Wolfgang Leppmann (Germanist)

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Wolfgang Arthur Robert Leppmann (born July 9, 1922 in Berlin ; † December 3, 2002 in Bergen on Rügen ) was a German-American German studies scholar . He was best known as the author of cultural and historical biographies.

Life

The son of the journalist Franz Leppmann and the actress Ida Orloff - the Slavist Wolfgang Leppmann was his godfather - grew up in Berlin until the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. His parents then sent him to boarding school in Florence , where they soon followed him. In 1936 Ida Orloff and Franz Leppmann separated. When the intensified persecution of Jews in Italy began , father and son fled to London in 1938 . During the German campaign in the west , Wolfgang Leppmann was interned on the Isle of Wight . There he was given the choice of going to Australia or Canada . He chose Canada, where he was interned for a few years. After his release he became an officer in the 2nd Montreal Regiment of the Canadian Army and took part in the Second World War.

After the end of the Second World War, Wolfgang Leppmann began studying German in Montreal . He earned his BA and MA in 1949 from McGill University . He then went to Princeton , where he received his doctorate on German short stories in 1952 . He then taught at Brown University and in 1954 became a professor at the University of Oregon Eugene , where he remained until his retirement . After that he lived mainly in Berlin and Munich .

Leppmann's first book, Goethe and the Germans , was groundbreaking for research on reception. He also wrote about Pompeii (1966) and wrote a biography of the archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1971). His most famous work was his biography Rainer Maria Rilkes (1981). In 1986 he presented a biography of Gerhart Hauptmann . As a freelancer, he wrote reviews and articles for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Zeit . He received Guggenheim scholarships in 1962 and 1978 and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon in 1986 . The Tagesspiegel recognized him as a "master of literary biography".

Fonts

  • The German Novelle as a Mirror of Social Conditions. 1952.
  • The German Image of Goethe. Clarendon Pr, Oxford 1961.
    • German: Goethe and the Germans. From the fame of a poet. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1962.
  • Pompeii. A city in literature and life. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, Munich 1966.
    • English: Pompeii in fact and fiction. Elek, London 1968.
  • Winckelmann. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1970.
    • German: Winckelmann. A biography; with 37 picture documents. Propylaen-Verl, Frankfurt a. M. [u. a.] 1971 ISBN 9783549074442 .
  • Rilke. His life, his world, his work. Scherz, Bern 1981.
    • English: Rilke. A life. 1st edition. Fromm International Pub. Corp., New York 1984, ISBN 9780880640152 .
  • Gerhart Hauptmann. Life, work and time. Scherz, Bern 1986, ISBN 9783502184102 .
  • At home in two worlds. From the life work of an American Germanist. Drei Ulmen Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 9783926087065 .
  • The Roaring Twenties. America's wild years. List, Munich 1992, ISBN 9783471780480 .

literature

  • Doris Pfaffinger: In Memors of Wolfgang Leppmann (1922-2002) . In: Germanic Languages ​​and Literatures Newsletter 3 (Fall 2003), No. 1, p. 2. ( PDF )
  • German Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 6, Kraatz - Menges , 2nd edition, ed. by Rudolf Vierhaus , KG Saur, Munich 2011, p. 373.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Master of the literary biography. Wolfgang Leppmann on his 80th birthday . In: Der Tagesspiegel , July 9, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Leppmann, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leppmann, Wolfgang Arthur Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American German studies specialist
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 2002
Place of death Mountains on Rügen