Wilhelm Engelbert Oeftering

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Wilhelm Engelbert Oeftering (also Engelbert Hegaur ) (born February 8, 1879 in Engen ; † March 3, 1940 in Karlsruhe ) was a German librarian , historian and literary scholar .

Life

Wilhelm Engelbert Oeftering was born on February 8, 1879 in the Hegaus town of Engen, the son of a chief accountant . After the early death of his mother, he moved with his father to the state capital Karlsruhe . He completed his philology studies at the universities of Heidelberg , Munich and Freiburg , which he began in 1897, with the state examination and doctorate in 1901. In his dissertation he dealt with Wordsworth and Byron's natural poetry.

In 1904 he joined the Badische Hof- und Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe as a trainee , which appointed him custodian in 1912, librarian in 1914 and head librarian in 1925. In 1917 he was awarded the title of professor. At the beginning of the First World War he came to the “1. Wehrkommando, Landsturm (without weapon) ”.

Towards the end of the First World War he witnessed the revolution and the fall of the Baden monarchy . The Baden provisional people's government commissioned him with a description of the 1918 coup in Baden. The extensive book appeared in 1920 as part of the series of yellow-red books he had founded the year before in the Konstanzer Verlag Reuss & Itta.

In 1913 Oeftering married Erna Kieckbusch in Pforzheim , with whom he had three sons and a daughter. He died on March 3, 1940 in Karlsruhe and was buried there on March 5.

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In addition to completing everyday library work, Oeftering devoted himself to writing, which soon became his main focus. In 1905 he re-edited the works of the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais, later the editing of the Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen followed . At the same time he wrote Heimatspiele and many articles for the Badische Heimat and other regional magazines such as Eckhart , Mein Heimatland or Die Pyramide . Since he also wrote articles for daily newspapers, he was a member of the Karlsruhe Press Association between 1910 and 1933. He did not publish some of his literary writings under his real name; since he came from Engen, he chose the pseudonym Engelbert Hegaur .

Oeftering's preferred interest was increasingly in southwest German literature. After a lot of preparatory work, he ventured into a broad literary history. Between 1930 and 1939 three volumes appeared in which he dealt with the history of literature in Baden from the Middle Ages to the Classical period (volume 1), with the great poets of the 18th and 19th centuries Johann Peter Hebel and Joseph Victor von Scheffel (volume 2) and dealt with the following epochs up to the time of National Socialist rule (Volume 3). The third volume turned out to be a tendentious presentation of recent literature, which was already evident in the selection of the authors concerned: While Oeftering attested the völkisch-nationalist authors high literary value, many other authors who had influenced literary life before 1933 were not considered . Oeftering's three-volume work History of Literature in Baden has not yet been replaced by a contemporary academic history of literature.

Publications

  • Wordsworth's and Byron's nature seal , Karlsruhe 1901
  • Karlsruhe. A guide through the capital and residence city and its surroundings , Karlsruhe 1913
  • The 1918 coup in Baden , Constance 1920
  • Badisches documents 1937/38 (1939)
  • History of literature in Baden , Volume 1–3, Karlsruhe 1930–1939

literature

  • Manfred Bosch: Oeftering, Wilhelm Engelbert (pseudonym: Engelbert Hegaur), literary scholar, librarian. In: Baden biographies. NF 5, 2005, pp. 222-224.
  • Manfred Bosch: Mentor of Baden literature: WE Oeftering and some of his contemporaries. In: Bohème am Bodensee, Lengwil am Bodensee 1997, pp. 78–83.
  • Manfred Bosch: Wilhelm Engelbert Oeftering . In: Badische Heimat 72 (1992), pp. 607-610.

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Engelbert Oeftering  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Manfred Bosch: Oeftering, Wilhelm Engelbert (pseudonym: Engelbert Hegaur), literary scholar, librarian . In: Baden biographies . NF 5, 2005, p. 222-224 .
  2. ↑ Manfred Bosch: Mentor of Baden literature: WE Oeftering and some of his contemporaries . In: Bohème on Lake Constance . Lengwil am Bodensee 1997, p. 78-83 .
personal data
SURNAME Oeftering, Wilhelm Engelbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hegaur, Engelbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German librarian, historian and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Narrow
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1940
Place of death Karlsruhe