selection process for contributions to the publications of the “Federation” (Quadriga, books, binders). This should z. E.g. in cases of differences of opinion between the authors or the “work management” and the editors of the “work people” publications, a final decision can be made (Articles of Association § 16). These democratic approaches are certainly not comparable with our current understanding of democracy. But it should not be overlooked that the “Werkleuten” was an association that was constituted at the beginning of the century; At a time when an understanding of democracy according to today's ideas was not yet developed in Germany.

Program

The program of the "workmen", which can be seen as the lowest common denominator, is clear from the first issue of the Quadriga:

An unprejudiced point of view should keep us away from the mere theory and the mind-numbing catchphrase, from an unworldly aestheticism and sterile L'art pour l'art presumption [...]. Existence does not seem deplorable to us; we do not see an endlessly pointless event in it. We know that everything that is is an eternal flow and becoming. That man in this flow of becoming is not driftwood circling without will, that he is rather the force that builds the dams of the inquiring and creative spirit in the flow of times and introduces this flow into the reservoirs and givers of strength of culture. That is why the hard struggle of our days for bread and light does not fill us with timid fear, it fills us with the hope of the future of the victory of cultural interests. The smoke from the chimneys and blast furnaces, the people-devouring city and the land-shaking pounding of the machines do not awaken sentimental regret in us. We salute the thousand forces that are at work to redeem our time from itself. We find ourselves struggling with the gloomy shadows of our days, shadows in which light will first reveal itself. Shadows, without which the better cannot be and which will have overcome the following time in culture and freedom: Culture only grows out of a striving for simplicity, authenticity and truth that is full of struggle and hard work. Freedom for the individual and his mission in a time of trusts and socialization, the rewards of flat and spread mediocrity!

In these lines, Winckler's and Vershofen’s belief in technology is revealed, which are behind these lines. True art, born from the life of working people, was the name of the creed. Richard Dehmel, Emile Verhaeren and Walt Whitman were proclaimed literary models. The technology presentation was the only thing all “workmen” had in common! Political opinions, literary concepts and views on life were too different; too different also the literary quality of the expressiveness. The political spectrum ranged from the socialist-oriented authors like Alfons Petzold to the later moderate ones like Max Barthel, the bourgeois ones like Josef Winckler to the conservative-clerical authors like Jakob Kneip. Even excluding the real antagonisms within industrial production raised the first contrasts within the group. This was reason enough for Paul Zech not to join the “Werkleuten”, contrary to Dehmel's request. The program may have intended to overcome the class contradictions, but it was seldom expressed in the publications of the “Workers”. The 'working class' and the 'bourgeoisie' stood too much in an ideologically disguised class struggle for the postulate of individual freedom striven for by the “Werkleuten” to be realized. The goal of the “workmen”, the achievement of individual freedom and equality - not in an economic but in an idealistic sense - had to fail in the existing political climate.

The literary quality of the “workmen” was also too inconsistent; only two authors have stood the test of time: Gerrit Engelke and Josef Winckler. The former, who died early, was referred to the “workmen” through Richard Dehmel. In the eighth issue published on the occasion of the “Werkführer” conference in Cologne, the Quadriga (spring 1914) published a number of poems by Gerrit Engelke, a 22-year-old Hanoverian, under the heading Dampforgel und Singstimme, which marked the beginning of his short literary career. He, too, showed himself to be a passionate admirer of Walt Whitman and an apologist for technology. The “workmen” themselves celebrated Engelke as probably the strongest poet to emerge from their circle; an attitude that Anita Overwien-Neuhaus ( Otto Wohlgemuth , 1986) aptly interpreted as symptomatic of the development of social thinking among the "workers":

The efforts of the Nyland district for the integration of the fourth class, for the cultural upgrading of the working class, inevitably had to coincide with the efforts of those poetic workers who sought connection with the bourgeois culture with their works.

Winckler's merit is to have established the motif of the industrial and working world in the bourgeois literary reception, but without the socially critical claim such as Paul Zech represented. In the strict style of the sonnet, Winckler exaggerated the 'miracles' of a wild-looking, unruly present and future, of technology and the arts of industry: The iron sonnets are considered the first closed industrial poetry of the 20th century and made one possible for the "Werkleuten" larger circle of recipients. They made Winckler the literary exponent of the group and formed the cornerstone of his literary career. Richard Dehmel, one of the most recognized and successful lyric poets of the late 19th century, enthusiastically welcomed this poem and in the years to come he became the main sponsor of the “Werkfolk”. In terms of content, a conglomerate of idealizations of work processes, exaggeration of the self-confident man of action, gigantomania and homage to industry, the Verswerk repeatedly formed - pars pro toto - the starting point for attacks against the "workers".

While the “Iron Sonnets” were celebrated up until the 1940s as an expression of the turn to industry and technology as the areas from which the contemporary is shaped, literary historiography was reinterpreted after 1945. Rainer Stollmann ( Aestheticization of Politics. Stuttgart 1978) described the magazine Nyland as a normal publishing company in which the counterrevolutionary, proto-fascist features of the Nyland district were assimilated with expressionist aesthetics and thus got stuck in a simplistic, ideologically pre-determined black and white thinking : The proto-fascist, national-conservative bourgeoisie in antagonism to the socialist and internationalist workers who face their social situation in a class-struggle and self-confident manner - such an ideological interpretation is influenced by the idea of ​​class struggle. Among the authors of the Nyland magazine were certainly bourgeois authors who later professed National Socialism, such as Hans Friedrich Blunck, who later became President of the Reich Chamber of Literature, Hanns Johst , Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer and Richard Euringer ; However, it should not be overlooked that these authors were from Diederichs Verlag and never members of the “Werkfolk”. Stollmann went one step further, however, by drawing a direct line of development from the “Werkfolk” via the Weimar Republic to the “Third Reich” and the gas stoves at Auschwitz. After reproducing the text of a sonnet, he rhetorically states:

“Isn't that an aesthetic prelude to the National Socialist persecution of the Jews? Just as the process of making a monument out of 'human material' is enjoyed here, the Nazis actually set about making lampshades out of human skin . As you can see, this barbarism does not require a “demonic” Hitler, but arises from the consistent defense of the capital relation itself. "

Stollmann's statements correspond to those of various other authors who tried to establish an anti-socialist and pro-imperialist attitude on the part of the “work people”. Those responsible for the Marbach exhibition and the literature in the industrial age catalog (1987) are far more careful and differentiated when they discover:

In the mixture of these goals of 'sanctifying' work as a victorious struggle against nature, Protestantist work ethics, representations of labor and anti-civilizing [...] affect, elements of the fascist workers' ideology are predefined. So some of the works by the “workmen” could easily be captured by the National Socialists - e. Sometimes against the will of the authors. However, it would be a mistake to see a straightforward path for 'industrial poets' towards Nazi literature. Only a few from the union of the 'work people', especially the former Trotskyist Max Barthel and Heinrich Lersch, openly admitted to the new system and worked in official functions. Others were indifferent or silent. Authors like Wilhelm Vershofen and Karl Bröger [...] distanced themselves. Paul Zech, who was close to the Nyland district, emigrated in 1933 [...] and actively called for resistance against Hitler.

What was overlooked in all these interpretive approaches (with the exception of the Marbach catalog): The “workers at House Nyland” were not working-class writers, and they did not understand each other! (Even Gerrit Engelke, celebrated as a worker poet, attached great importance to his job title Tüncher in order to distinguish himself from the underprivileged class of workers.) According to their self-image, they were a trade union that stands above the class contradictions of the declining social order, in it stands the unskilled worker human and brotherly next to the academic, next to the manager of large industrial plants. Idealistic in their ideas, they rejected violent changes and tried, as “heralds” of a new world, to affirm the positive phenomena of technology. What is bread and necessity for millions every day, art cannot pass by in romantic enthusiasm.

Organizational matters

The statutes of the "workmen" stipulated the various tasks that the "federal government" had undertaken and that contained the reason for the merger, because an interest group was formed to create the financial reserve for the publications of the members:

2. The purpose of the association is: to promote achievements in all areas of art, science and economy from the point of view of their intrinsic value. The association is far from party-political and denominational efforts.
3. The purpose is to be achieved:
a) by publishing Quadriga magazine
b) through special publications
c) through lectures and exhibitions
d) through economic support.

The implementation of these articles of association was carried out consistently. Even before the statutes were adopted by the “Werkagung” in 1913, three issues of the Quadriga were published. With this, the association created a pillar for the possible broad impact. In the years to come, numerous special publications were published that made the “workmen” known to a wider audience.

The first special publication of the "Werkeople", the art portfolio industry with lithographs by Ernst Isselmann from Rees and etchings by Franz M. Jansen as well as poems by Winckler, which was published by Quadriga-Verlag , was already out of print in the spring of 1914. The drawings and etchings in this portfolio also formed the basis of the first “Werkfolk” exhibition, which took place in December 1920 in the Reuss and Pollack Gallery , Kurfürstendamm, Berlin. In addition, further exhibitions with literary and graphic works of the "Bund" were organized in bookshops and galleries in Munich and Wroclaw, which were accompanied by readings and lectures.

Following the work conference in Sonneberg on May 13, 1920, a meeting of the newly formed “Committee for the Lecture System of the Federation of Workers” (including Kneip, Jansen, Lersch, Vershofen, Winckler, Albert Talhoff) took place Series of lectures beginning on June 15, 1920 (i.e. expressly after the Reichstag elections). Carl Maria Weber was entrusted with the preliminary business work. In general, the lectures should serve the purpose of "enhancing the value of creative work, resp. to propagate the leadership in a popular way in small and medium-sized towns and cities in Thuringia and Franconia ”. Kneip, Lersch, Talhoff and Winckler were among the first speakers. A second series of lectures in November / December of that year was organized by FM Jansen and Christoph Wieprecht. With brochures written by Kneip and Vershofen one also sought to spread the ideas of the federal government. These smaller publications and the reading trips (they lasted four weeks and were rewarded with 1,000 marks per participant) were financed by Thuringian and Franconian industrialists who were familiar with Vershofen.

After all, financial support was also taken seriously. Wilhelm Vershofen has repeatedly supported penniless writers and artists on behalf of the “work people”. In addition, members of the “workmen” had the opportunity to live and work for a longer period in Haus Nieland.

resolution

There is no specific dissolution date or an official dissolution decision by the “Werkfolk”. The end of the Nyland magazine marked the beginning of the disintegration of the "Confederation", because you lost your 'mouthpiece' and your publisher. The lack of homogeneity in the group and personal vanities may have played a not inconsiderable role in the fact that the joint work was stopped. This is evidenced by z. B. the joint exit of Kneip and Lersch from the federal government at the end of 1920. The individual work of the individual members also superimposed their interest in the development of the working group; So Winckler was fully occupied with the preparation of three books and with his - also literary - reorientation and self-discovery in 1921-23, and Vershofen had less and less time to get involved with the "Werkleuten" since his university career in Jena. The takeover of the Nyland editorial team by Winckler, Talhoff and Kneip worsened the already at times tense relationship between the editors since autumn 1919. Vershofen had always regarded the "Werkfolk" magazines as his own project and could not cope with the 'disembarkation'. With the failure of the main assets, the dissolution of the "Federation" was foreseeable, especially since the political situation in the Rhineland made communication within the leadership difficult. Up to 1924 the Bund was nominally represented by Winckler and Vershofen, but apart from Vershofen’s attempt to establish a magazine at the Keramos Verlag, Bamberg, with the subtitle “published by the Bund der Werkeople auf Haus Nyland” should, no more activities, meetings or lectures by the “workers” after 1922 can be determined. The sobering aversion of the authors to the subject of industry and the world of work may also have accelerated the dissolution of the “Confederation”. Most of the “work people” turned to the so-called homeland novel in a realistic narrative style. Jakob Kneip concentrated on a Catholic mysticism that had already been hinted at in his verse works Confession and The Living God; Wilhelm Vershofen switched to economic studies and made a name for himself as the founder of social market research; Max Barthel approached the national ideology with poems and novels, and Josef Winckler recollected with his picaresque novel The Great Bomberg (1923) and his memories Pumpernickel. People and stories about House Nyland (1925) of its Westphalian origin. Heinrich Lersch was the only one who remained true to the world of work until his death in 1936. Therefore, the year 1925 should be regarded as the final date of dissolution of the "workmen".

The work of the "workmen" for the training of a workers 'literature must not be underestimated, because they definitely fulfilled a mediating position between the concerns of the workers' writers, who accepted them in their ranks and made a first public forum possible, and the bourgeois reading public, which was only getting through the writings of Winckler, Vershofen and Kneip slowly familiarized themselves with the new literary subject. The “workmen” prepared - intentionally or unintentionally - the terrain for the coming self-confidence of the working-class writers. Only based on them or in contrast to them did committed workers' literature develop, which the reading public took note of and received. Especially the literary groups founded after the war in the Ruhr area, which dealt with literature in the world of work, have taken up the literary tradition of the “workmen” - admittedly to set themselves apart from them in their own claims.

literature

  • Breuer, Ulrich: Weimar in Hopsten? The workers at House Nyland as a literary association. In: Westfälische Forschungen , 4./1997, pp. 117-136.
  • Wolfgang Delseit: Richard Dehmel as a sponsor of Josef Winckler. The writer as a promoter of young talent. In: Dieter Breuer (Hrsg.): Modernism in the Rhineland. Its promotion and implementation in literature, theater, music, architecture, applied and visual arts 1900-1933. Lectures by the interdisciplinary working group for research into modernity in the Rhineland. Cologne 1994, pp. 59-73.
  • Ders .: "The portfolio will be fine." As a member of the workmen at House Nyland. In: Peter Kerschgens / Wolfgang Delseit (ed.): Ernst Isselmann (1885-1916) . Rees 1994, pp. 29-42.
  • Ders .: “So get down to work.” Technology, literature and art: the industry folder (1913) . In: Association August Macke Haus e. V. (Ed.): Franz M. Jansen. Early cycles 1912-1914. Bonn 1994, pp. 140-156.
  • Ders .: Avant-garde of industrial poetry: The workers at House Nyland. In: Konrad Ehlich, Wilhelm Ehler and Rainer Noltenius (eds.): Language and literature on the Ruhr . Essen 1995 and 2nd edition 1997, pp. 149–165.
  • Hallenberger, Dirk: Industry and Home. A literary history of the Ruhr area. Food 2000.
  • Hoyer, Franz Alfons: The "Workers on House Nyland" . Diss. Freiburg 1939.
  • Menne, Franz Rudolf: The industrial poet. Literary beginnings with the Werkleuten. In: Wolfgang Delseit / Franz Rudolf Menne (ed.): Josef Winckler 1881-1966. Life and work. Exhibition workbook. Ed. I. A. the Nyland Foundation. Cologne 1991, pp. 22-41.
  • Ott, Ulrich (Ed.): Literature in the industrial age. Marbach / N. 1987 [Marbacher catalogs 42/2], pp. 640-663 (chapter House Nyland ).
  • Overwien-Neuhaus, Anita: Myth. Job. Reality. Life and work of the miner poet Otto Wohlgemuth. Cologne 1986 (Diss. Cologne), pp. 53-55, 80/81, 90, 117, 123, 125, 128, 155, 213.
  • Rody, Theo: Workers . In: Georg Bergler (ed.): Culture and economy. A celebration on the 70th birthday of Wilhelm Vershofen. Nuremberg 1949, pp. 23-28.

Web links

swell

  1. Quadriga, No. 1, p. 3
  2. cf. Alfons Tepe: House Nieland in Hopsten with an eventful history. In: Our district 1990. Yearbook for the Steinfurt district. Steinfurt 1989, pp. 15-20.
  3. ^ Frank Trommler: Socialist Literature in Germany. A historical overview (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 434). Kröner, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-520-43401-6 .
  4. Josef Winckler: The poet. In: Culture and Economy. A celebration on the 70th birthday of Wilhelm Vershofen. Ed. V. Georg Bergler. Nuremberg 1949, p. 13.
  5. Catalog 42/2, pp. 640 and 642