Werner Jansen

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Werner Jansen (born February 2, 1890 in Wülfrath ; † December 28, 1943 in Velden am Wörthersee ) was a German writer and doctor who was close to National Socialism. In 1933 he was appointed professor of medicine at Berlin University by the National Socialist Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust, without habilitation . In 1934, Rust appointed him as a medical consultant in the university department of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education , where he exerted influence on science policy in the interests of the National Socialists. Jansen became Heinrich Himmler's favorite writer.

Life

Career

Werner Jansen studied German, history, French and philosophy in Berlin, Geneva, Marburg and Greifswald from 1909 to 1913 and graduated with a Dr. phil off. He took part in the First World War as a volunteer . From 1923 to 1930 he studied medicine in Greifswald and Berlin and graduated with a doctorate in medicine. In 1931 Jansen settled as a doctor in Ochtmissen near Lüneburg.

He made a name for himself as a writer through his two books published during the war, with which he prepared the Nibelung saga and Gudrunstoff in the form of a novel ( Buch Treue 1916 and Gudrun 1918); his novels had a high circulation until 1945. The focus of his literary work with a national perspective were the German heroic sagas . In 1920, to complete the trilogy, the book Passion (about the Amelungen novel ) followed with the favorite hero of the German legend Dietrich von Bern . According to the historian Peter Longerich , these are "saga texts reinterpreted as Germanic-German myths, underlaid with racist and German clichés, a kind of Karl May for Germanophile, especially young readers".

The book Treue is dedicated to “the youngest German dead”, the Gudrun novel to the “heroines” at home. According to Frank Westenfelder, the Nibelungen novel is characterized by the “racist friend-foe juxtaposition. The Huns differ from the blue-blonde, German warriors in their 'yellow, crooked, weary-eyed figure'; they are 'monkeys' and 'stranglers of blood' ”. In the Gudrun novel, Gudrun's racial superiority over the Normans who are holding them results from their multiracial character, so that “German-blonde” and “dark-Swiss” stand in opposition to one another. "The military opponents of the German Reich are either deprecated by Jansen's racist argumentation or placed on a lower level of human existence, whereby the hostility appears to be natural."

In 1923, Heinrich the Lion appeared as another successful title . With Die earthische Immsterblichkeit (1924) (since 1929: Robert the Devil ) and Geier um Marienburg (1925), this novel forms another trilogy that deals with medieval personalities. After the anti-Semitic novel Die Kinder Israel , published in 1927, did not achieve the desired success, Jansen brought out a new edition of the novel (1935) during the Nazi era - this time with the subtitle A Rasseroman . Not only his novel Betrayed Homeland (1932), in which he glorified Widukind's fight against Charlemagne , was well read , but also his last novel Die Insel Heldentum (1938), which is full of nationalistic ideas, anti-Semitic stereotypes and the glorification of a salvific leader fully corresponded to the Nazi ideology . The SS body Das Schwarze Korps expressed itself extremely positively about Jansen's work, because "its attitude corresponds to us, because its exclamation hits us, because it said what thousands of us are on the tip of the tongue." Jansen was for this novel In 1940 the Goethe Medal was awarded "in recognition of the literary work in the service of the racial renewal of the German people".

Since 1925 Jansen was an honorary member of the Wilhelm Raabe Monument Committee, from which the Wilhelm Raabe Foundation emerged in 1931. Together with the lawyer Abbitz-Schultze and the ballad poet Börries von Münchhausen , Jansen formed the foundation's board of directors and, from 1933, nominated völkisch-national poets for the People's Prize for German Poetry . In the same year he joined the NSDAP (membership number 1.560.950). In 1935 he became a member of the SS (membership number 253.038). After Jansen was a member of the jury for the award from 1939 to 1941, he received the award himself in 1942 (now renamed the People's Prize for German Poetry of the German Communities and Community Associations ) for his novel Die Insel Heldentum .

After the end of the war, Jansen's novel Die Insel Heldentum was put on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone .

Science politician

It was not until 1931 that Jansen settled down as a general practitioner in Ochtmissen for a short time , but in 1933, after joining the NSDAP without habilitation, Bernhard Rust appointed him extraordinary professor of medicine in Berlin. In 1934 he became a medical consultant under Rust in the university department of the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education and in this function he had a great influence on the " New German Medicine ", for which the Third Medical Polyclinic in Berlin became a "House of Health" within the 1934/35 planned "Reich Academy of Research" should be designed. From 1935 to 1937 he expanded his sphere of influence as Vice President of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Acquaintance with Heinrich Himmler

In 1935 Jansen joined the SS, where he was promoted to Standartenführer. As Heinrich Himmler's favorite author, he published in the SS-Leithefte of 1936 and 1937 and supported ideological training. Jansen's novels took an excellent place on Himmler's reading list, so that many of his “Germanic” inclinations can be traced back to his reading of the Treue-Liebe-passion trilogy, which has been documented since 1923 . According to Longerich, Himmler was “completely carried away” and had his “awakening experience”. Jansen wrote articles for the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps . During the mobilization phase at the beginning of the war in 1939, Jansen wrote to Himmler and asked him "warmly to let me, as your historian, take part in the great events". In 1940, Himmler assigned him to the staff of his SS skull associations . However, nothing came of Jansen's chronicler activity because he succumbed to a lengthy illness in December 1943. Meanwhile, Himmler had put the work on the chronicle of his deeds on another shoulder: his friend Hanns Johst , President of the Reichsschrifttumskammer , who had accompanied him since 1939, was supposed to present the "Heinrich Saga" to victory.

illness

Although Jansen had clearly been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), he reported to his poet colleague Gustav Frenssen during his stay in Velden in 1943 about an "as yet unexplained disease [...] (probably a virus), I'm in poor health and legs so paralyzed that I can neither walk nor stand nor write [...]. In this climate there should be a possibility of improvement. "Regarding this assessment of the disease, Recke (2015) says:" Whether or not Jansen did not want to admit the disease, which is not at all compatible with the social Darwinist and hereditary self-image of the Aryan gentlemen We do not know whether he was kept in ignorance by the doctors. "In any case, after Jansen's death, the SS headquarters" concealed the facts that the version was disseminated that Jansen had died as a result of a serious war. "

marriage

Werner Jansen married Hertha Podlich (* 1895 in Danzig ) in Italy on April 4, 1922 . Before they got married, the couple had already published various books at Westermann Verlag in Braunschweig , with Podlich writing the texts in calligraphy , for example a volume of poetry by Theodor Storm . This collaboration continued after the wedding, for example in 1923 with the original English work Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe and in 1924 with poems by Joseph von Eichendorff . After their first child was born in 1925, Podlich ended her artistic career.

Works

As an author

  • Towards the new God . Novel 1909.
  • The child of the Holy Spirit . Novel 1912.
  • The book Loyalty. Nibelung novel . 1916.
  • Gudrun. Novel. 1918. (From 1920 under the title Das Buch Liebe. Gudrunroman )
  • The book passion. Amelungen novel . 1920.
  • Henry the Lion. Novel 1923.
  • Earthly immortality . Roman, Verlag Georg Westermann, Braunschweig, 1924. (From 1929 under the title Robert the Devil )
  • Vultures around Marienburg. Novel 1925.
  • The children of Israel. Moses novel 1927. (From 1935 under the title Die Kinder Israel. Rasseroman )
  • Home betrayed. Novel 1932.
  • The island of heroism. Novel 1938.

As editor

  • Homelands. The beautiful Lower Rhine . 1920.
  • The Savior: Words of the Pure . 1921.
  • God's German garden . 1921.
  • The books of your people .
    • Vol. 1: The fairy tales . 1921.
    • Vol. 2: The People's Books . 1922.
    • Vol. 3: The folk tales . 1923.
  • Troubled streams. A novella wreath. 1923-1924.

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 . P. 84.
  • Werner Hoffmann: The Kudrun novels Werner Jansens and Alma Johanna Königs . In: Gudrun Marci-Boehncke , Jörg Riecke (eds.): “From myths and mars”. Medieval cultural history as reflected in a scientist's biography . Festschrift for Otfrid-Reinald Ehrismann on his 65th birthday. Olms, Hildesheim 2006. ISBN 3-487-13179-X . Pp. 144-172.
  • Werner Hoffmann: The book Treue. Werner Jansen's Nibelung novel . In: Joachim Heinzle , Klaus Klein, Ute Obhof (eds.): The Nibelungs. Saga - epic - myths . Reichert, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-89500-347-6 , pp. 511-521.
  • Hyuk-Sook Kim: The End of the Historical Novel in the Age of Transfiguration. Werner Jansen and his Heldenzeit trilogy . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-57497-3 .
  • Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 129–154.
  • Wolfgang Weismantel: Jansen, Werner . In: Walther Killy (Ed.): Literaturlexikon. Authors and works in the German language , Vol. 6, Bertelsmann 1990, pp. 84–85.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy . Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 . P. 84.
  2. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Siedler, Munich 2008, pp. 87, 280, 324.
  3. ↑ Frank Westenfelder: Origins, development and effects of the National Socialist ideology between 1890 and 1950 using the example of the "mass medium" historical novel . (including Chapter II.5.3. War Propaganda in the First World War )
  4. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 133f.
  5. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 134–136.
  6. ^ Hans Müller: Elements of National Socialist thought in Werner Jansen's Nibelung novel from 1916
  7. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 136–141.
  8. ^ The Black Corps of December 1, 1938. Archives of the Humboldt University in Berlin, personal files of bao Prof. Dr. Werner Jansen, quoted from Recke (2015), p. 141.
  9. ↑ Franz Lennartz : The poets of our time. Individual representations of contemporary German poetry . Kröner's pocket edition Volume 217th 4th edition, Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1941, pp. 193f.
  10. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, pp. 144–146.
  11. ↑ a b List of seniority of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel. As of December 1, 1936, p. 78 f. (JPG; 1.10 MB) In: http://www.dws-xip.pl/reich/biografie/1936/1936.html . Retrieved November 4, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 147.
  13. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-i.html
  14. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd, updated edition, 2005, p. 284.
  15. ↑ Michael Hubenstorf, Peter Th. Walther: Political conditions and general changes in the Berlin science industry 1925–1950 . In: Wolfram Fischer , Klaus Hierholzer, Michael Hubenstorf (eds.): Exodus of Sciences from Berlin (= Academy of Sciences in Berlin: Research Report 7). de Gruyter, Berlin 1994. ISBN 3-11-013945-6 . Pp. 5–100, here p. 37.
  16. ↑ Peter Longerich (2008), pp. 87, 280, 324.
  17. ↑ Peter Longerich (2008), p. 437.
  18. ↑ Rolf Düsterberg : Genocide and saga poetry under the sign of the “Greater Germanic Empire”. Hanns Johst's friendship with Heinrich Himmler . In: International Archive for the Social History of German Literature (IASL), Vol. 24 (1999), Issue 2, pp. 88–133.
  19. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 150f.
  20. ↑ Jansen to Frenssen of October 19, 1943. SHL, Cb 21. Frenssen, Gustav, 56: 974, quoted from Recke (2015), p. 151.
  21. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 151.
  22. ↑ Nina Recke: Werner Jansen - the German . In: Rolf Düsterberg (ed.): Poets for the "Third Reich". Biographical studies on the relationship between literature and ideology . Volume 3. Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2015, p. 152.
  23. ↑ Hyuk-Sook Kim: The end of the historical novel in the age of its transfiguration. Werner Jansen and his Heldenzeit trilogy. P. 27.
  24. ^ Uwe Baur, Karin Gradwohl-Schlacher: Literature in Austria 1938–1945. Manual of a literary system. Volume 2: Carinthia. Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2011 ISBN 978-3-205-78653-5 , p. 147.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jansen, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and doctor
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Wuelfrath
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1943
Place of death Velden am Wörthersee