Wilhelm Reuter (pastor)

Wilhelm Reuter (born April 19, 1888 in Prath , † August 13, 1948 in Dernbach (Westerwald) ) was a Catholic priest, poet and local poet Westerwald dialect.

Life

After the death of their father in 1890, Reuter's mother Maria Elisabeth (née Veltens) and her six children run the existing farm. Reuter first attended the grammar school in Boppard and later the grammar school in Hadamar , where he lived in the Konvikt Collegium Bernardinum and where he graduated from high school in 1910 . Classmates in Hadamar had given Reuter the nickname "Fritz" after he had discovered his poetic abilities, based on the famous Mecklenburg native poet Fritz Reuter . After graduating from high school, Reuter studied theology in Fulda , went to Freiburg in 1912 until he was ordained a priest at the seminary in Limburg in 1914. After his first positions as a chaplain in Arnstein and Niederselters, he went into the First World War as a medic in 1914/15 . Back before the end of the war he became a chaplain in Hochheim am Main, Griesheim and Frankfurt, and in 1925 pastor-vicar in Eppenhain Ruppertshain . 1928 Reuter pastor in Bremthal (with Vockenhausen ), 1935, he finally took the vacant pastorate in 80 kilometers away parish Breitenau with communities Breitenau, Deesen, Oberhaid, Wittgert. Reuter died after a hepatitis infection in the hospital in Dernbach. He found his final resting place in his last place of work, Breitenau, where a street is named after him.

plant

The “poet pastor” Wilhelm Reuter wrote more than 200 poems, mainly in the Moselle-Franconian dialect of his Nassau homeland, several of which were set to music. Around after the First World War, he lost his High German and at times bombastic poetry and turned to the Nassau-Moselle-Franconian dialect. Not all of his poems are printed and accessible.

Eighteen popular plays by Reuter are known, eight of them in print, at least twelve of which have been performed. His most frequently played pieces are the Ammieche , the Harebouwe and the Schinnerhannes , which had the most audience. His pieces are mostly about historical events in Nassau or on the Rhine or are set in the Westerwald. Reuter dealt with a topic for weeks at times, but then wrote the text within 14 days. Various locations built open-air theaters for Reuters plays and repeated the plays throughout the summer. Reuter was one of the most played authors on the Middle Rhine at this time. His pieces were not played in the period from 1938 to 1945, as there was probably resistance from the local NSDAP offices at Schinnerhannes .

In addition to his poetic work, Reuter dealt with ornithology and beekeeping.

Poetry

Reuter wrote natural poems, spiritual poems, but also rather melancholy poems that deal with the longing for home, the mother and the father who died early. Many of his lyrical works have an enigmatic sense of humor that should not only please the reader, but also encourage him. Under the pseudonym "Fritz von Nassau" he probably published his first volume of poetry Su gihn die Gäng in 1912 , and in 1922, now under his real name, was followed by the second volume of poetry, Gott ,aur host vill Vehlcher . In 1926 an expanded second edition of his first volume of poetry appeared. Reuter's friend Alfons Bierbaum posthumously published the fourth volume of poetry How beautiful ... how difficult ... to be a poet . The period from 1915 to 1921 is particularly marked by his lyrical work with 138 poems and ballads. Homesickness appeared as an issue during his time in Frankfurt. Johannes Pabst, former fellow student in Fulda and Limburg Cathedral Kapellmeister , set some of the poems to music that found their way into the Limburg hymnbook as songs. Anneliese Gräf from Breitenau composed melodies for secular poems such as Mei Heimatland .

play

Reuter probably wrote his first drama Dat Ammieche by de Goldbachmill at the age of 19, but it was not printed until 1927. In the play, a miller's daughter seeks death after the rich miller, who is favored by her father as a son-in-law, is harassed by her, and a marriage with her lover, a journeyman carpenter, seems impossible. The family tragedy was well received by the audience, as parental consent to marriage was often based only on the wealth of the possible son-in-law, which many of the audience had already experienced in their immediate vicinity. In 1927 the play was premiered by the Montabaur journeyman's association and stayed on the stages of amateur theater groups for almost 40 years. In 1926 he published the idealizing play Schinnerhannes de Rhenish Räuwerschelm about the robber captain Schinderhannes . In the summer of 1929 almost 40,000 visitors came to the 18 performances of the Nassau open-air theater in Vockenhausen to see the historical folk play. Proceeds from the demonstration went to an extension of the church in Vockenhausen. In 1930 the play became the focus of the Oberlahnsteiner Heimatspiele in Schillerpark.

After moving to Breitenau in 1935, Reuter wrote another ten to twelve plays. In 1936 the Haiderbacher Festival began in Breitenau with the Ammieche , in 1937 the Schinnerhannes was shown.

Reuter's first pieces played after the war were Ammieche in 1946 , still in a hall in Deesen, then his fairground play Death or Life on the Stairs in Front of the Church in Breitenau. Reuter founded the Spielschar Haiderbach and opened the Haiderbacher home theater for open-air plays . In the summer of 1947, the play Die Harebouwe (Gypsy Boys ) was performed on the Lindenberg open-air theater in Deesen . In this play 100 amateur actors appeared in 20 speaking roles. It's about a theft that was foisted on a gypsy. Also in 1947 , after the renovation, the play Unterm Krummstab was premiered in Marienstatt Abbey when the monastery was founded. The Haiderbächer Heimatbühne showed The March Minister in 1948 , for the 1848 revolution in the Duchy of Nassau, and in 1949, after Reuter's death, the medieval Genoveva , after which the stage closed. The Harebouwe were first published in 1988, on Reuters 100th birthday.

Works

Poetry

• Su gihn die Gäng: Poems, how et su giht un wie mer chatters em Nassauer-Ländche , Verlag der Limburger Vereinsdruckerei, Limburg 1912.
• Gott, dur host vill Vehlcher , poems in Nassau dialect, Elwert, Marburg 1922.
• Su gihn die Gäng: Poems, how et su giht and how mer chatted em Nassauer Ländche , new, verb. Edition, Elwert, Marburg ad Lahn 1926.
• How beautiful ... how difficult ... to be a poet , Ed. Alfons Bierbaum, self-published, Emmelshausen 1978.

Acting (selection)

• Schinnerhannes de Rheinische Räuwerschelm , W. Kalb, Montabaur 1926.
• Dat Ammieche by de Goldbachmill, drama from village life in 4 acts , published by the Nassau Association for Rural Welfare and Homeland Care, Niederlahnstein, 1927.
• The tree of freedom, historical folk piece in four acts , publishing house of the Nassau Association for Rural Welfare and Homeland Care, Niederlahnstein 1930.
• Death or Life, Haiderbächer Kirmesspiel , Haiderbach 1946.
• Genoveva: Tragedy in Five Acts , Ed. Alfons Bierbaum, self-published, Emmelshausen 1979.
• The Harebouwe: Drama in 5 acts , 1st edition, working group on local history and customs of the Westerwaldverein, branch association Montabaur, Montabaur - then and now, No. 6, Montabaur 1988.

literature

• Nassauische Blätter, monthly for rural welfare and home care in Nassauer Land, Volume 5, Montabaur 1925, pp. 97-100
• Nassauische Heimat, supplement to the Rheinisches Volksblatt, Volume 8, 1928, pp. 55f .; Volume 9, 1929, pp. 97f.
• August Straub : The contemporary literature in the Nassauer Land . P. Kaesberger, Westerburg i. Westerwald 1929, pp. 58-59
• Limburg diocese calendar, 1950, p. 84
• Karl Erich Loderhose: Wilhelm Reuter and Rudolf Dietz in Königstein , Heimatliche Geschichtsblätter, Verein für Heimatkunde, Königstein im Taunus, Volume 3, 1954, pp. 42–44
• Manfred Hofmann: Good heart in a rough shell, Wilhelm Reuters life picture , Rhein-Lahnfreund, Bote vom Taunus and Westerwald, The home book for the Nassauer Land in the administrative region of Montabaur, Heil-Druck Bad Ems, 1955, pp. 133-134
• A. Bierbaum, Rhein-Hunsrück-Kalender, 1977, p. 91
• Willy Mehr: Pastor Wilhelm Reuter, poet since 1935 in Breitenau , Der Westerwald, vol. 72, issue 2, 1979, p. 54
• Michael Maurer: Heimatverein Haiderbach keeps the estate of the pastor Wilhelm Reuter , Rhein-Zeitung, edition H, January 4th 1983, p. 38
• Josef Kläser: Connected to the Westerwald. In memory of the Westerwald homeland poet Pastor Wilhelm Reuter (1888-1948) , Der Westerwald, vol. 81, issue 3, 1988, pp. 136-137
• Josef Kläser: Wilhelm Reuter - Pastor and Poet, a memory on his 100th birthday and 40th anniversary of his death , Wäller Heimat, 1988, pp. 119–125; About the same word in: Josef Kläser: Once a well-known local poet , Rhein-Lahn-Kreis, Heimatjahrbuch 1988, Höhr-Grenzhausen, Wittich 1988, pp. 187–193
• Konrad Huth (hth): Pastor and local poet . Memories on Wilhelm Reuter's 100th birthday , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Rhein-Main (local section), April 14, 1988, 87, p. 38
• Bertold Picard: Pastor and poet Wilhelm Reuter was born 100 years ago , Eppsteiner Zeitung, Volume 38, 1988, Issue 15, p. 5
• Otto Renkhoff : Reuter, Wilhelm (biography no. 3519), Nassau biography. Short biographies from 13 centuries. 2. completely revised u. exp. Edition, Wiesbaden 1992, p. 642
• Wäller theater poet and pastor , Rhein-Zeitung, issue F (Westerwald), 143, June 21, 2008, p. 21
• Jürgen Reusch: "Schinnerhannes" and "Harebouwe": Theater on the Haiderbach , Wäller Heimat, 2008, pp. 61–70
• Rainer von Breitenau (= Rainer Kalb): Wilhelm Reuter. Gottesmann and dialect poet: His life and work , self-published by Verpeilspitze, Breitenau 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-041397-1

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Reuter in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Wilhelm Reuter in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
• Vockenhausen under the spell of Schinderhannes. In: Eppsteiner Zeitung. November 5, 2003, accessed August 15, 2020 .