Wilhelm of Polenz

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Wilhelm von Polenz around 1900; Photography by Julius Cornelius Schaarwächter

Wilhelm von Polenz (born January 14, 1861 in Obercunewalde ; † November 13, 1903 in Bautzen ) was a native German writer , novelist and novelist .

Life

Wilhelm von Polenz comes from the old Saxon noble family Polenz . His father was the Saxon chamberlain and monastery bailiff of Marienthal , Julius Curt von Polenz , his mother Clara, a born von Wechmar . At the Vitzthumschen Gymnasium in Dresden , he passed the matriculation examination in 1882 and then completed a year of military service with the Dresden guardsmen. During this time he also got to know Moritz von Egidy .

At the request of his father, Wilhelm von Polenz studied at the Universities of Breslau , Berlin and Leipzig law , although he felt even more musical and literary inclinations. He gave up the traineeship in the Saxon civil service that had started in 1886 , made writing his main occupation and moved to Berlin . Here he belonged to the “ Ethical Club ” and the “ Friedrichshagener Dichterkreis ”. His acquaintances included the writers Heinrich and Julius Hart , Gerhart Hauptmann , Otto Erich Hartleben and Hermann Conradi . In 1888 he married the Englishwoman Beatrice Robinson. In 1891 he acquired a manor in Lauba, and in 1894, after the death of his father, the manor Obercunewalde, which is owned by the family .

The German linguist and German medievalist Peter von Polenz was his grandson.

plant

Polenzpark Obercunewalde, monument to Wilhelm von Polenz, bronze relief by Kramer, created in 1909

In 1890 Wilhelm von Polenz published his first novel, “Atonement”. Impressed by naturalism and the works of Émile Zola and Lev Tolstoy , with whom he was in a friendly correspondence, he wrote his socially and culturally critical works. His best-known novel is "Der Büttnerbauer" (1895). In it he depicts the difficult situation of the peasant class of his time and makes it appear as the result of a Jewish conspiracy against Christian victims: The main character's family farm gets into economic hardship and owes itself “of all people” to a Jew. In the novel, Captain Schroff says:

“But when the variety comes: Harrassowitz, Samuel Harrassowitz! Where did your father leave his mind when he gave the devil the little finger! Your age doesn't know that this Jew over in Wörmsbach owns half the village. Everything bought up and slaughtered in plots! Now we have the blood hedgehog happy in Halbenau too! the marten in the chicken coop doesn't mind! Within a year everything is subject to tribute. "

- Wilhelm von Polenz : Quotation by Captain Schroff in the novel Der Büttnerbauer when he heard about the situation of the Büttnerbauer (Chapter 14)

Von Polenz uses the common anti-Semitic stereotypes to describe the physiognomy of his Jewish characters, but unlike in many other examples of anti-Semitic narrative literature, the Jewish characters in this novel speak grammatically correct German (while the other protagonists speak strong dialect as a sign of their homeland). However, in the novel they switch to an alleged “Yiddish” when they do business, which the author uses to create an alleged reference to crooks' language.

The old farmer eventually commits suicide.

In 1902 Wilhelm von Polenz went on a trip to the USA . The result of this stay was his essay “The Land of the Future” (1903). In this work he uses approvingly several key terms of racism and anti-Semitism. He complained that America generally “ attracts all Gypsy livelihoods”, as the growing population of “thoroughly international Jews ” shows. The immigrant Jews would “increasingly shape America according to their principles”. And:

"The physiognomy of certain influential circles in New York proves that even in the new world the Semite has not lost the ability to preserve his own being unchanged and to deeply influence the host people through his nature."

- Wilhelm von Polenz : The land of the future

In the same year Wilhelm von Polenz died at the age of 42 from cancer in the Bautzen City Hospital.

reception

Formally, the novel “Der Büttnerbauer” is considered to be an important epic work of naturalism. In terms of content, von Polenz puts decidedly anti-Semitic views in the mouths of his characters in the novel , which at the time were not only gaining in importance in Germany. Later the novel is said to have been admired by Adolf Hitler and to have influenced him anti-Semitically. Accordingly, the novel was rated positively in the centrally controlled cultural policy of the Third Reich and circulated across the Reich. In contemporary comparative literary studies, it is stated that von Polenz resembles authors of the previous generation such as Franz Grillparzer , Gustav Freytag , Theodor Fontane and Wilhelm Raabe with his affirmation of the rural-peasant and the rejection of the urban-industrial way of life and production . Compared to these, however, his anti-Semitism is seen as particularly generalized and he has struck a sharper key in the literary representation of Jews.

Echoes

Wilhelm von Polenz-Strasse in the Gesundbrunnen district of Bautzen

In the manor park Obercunewalde, designed by his father in 1880 by the Dresden court garden architect Johann Carl Friedrich Bouché , the Upper Lusatian estates and friends of his works erected his monument to him in 1909 . Later the elementary and middle school "Wilhelm von Polenz" in Cunewalde was named after him.

His artistic estate was in the “Polenz Museum” in Cunewalde (Am Gänseberg 7). Since the closure of the Polenz Museum in Cunewalde, the estate has been kept in the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library.

monument

The sculptor Arnold Kramer (1863–1918) created a relief medallion for Polenz's memorial in Bautzen, a second casting of which was brought to the Municipal Museum.

Works

Poetry

  • Harvest time. Postponed poems . Fontane, Berlin 1904.

Stories and novels

Plays

  • Heinrich von Kleist . Tragedy in four acts. Pierson, Dresden and Leipzig 1891. ( digitized version )
  • Prussian men . Play in four acts. Hermann, Berlin 1891.
  • Andreas Bockholdt . Tragedy in four acts. Pierson, Dresden and Leipzig 1898. ( digitized version )
  • Junkers and Fröhner . Village tragedy. Fontane, Berlin 1901.

Others

literature

The Hungarian Miklos Salyamosy researched Wilhelm von Polenz in the summer of 1964. The photo shows him in the Bautzen apartment of his son Dr. Erich von Polenz.
  • Adolf Bartels : Wilhelm von Polenz. Koch, Dresden 1909.
  • Hilde Krause: Wilhelm von Polenz as the narrator. Univ. Diss., Munich 1937
  • Peter von Polenz (2001): Student language in compulsion to duel. According to a re-emerged manuscript by Wilhelm v. Polenz (1885). In: Burkhardt, Armin; Cherubim, Dieter (ed.): Language in the life of time. Contributions to the theory, analysis and criticism of the German language in the past and present. Helmut Henne on his 65th birthday. Tübingen, pp. 33-43.
  • Siegfried Rönisch:  Polenz, Wilhelm Christoph Wolf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 598 ( digitized version ).
  • Miklós Salyámosy: Wilhelm von Polenz. Prose works by a naturalist. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1985 ISBN 963-05-3836-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Klaus-Michael Bogdal, Klaus Holz, Matthias N. Lorenz (ed.): Literary anti-Semitism after Auschwitz. Verlag Metzler, 2007, ISBN 9783476022400 , p. 95 ff
  2. ^ Digitized version of the Büttnerbauer. P. 187 , accessed March 2, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Angelika Benz: "Der Büttnerbauer (novel by Wilhelm von Polenz, 1895)." In: Wolfgang Benz (Hg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Vol. 7 Literature, Film, Theater and Art. De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, p. 48 f.
  4. ^ Wilhelm von Polenz. The local poet from Cunewalde and namesake of our school. (No longer available online.) Wilhelm-von-Polenz Oberschule Cunewalde, archived from the original on February 20, 2015 ; accessed on March 2, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.polenzschule.de
  5. ^ Angelika Benz: Der Büttnerbauer (novel by Wilhelm Polenz, 1895). In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Literature, film, theater and art. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 9783110340884 , p. 48.
  6. ↑ George L. Mosse: The Völkische Revolution: About the spiritual roots of National Socialism. Volume 165 of Athenaeum Pocket Books, New Scientific Library. Athenaeum special edition. Verlag Anton Hain, 1991, ISBN 9783445047656 , p. 36.
  7. ^ Sabine Witt: Nationalist intellectuals in Slovakia 1918-1945: Cultural practice between sacralization and secularization. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 9783110396904 .
  8. ^ Margit Frank: The image of the Jew in German literature in the course of contemporary history. In: University productions German studies, linguistics, literary studies. Volume 9. Burg-Verlag, 1987, p. 7.
  9. ^ Reichsstelle für Volkstümliches Büchereiwesen and Association of German People's Librarians (ed.): Die Bücherei: Journal of the Reichsstelle für Volkstümliches Büchereiwesen. Volume 3, 1936, publishing house shopping center for libraries, p. 52.
  10. ^ Hanna Delf von Wolzüge (Ed.): Theodor Fontane, at the end of the century: Der Preusse. The Jews. The national. In: Theodor Fontane, at the end of the century: International symposium of the Theodor Fontane Archive on the 100th anniversary of Theodor Fontane's death. Volume 1. 13. – 17. September 1998 in Potsdam, Brandenburg State and University Library. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2000, ISBN 9783826017957 , p. 190.
  11. ↑ Martin Gubser: Literarischer Antisemitismus: Investigations on Gustav Freytag and other bourgeois writers of the 19th century. Wallstein Verlag, 1998, ISBN 9783892442592 , pp. 121, 142, 147.
  12. ↑ Florian Krobb: Crossroads. On the image of Jews in German novels of the 1890s. In: Pól Ó Dochartaigh (Ed.): Jews in German Literature Since 1945: German-Jewish Literature? Edition 53 of German monitor, ISSN  0927-1910 , Verlag Rodopi, 2000, ISBN 9789042014534 , p. 13.
  13. ^ Wilhelm von Polenz High School Cunewalde. Retrieved March 2, 2015 .
  14. ^ Polenz Museum. Retrieved March 2, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Polenz, Wilhelm von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German homeland poet
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Obercunewalde
DATE OF DEATH November 13, 1903
Place of death Bautzen