Werner Helwig

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Werner Helwig (born January 14, 1905 in Friedenau near Berlin ; † February 4, 1985 in Thônex , Canton of Geneva , Switzerland ) was a German writer and member of the Nerother Wandervogel .

Life

Childhood and youth

Werner Helwig was the only child of Hamburg parents. His father, Willy Helwig (1879–1957), married to Jakobine Helwig, b. Wiencken (1879–1968) worked as a painter, graphic artist, illustrator and teacher at an art school in Berlin. The young, artistically and musically gifted Helwig developed an unusual love for reading early on, which determined his whole life. However, his school career (1912 pre-school class at the Realgymnasium Berlin-Friedenau, 1916 community school VII in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , 1918 municipal elementary school Berlin-Wilmersdorf) ended without a qualification due to the war situation and tense domestic circumstances, which led to the divorce of his parents in 1917. When his parents divorced, the 12-year-old was placed under the custody of his father, who was given to the Rauhes Haus educational institution in Hamburg in 1919 and then to an agricultural apprenticeship on a Mecklenburg farm . For a short time Helwig worked as a gardener's assistant and worker in a ceramic company. In 1922 he went to Hamburg without completing any professional training and acquired knowledge of literature, art, music and ethnology as an autodidact .

Encounter with the youth movement

In 1923 he was imprisoned for participating in a prohibited communist demonstration. After his release from prison he received help in circles of the wandering bird from Walter Hösterey (called Walter Hammer), the editor of the magazines Wandervogel and Junge Menschen , in which the first poems by Helwig appeared. Through these contacts, Helwig began a phase of life that was strongly influenced by the youth movement . From 1923 he undertook - initially alone - the first extensive, e.g. Sometimes adventurous hikes and trips , including to Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway, especially Lapland), and sought out personalities from the literary world whom he particularly admired, e. B. Knut Hamsun (1923), Thomas Mann (1925) and Rainer Maria Rilke (1926).

The time at Waldeck Castle and as a Nerother Wandervogel

One of his hikes led Helwig in the Hunsrück to the Waldeck castle ruins , the seat of the Nerother Wanderer Bird . He joined the youth association and stayed repeatedly for weeks or months between 1927 and 1933 at Waldeck Castle. During this "castle period" he wrote poems and songs and took part in major federal trips. During this time he made his first contact with the writer Rudolf Pannwitz , the biosophore Ernst Fuhrmann and Hans Henny Jahnn , with whom he had a friendship of almost 40 years. From 1929 Helwig led his own Nerother groups in Hamburg and went on a trip with them. In 1931 he was taken into pre-trial detention for violating Section 176 of the Criminal Code (fornication with children) and in 1932 served six months' imprisonment, including this detention.

Hitler's time and stays abroad

On 30 January 1933, the date of the seizure of power of Hitler, Helwig left Germany to the south on Switzerland and Sicily to Tunis. Via Capri, where he met the terminally ill poet Theodor Däubler , he returned to Germany in the same year and joined the Hitler Youth pro forma with friends from the Nerother Wandervogel in order to enable the group to survive. Helwig's brief activity as a cultural clerk in Oberbann I Frankfurt (Main) and the commissioned work that came about during this time later exposed him to the suspicion of being a sympathizer of the Nazis. In 1934 he was just able to escape a wave of arrests against Bündische by fleeing. In the following years Helwig lived in different places: repeatedly in Italy, especially on Capri (1934, 1936, 1938) and Ischia (1935, 1937), but also in Germany. In 1935, 1937/1938 and 1938, at the invitation of his friend Alfons Hochhauser, he stayed for a long time in Greece and there mainly in Pelion . For Helwig, Hochhauser became the model for the Clemens figure in his novel Raubfischer in Hellas . Helwig's trip to Iceland (1937 together with his friend Richard Lohmann), repeated visits to HH Jahnn in his exile on Bornholm (1937, 1938, 1939), stays in London (1937) and Paris (1937, 1938) also take place in the 1930s ) and in Switzerland (1937, 1938, 1939).

First publications

Several times he returned to Germany for a short time in order to offer his works to publishers and editors. Through VO Stomps , Helwig's first literary book publications were published in 1934 and 1935 in the Rabenpresse (The Etna Ballade; Nordsüdliche Hymnen). However, Helwig only became known beyond the borders of Germany through the publication of his novel Raubfischer in Hellas by Asmus Verlag (1939). This novel, volume 1 of the Hellas trilogy , has seen numerous new editions and translations. The filming of the book in 1959 sparked a bitter dispute between Helwig and A. Hochhauser about the authorship of the book, which both of them settled in later years.

Escape to Switzerland and exile in Liechtenstein

In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war , Helwig was in Zurich , Switzerland , the place of refuge for many emigrants. There he met James Joyce in 1940 , but also the Welsch-Swiss Yvonne Germaine Diem, whom he married in 1941 and with whom he had two sons. Helwig was never an emigrant, he always had his German passport, which he had to have extended on the occasion of his marriage, and was drafted for the Wehrmacht on this occasion. In 1942 he had to leave Switzerland for violating the prohibition of publication for foreigners that had existed since the beginning of the war, lived with his family in meager circumstances in the Principality of Liechtenstein until 1949 and in Geneva from 1950, after being allowed to return to Switzerland.

Writing in Switzerland

Most of his books were now published, and Helwig made a name for himself as a freelancer for numerous German and Swiss newspapers and magazines as an essayist , critic and reviewer. Although he was an elected member of the German PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Association of German Writers and a corresponding member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and despite receiving several awards , he did not return to Germany for a long time, but stayed in Switzerland. In 1978 he became a founding member of the PEN Club Liechtenstein . From Geneva he went on family trips in later years to South America, Japan and India, until his wife Yvonne died in 1978 after 38 years of marriage. In 1981 he married a second time: Gerda Heimes. At the age of 80, he died on February 4, 1985 in Thônex near Geneva and was buried at his own request in the homeland of his second wife, in the Wormbach cemetery in Schmallenberg / Sauerland.

Honors

Literary work

Werner Helwig was a literary outsider. His work includes novels, short stories and poetry as well as Far Eastern adaptations from Japanese and Chinese. His works were published in around 30 German-language publishers, for example by Asmus, Claassen, Diederichs, Hegner, Insel- und Reclam-Verlag , some of them received new editions, but with the exception of the predatory fishermen in Hellas only had a limited circulation. Occasionally Helwig published under the pseudonym Einar Halvid.

Helwig's work is strongly autobiographical. He dealt with his adventurous life mainly in his novels. His novels about Greece still entice many to explore this country, especially Pelion, in Helwig's footsteps. Many people say Capri. Magical Island as particularly noteworthy and lamentation for the dead as his most mature work. Helwig's experiences from his Bundisch-oriented time were reflected in the autobiographical work Auf der Knabenfährte , a reminder book of Helwig's time at Waldeck Castle , in The Blue Flower of the Wandering Bird and in many songs, including settings of Brecht texts, some of which as Protest were sung in the youth groups that were banned during the Nazi era . Helwig's songs are still sung in the youth groups today. Well-known interpreters of his Brecht songs in particular are Hai and Topsy Frankl. As an author influenced by the youth movement, Helwig still has a permanent place in the youth movement magazines.

Helwig has also made a name for himself as a freelancer in many renowned newspapers and magazines such as FAZ , Akzente , Atlantis , Frankfurter Hefte , Merkur , Neue Rundschau , Rheinischer Merkur , Rheinische Post and Westermanns Monatshefte through a still unmanageable number of features, essays, primarily on literature, art, ethnology and history, reviews and portraits of many writers and artists. Because Helwig was known to many important personalities of his time (including Hans Henny Jahnn, Theodor Däubler , Rudolf Pannwitz , Ernst Fuhrmann , Hermann Hesse , Ernst Jünger , Monika Mann , Richard Seewald , Rolf Bongs , Ernst Kreuder and Herbert List ) the correspondence with them is important.

literature

Works

  • The Etna Ballad . Rabenpresse , Berlin 1934
  • North-South hymns . Rabenpresse, Berlin 1935
  • Flotsam . Seven novels. Wolff, Plauen 1935
  • Predatory fishermen in Hellas . Novel. Asmus, Leipzig 1939
  • The captured bird . Basque novella. Asmus, Leipzig 1941
  • In the thicket of the Pelion . Novel. Asmus, Leipzig 1941
  • Headwind . Hellas novel. The Ark, Zurich 1945
  • Word sheets in the wind . Adaptations of Japanese texts. Goverts, Hamburg 1945
  • Tide of love . Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg 1946
  • Trinakria or the whimsical journey . Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg 1946
  • The risk . Novel. Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg 1947
  • Café Gomorrah . Six fantasy pieces. Claassen & Roether, Darmstadt 1948
  • Icelandic cabin book (under the pseudonym Einar Halvid). Diana, Zurich 1950
  • On the boy’s track . A memory book. Asmus, Konstanz / Stuttgart 1951
  • The revenants . Novel. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1952
  • The beehive . World trips outside and inside. Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1953
  • The Brigant Giuliano . Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt 1953
  • Journey without returning home . Novel. Claassen, Hamburg 1953
  • Step-sons of the beautiful Helena . Eremiten-Presse, Frankfurt 1954
  • New Lübecker Totentanz (drama, written by Hans Henny Jahnn together with Werner Helwig; incidental music: Yngve Jan Trede ). Rowohlt, Hamburg 1954
  • Night route through Lapland . Stories (including: The Aesculapia of the Hunsrück about the Dorweiler bone tinker Jakob Pies ). Reclam, Stuttgart 1955
  • Secrets of the Baybach Valley . Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955
  • The singing swamps . Novella. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1955
  • Forest rainwords . Diederichs, Düsseldorf / Cologne 1955
  • The great laments of Tu Fu . Re-seals. Schünemann, Bremen 1956
  • The steppe interrogation . Novel. Diederichs, Düsseldorf / Cologne 1957
  • The monkey raincoat . Japanese proverbs. Albert Langen Georg Müller, Munich 1958.
  • On the girl's trail . Hermit Press, Stierstadt 1958
  • Letters about a work (by W. Helwig; Hans Henny Jahnn co-author). European Publishing House, Frankfurt 1959
  • Capri. Lovely mischief of the gods . Diederichs, Düsseldorf / Cologne 1959
  • The forest battle . A saga. Hegner, Cologne / Olten 1959
  • The blue flower of the wandering bird . About the rise, splendor and purpose of a youth movement. Mohn, Gütersloh 1960
  • The emerald green dragon . Hegner, Cologne / Olten 1960
  • De Chirico . Metaphysical period, poppy. Gütersloh 1962
  • The saddle of justice . A Moroccan story. Insel, Frankfurt 1962
  • The secrets of a tax collector . Henri Rousseau . Mohn, Gütersloh 1962
  • To meet the truth . Travel dissections. Hochstadt, Isny ​​1963
  • Hymns to language . Metopes to a Temple of Ananke . Südmark, Heidenheim 1964
  • The paradise of hell . A Sicily novel. Mohn, Gütersloh 1965
  • Sounds and shadows . Adaptations of Japanese texts. Claassen. Hamburg / Düsseldorf 1972
  • Capri, magical island . Limes, Wiesbaden 1973
  • The parable of the disturbed crystal (with biographical-autobiographical memories of Hans Henny Jahnn ). von Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1977. ISBN 3-7758-0925-2
  • Carmina Nerothana . Südmark, Heidenheim 1983. ISBN 3-88258-048-8
  • Nerothane Ballads: 1926–1932 . Nerother Wandervogel, Waldeck Castle 1984.
  • Lamentation . Insel, Frankfurt 1984. ISBN 3-458-14176-6
  • Grotto sayings . Aldus-Presse, Reicheneck 1985
  • Last poems . Aldus-Presse, Reicheneck 1985
  • Werner Helwig. An added autobiography . Edited by Ursula Prause. Volume 83 of the series "Press and History - New Contributions", edition lumiére, Bremen 2014, ISBN 978-3-943245-23-3

Quote

“ The curse of writing a diary is that one sacrifices a piece of irreplaceable life time to put a piece of experienced time on paper with the possible gain of a clarifying overview. And the possible reader of our diary notes in turn takes up a piece of irreplaceable lifetime when he records what we have buried in letters. So time wasting for both. Perhaps associated with the benefit of measuring what you have experienced yourself against the description of the state of your fellow fate, perhaps also discovering yourself in it. "

- Werner Helwig

Secondary literature

  • Jean Améry : Portraits of famous contemporaries: Beyond bourgeois tradition . In: St. Galler Tagblatt from January 3, 1965.
  • Richard Bersch: Pathos and Myth. Studies on Werner Helwig's work with a bio-bibliographical appendix. At the same time: Dissertation University of Trier, 1991. Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, Paris 1992. (Trier Studies on Literature, Volume 22), ISBN 3-631-44541-5
  • Karl Lubomirski : To remember Werner Helwig . In: Clams. Annual journal for literature . No. 33/34. Viersen 1995, ISSN  0085-3593
  • Erik Martin : Werner Helwig . Shell heap No. 26 A (= Werner Helwig special edition). Annual journal for literature. Viersen 1991, ISSN  0085-3593
  • Erik Martin: Werner Helwig and Alfons Hochhauser. Friendship and decades of quarrel about the predatory fishermen in Hellas . In: Clams. Annual journal for literature and graphics . No. 39/40. Viersen 2000, ISSN  0085-3593
  • Ursula Prause: Werner Helwig. The revenant . Booklet accompanying the exhibition on Werner Helwig's 100th birthday in the “Public Library of the University of Basel”. January 15 to April 23, 2005
  • Heinz Schöffler: Werner Helwig. A portrait of a writer . In: Weltstimmen. World books in outline . Franckh, Stuttgart 1954, Volume 23, pp. 337-341
  • Carsten Würmann: Escape Attempts from Modernity. Life plans in Werner Helwig's novel “Raubfischer in Hellas” . In: Scope of the individual. Literature in the Weimar Republic and in the “Third Reich” . Weidler Buchverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89693-141-5 . (This volume is also published as issue 30/31 of June. Magazine for literature and politics .)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helwig: How I got hold of books . In: Librarium . Journal of the Swiss Bibliophile Society. Zurich. No. III-1978, ISSN 0024-2152 
  2. ↑ Richard Bersch: Pathos and Myth
  3. ↑ Helwig: On the boy track . A memory book. 1951
  4. ↑ Helwig: Rilke's last year. Memories of encounters with Thomas Mann and Rilke . In: Rheinische Post from April 8, 1972
  5. ↑ Hotte Schneider (Ed.): The Waldeck. Songs, rides, adventures. The history of Waldeck Castle from 1911 to the present day. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2005. ISBN 3-935035-71-3
  6. ^ Thomas Freeman: Hans Henny Jahnn . Hamburg 1986
  7. ^ Hotte Schneider: The Waldeck
  8. ↑ In memoriam Alfons Hochhauser. Target figure of the novel "Predator in Hellas" . In: Keyword . No. 3-1981. Heidenheim
  9. ↑ Helwig: With Hans Henny Jahnn on Bondegaard . In: Merian magazine Bornholm . 1969
  10. ↑ Helwig: History of my publications in the Rabenpresse . In: The great raven book . Merlin, Hamburg 1977
  11. ↑ Erik Martin: Werner Helwig and Alfons Hochhauser. Friendship and decades of quarrel about the “predatory fishermen in Hellas” . In: Clams . Viersen 2000, No. 39/40
  12. ↑ Pound and Joyce . In: How I got hold of books . Librarium 3-1978
  13. ↑ Hermann Kesten : I do not live in the Federal Republic . List, Munich 1964
  14. ^ Jean Améry: Portraits of famous contemporaries: Beyond the bourgeois tradition
  15. ^ Joachim Günther : Lament for the Dead . In: New German Issues . 184. pp. 824-825. 4/1984 ISSN  0028-3142
  16. ↑ Frank Seiß: Sung intoxication. Brecht reception in the Bundische Jugend . In: “Dreigroschenheft. Information on Bertolt Brecht ”. Augsburg. 29th year, issue 4/2013
  17. ↑ Hai and Topsy: Werner Helwig. Songs . Thorofon 1988
  18. ↑ u. a. in: the icebreaker
  19. ↑ Mussel Pile 26A. Special edition Werner Helwig . 1991
  20. ↑ Ursula Prause: Not written in the void. Werner Helwig in the mirror of his letters . In: Clams . No. 45-2005
  21. ↑ Quoted from "Totenklage", page 140
personal data
SURNAME Helwig, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and wanderer bird
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Kingdom of Prussia , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH 4th February 1985
Place of death Thônex , Canton of Geneva , Switzerland