Wilhelm Holzamer

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Wilhelm Holzamer, around 1904

Wilhelm Holzamer (born March 28, 1870 in Nieder-Olm ; † August 28, 1907 in Berlin ) was a German writer and literary reviewer.

Life

Wilhelm Holzamer, who came from the village craftsman milieu, was raised by his grandfather Andreas Holzamer († July 1, 1883 in Nieder-Olm), a proponent of democratic aspirations during the March Revolution , who remained Wilhelm's role model throughout his life. After graduating from school, there was teacher training in Bensheim from 1886 to 1889 . From 1889 Wilhelm Holzamer taught German, music and drawing in Heppenheim .

Due to his artistic abilities, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen called him to the residence city of Darmstadt , where the core group of artists who created the art nouveau movement was gathered . Holzamer organized its first public presentation in 1901. He was close friends with the Viennese architect Joseph Maria Olbrich , the head of the artist group.

After Holzamer got to know the actress and women's rights activist Nina Mardon , he separated from his wife Marie, who had borne him seven children, and went to Paris following his literary role model Heinrich Heine . In 1905 he returned to Germany and chose Berlin as his place of residence. In the local literary scene he joined the Friedrichshagener poet circle .

Wilhelm Holzamer died on August 28, 1907 in Berlin and his urn was buried in Jena . In 1937 his remains were first transferred to his place of birth in Nieder-Olm and then in 1954 to Heppenheim.

He and the later ZDF founding director Karl Holzamer (1906–2007) were largely related.

Artistic creation

Memorial plaque to Wilhelm Holzamer on the house where he was born in Nieder-Olm

The literary oeuvre of Wilhelm Holzamer lies in the area between homeland and cosmopolitanism . The first phase of writing was lyrical , with Gustav Falke , Detlev von Liliencron , Richard Dehmel and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer being his role models.

He later appeared as a narrator and novelist . As an enlightened, humanitarian, republican-liberal democrat , he embodied the opposition to contemporary Reich German nationalism , Prussian militarism , and anti-Semitism .

His anti-clerical oriented social criticism was marked by affection for the little people, which is reflected in its successful debut novel about the Schneider Peter Nockler reflected.

In the following great novella about the poor Luke , his first autobiographical work, Holzamer stated that everything that shaped his life can be found in his books. Accordingly, he reflected on his life crisis in choosing between two women, particularly in the biographical history novel Der Heilige Sebastian , published in 1902 .

Holzamer was one of the first German writers to use the knowledge of Freudian psychoanalysis in his literary work. His empathy with a woman's soul remains remarkable.

Holzamer's three women's novels Die Sturmfrau , Ellida Solstratten and Inge , in which he took up interpretative approaches by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen , testify to this ability .

Living in Berlin from 1905, he took stock of his life in the autobiographical novel Der Der derailed and, in his last work, Before Year and Day, sketched the fate of the innkeeper's daughter Dorth.

Parallel to his literary work, Wilhelm Holzamer was an influential literary critic and reviewer, mainly in the Frankfurter Zeitung , and shaped the literary scene through his ties to the publisher Eugen Diederichs .

Holzamer's literary importance lies in his stylistic brilliance, the ability to explore the human psyche , a symbolic art of language and narrative drama .

He inspired the playwright Carl Zuckmayer through his liberal- emancipatory cosmopolitanism . His descriptions of nature are reflected in the work of the writer Elisabeth Langgässer .

Reading sample

Last celebration

When I am dead, you should celebrate my memory,
happy with songs and with fresh flowers,
happy with a thousand blissful thoughts, just not crying, just not being sad,
happy that someone wandering the port, that someone who is suffering peace
and a seeker found peace.

When they come, who want to revile me -
and they come, now I can already see
them with dull footsteps pulling them to the urn,
when they then pile stones on my ashes,
stone by stone, until a hill arches,
do not suffer - and smile brightly Be careful ,
sing songs that celebrate spring,
scatter flowers that crown summer, distribute
fruits that autumn has given you.

See the paths that I went, they were mapped out,
and something higher protects me, which I do not know
myself , and which will honor me, if I have been loyal to him,
and if I was unfaithful, my track will forever disappear.
When winter comes then, beloved, you shall dream,
dreams that glowed in my soul,
since my life was all a frozen frost.

When I am dead, you shall celebrate my memory,
and I will live in songs and in flowers,
in the crowd of anger and contempt -
and in your dreams when I sleep!

Works (selection)

Otto Ubbelohde : Illustrations for In the village
  • To the light. Poems , Berlin 1897
  • Ellida Solstratten , Berlin / Leipzig 1900
  • Games. With drawings by Joseph Maria Olbrich , Leipzig 1901
  • Peter Nockler, Die Geschichte einer Schneider , Leipzig 1902 (later editions Berlin 1905 and 1919, Stuttgart 1925, reprint Nieder-Olm 1973)
  • Poor Lukas. A story in the twilight , Leipzig 1902 (later editions Berlin 1905, Stuttgart 1916, reprint Nieder-Olm 1975)
  • Conrad Ferdinand Meyer , Schuster & Loeffler Berlin / Leipzig 1904
  • Heinrich Heine , Berlin / Leipzig 1906 (biography of the German writer) digitized
  • The derailed. Novel in two volumes , ed. by Nina Mardon-Holzamer , Berlin 1910, reprint Nieder-Olm undated (approx. 1970)
  • Master novels of recent narrators , ed. by Richard Wenz , Vol. VI, Leipzig 1913 (contains two previously unpublished stories by Holzamer)
Newer editions
  • Year and day ago . Reissued and with an afterword by Jens Frederiksen. Mainz 1997
  • Where do I hang my championship shield? Selected stories . Edited and introduced by Klaus Böhme. Weinheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-021961-0
  • Saint Sebastian. A priest's novel . Newly published, introduced and provided with images by Klaus Böhme. Heppenheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024142-0
  • His last high mass. With a foreword by Jens Frederiksen. Reprint of the parish of St. Georg. Nieder-Olm 2019

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.wilhelm-holzamer.de/ct/Der+Gro%C3%9Fvater+-+Andreas+Holzamer
  2. ^ News sheet Verbandsgemeinde Nieder-Olm, Singers' Association 1842, April 26, 2012, p. 6
  3. ^ Karl Holzamer: A journey through life between philosophy and television, Verlag Philipp von Zabern 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3097-9
personal data
SURNAME Holzamer, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and literary critic
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Nieder-Olm
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1907
Place of death Berlin