Willy Seidel

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Willy Seidel (born January 15, 1887 in Braunschweig , † December 29, 1934 in Munich ) was a German writer .

Life

Willy Seidel was a younger brother of the poet Ina Seidel and a nephew of the engineer and writer Heinrich Seidel . His father Hermann Seidel was the head of the surgical department of the Ducal Hospital in Braunschweig . In 1895, after the death of their father, the family moved from Braunschweig to Marburg and from there to Munich in 1897 . Willy Seidel attended Maximilian High School there. After high school studied it at the universities in Freiburg / Breisgau , Jena , Marburg and Munich; after five semesters of biology and zoology , he switched to German studies . In 1911 he earned his doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on Theodor Storm .

Already during his studies Seidel published works of fiction, in which his preference for exotic topics was expressed early on. Anton Kippenberg's support enabled him to travel to Egypt , which he processed in the novel Der Sang der Sakîje . It was through this novel that the Berlin Foreign Office became aware of him. In 1914, Seidel traveled to the Pacific on a government contract with the aim of collecting material for literary colonial propaganda. When the First World War broke out , the author stayed in the German colony of Samoa and escaped internment by British troops who immediately occupied the island by fleeing on a ship from the then neutral USA .

Seidel spent the entire First World War in the United States . Since there was no opportunity for him to publish his texts there, he lived in great financial need during these years, and there were also serious health problems. In June 1915 he married a British citizen in New York whom he had met while studying music in Munich and who had wooed her by letter from America until she followed him into exile. Seidel was only able to return to Germany in 1919. His marriage, from which two children had emerged, was already broken by then and was divorced in 1923; In 1924 he married for the second time. In the 1920s Seidel dealt intensively with occult ideas, but he always kept a certain distance from them. In 1925, Ullstein Verlag financed a study trip to Java for him . In 1929 Seidel was awarded the Poet Prize of the City of Munich . After a collapse in health in 1931, the author was unable to complete another work.

After the seizure of power of the Nazis he was one of 88 writers who in the October 1933 vow faithful allegiance to Adolf Hitler had signed. Seidel died of a heart attack a year later after an accident-related, long hospital stay.

Willy Seidel's narrative work has several facets: In his early works, as a portrayal of distant countries, he was a typical representative of Wilhelmine exoticism ; however, Seidel soon went beyond that and criticized colonialism . The description of his stay in America The new Daniel is extremely critical of America . In the twenties Seidel wrote mainly novels and stories that can be classified as fantastic literature . Because of these works, the otherwise largely forgotten author still enjoys some interest in specialist circles. In addition, Seidel was the author of satirical and humorous works such as the afterlife grotesque Der Weg zum Chef and the Schwabing novel Jossa and the bachelors .

Works (selection)

The oldest thing in the world, original edition in 550 copies, Musarion Verlag, Munich 1923
  • The beautiful day. Munich 1908.
  • Absalom. Stuttgart 1911.
  • Nature as a means of representation in the stories of Theodor Storm. Munich 1911.
  • The garden of the Schuchân. Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1912.
  • The song of the Sakîje. Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1914.
  • Yali and his white wife. Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1914 ( Insel-Bücherei 133/1).
  • The bush cock. Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1921.
  • The new Daniel. Berlin 1921.
  • The oldest thing in the world. Munich 1923.
  • The eternal return. Berlin 1925.
  • The god in the greenhouse. Munich 1925.
  • The cage. Berlin 1925.
  • Alarm in the afterlife. Berlin 1927.
  • Shadow puppets. Munich 1927.
  • The horror and other stories. Berlin 1928.
  • Larvae. Munich 1929.
  • Mr. Zinkeisen's magic lantern. Munich 1929.
  • The skies of the colored. Munich 1930.
  • Jossa and the bachelors. Munich 1930.
  • Otto Nückel . Munich 1930.
  • The death of Achilles and other stories. Stuttgart 1936.
  • The night of dignity. Munich 1941.

Translations

literature

  • Jürgen Edgar Buschkiel: Exotism of the Spirit. Freiburg im Breisgau 1954.

Web links

Wikisource: Willy Seidel  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 565.
personal data
SURNAME Seidel, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1934
Place of death Munich