Wilhelm Wisser

Heinrich Wilhelm Wisser (born August 27, 1843 in Klenzau (Ostholstein), † October 13, 1935 in Oldenburg (Oldb) ) was a high school professor and researcher of fairy tales and dialects .

The memorial stone for Wilhelm Wisser in Klenzau

The "Wilhelm-Wisser-Kate" in Braak

life and work

The son of the master shoemaker and owner Jürgen Wilhelm Wisser (1808–1871) and his wife Margarethe Christine b. Sach (1816–1897) grew up with his grandmother in Braak from the age of two and received his first lessons in a country school. From 1855 to 1862 he attended the Grand Ducal Gymnasium in Eutin and then studied Ancient Languages and German at the Universities of Kiel and Leipzig . From 1867 he worked as a private tutor at Gut Rothensande . In 1869 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD. In 1870 he became a grammar school teacher for Latin , Greek and German in Eutin. From 1877 to 1887 Wisser was a senior teacher at the Mariengymnasium in Jever and returned to Eutin in 1887. In 1902 he was transferred to the grammar school in Oldenburg , where he taught until 1908.

For Wisser's work as a later “fairy tale professor”, his time in Eutin from 1887 was initially the most decisive. In the Eutin Literary Society founded by Gerhard Anton von Halem in 1804 , he gave several lectures on folk tales in Low German . Thereupon Wisser decided to put together a collection of fairy tales, but was initially unsuccessful. It was not until 1898 that the Eutin pastor Heinrich Aye Wisser put people in touch with older residents of the surrounding villages, where stories in their original character and in the unadulterated Low German language had been preserved.

As a result, Wisser collected Low German fairy tales between Fehmarn and Lübeck , which he had told him from 1898 to 1909 by over 230 elderly people from all walks of life , but especially by so-called “little people” such as day laborers , cottagers and craftsmen. After his transfer to Oldenburg in 1902, Wisser used the summer and autumn holidays in Ostholstein to continue collecting. He temporarily used the Sierhagen estate near Neustadt in Holstein , where Carl Gabriel von Scheel-Plessen took him in.

After his retirement, he finished his collecting work and took care of the publication from then on. As early as 1904 he had the stories suitable as children's fairy tales published under the title Wat Grotmoder vertell't . The volume was illustrated with drawings by the Oldenburg painter Bernhard Winter , with whom he was on friendly terms. The first volume for adults followed in 1913, followed by a second volume in 1927. Wisser's fairy tales continued to be included as an independent volume in the collection The fairy tales of world literature edited by Friedrich von der Leyen and Paul Zaunert and were thus also internationally recognized. In addition to being published in anthologies, knowledge fairy tales continued to appear in calendars and magazines. A complete edition of his collection, later compiled on behalf of the Reich Ministry of the Interior , comprises 2,500 pages.

With Conrad Borchling , Wisser had a violent dispute about the Low German orthography, which was also published in the journal Niedersachsen .

In 1921 Wisser co-founded the Low German stage Ollnborger Kring in Oldenburg , today's August Hinrichs stage .

Honors

The “fairy tale professor” received various honors for his work, including a. 1926 the John Brinckman Prize . In Oldenburg, Eutin, Lübeck ( Wilhelm-Wisser-Weg ) and Braak streets are named after him and in Eutin the “Wilhelm-Wisser-Community School” bears his name. A memorial plaque on the house at Eutiner Albert-Mahlstedt-Strasse 37 bears the inscription “In dit Hus hett de fairy tale professor Wilhelm Wisser waant, as he vun 1887 bet 1902 in Eutin Schoolmaster an de hoge School weer.” There is a sculpture on the rose garden in Eutin from a central figure in the fairy tale of "Dummhans".

The cottage in Braak, where Wisser grew up, has been preserved and is listed as "Wilhelm-Wisser-Kate".

family

On August 12, 1872, Wisser married Ida Friederike Dorothea Ohrt (1850–1873) from Malente and, after her early death in 1877, Anna Florkowski from Schwerin (1859–1950). His marriages resulted in four sons and two daughters, including the actress and later wife of the director Hermann Thimig Hanna Thimig-Wisser (1894–1989), who later became the partner of the Low German author Alma Rogge .

literature

• Gustav Peters: Wilhelm Wisser on his 125th birthday (1843–1935). In: Heimatverband Eutin : Yearbook for local history. 1968, pp. 91-99.
• Otto Rönnpag: Wilhelm Wisser reports on his search for a fairy tale. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1978, pp. 147-150.
• Otto Rönnpag: Memories of Wilhelm Wisser. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1978, pp. 150-152.
• Otto Rönnpag: fairy tale professor Wilhelm Wisser. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1985, pp. 163-168.
• Hannelore Jeske: The Wilhelm Wissers collection, its position in folk tradition and in fairy tale research. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1989, pp. 137-143.
• Klaus Klattenhoff: Wisser, Heinrich Wilhelm. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 807-808 ( online ).

To the Wilhelm-Wisser-Kate

• Otto Rönnpag: The Wilhelm-Wisser-Kate in Braak. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1988, pp. 124-127.
• Jochen Veen: The Wilhelm-Wisser-Kate in Braak. In: Heimatverband Eutin: Yearbook for local history. 1996, pp. 112-113.

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Wisser  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Wisser in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of Wilhelm Wisser