Wolfgang Thadewald

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wolfgang Thadewald (2008)

Wolfgang Thadewald (born April 24, 1936 in Stettin ; † December 1, 2014 in Langenhagen ) was a German collector , bibliographer , publisher , editor , author of grotesque - bizarre stories and one of the most important German-speaking experts on the works of the French science fiction writer Jules Verne .

life and work

Wolfgang Thadewald in his library (2008)

Activity as a literary agent

At the end of the Second World War , the almost 9-year-old Thadewald and his family fled from his homeland in Western Pomerania to West Germany via Denmark . He completed a commercial apprenticeship and worked as a tax officer, most recently as a senior tax officer in the role of a main department head.

In addition to his job , Thadewald was very interested in literature and for many years ran his own literary agency during the Cold War , which specialized in Polish authors so that they could publish on the German market. The authors he published included the science fiction author Stanisław Lem , whom he represented for over 40 years and with whom he was a close friend until his death in 2006. He also represented Marian Orzechowski , Polish Foreign Minister from 1985 to 1988 and winner of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade . Just like the Catholic clergyman Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II , who, with Thadewald's support , was able to publish poetry .

In 1966 he self-published together with Thomas Schlück the science fiction novel "Star Maker" by the British Olaf Stapledon , which Schlück had translated.

Collecting

At the age of 18 Thadewald had to go to hospital for several months and during this time he got to know the science fiction booklet series “Utopia” from Pabel Verlag , which had just come onto the market .

Jules Verne expert

Very small excerpt from the Thadewald collection / library (2008)

After discovering science fiction and fantasy for himself at the age of 18, he finally got to know the work of Jules Verne at the age of 22. From that point on until his death he collected everything he could find about the French author. With detective flair, he meticulously assembled what is probably the largest collection on Jules Verne in German . With around 4,000 objects, his collection comprises over 90% of all known German-language Verne editions (including the associated secondary literature ) and other objects. It not only includes the various editions , but also their individual editions . This includes not only hardbacks , but also paperbacks , novels and comics . Furthermore anthologies with individual stories, radio plays and audio books , records and cassettes and film adaptations of Verne's works. After all, Thadewald also had numerous "small parts" such as portrait engravings , handicraft sheets , collecting pictures , figure sheets for paper theaters etc.

Thadewald had split his collection between two single-storey houses in Langenhagen. In one of the houses he lived between his Jules Verne collection like in a library . He bequeathed his entire Jules Verne collection to the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library in Hanover . The collection comprises around 4,000 items, including 2,000 bound books, 800 paperbacks, 200 notebooks (= 3,000 items) and around 200 records and cassettes ... (quote from the will ). He bequeathed his collection of more than 45,000 volumes of fantastic literature to the Fantastic Library in Wetzlar .

After negotiations between the Leibniz Library and the Fantastic Library, both sides agreed in 2019 to hand over the entire Jules Verne collection of Thadewald, which had been stored in 92 moving boxes in a depot of the Leibniz Library since 2014, to the Fantastic Library. In May 2019 the collection was brought to Wetzlar, where Jules Verne experts (including those of the Jules Verne Club ) have been working on making it accessible to the public ever since .

In the course of his life as a collector, Thadewald published numerous specialist articles and books on Verne, for example a complete edition of the Verneschen works on a CD-ROM, which was published in German, with a detailed introduction, novels, short stories, old reviews as well as biographies and bibliographies on over 39,000 pages contains.

Wolfgang Thadewald became a member of the German Jules Verne Club on October 14, 2000 , of which he was a member until his death.

Fonts (selection)

Cover page Nautilus - Magazine of the Jules Verne Club , No. 26 from April 2015, with an obituary for Wolfgang Thadewald.
As an author

Among other things, Thadewald is the author of over 500 articles on Jules Verne. He also wrote numerous bibliographies for as loose-leaf appearing Bibliographical Lexicon of utopian fantasy literature as well as edited by Friedrich Heinrich Wimmer Schegk and encyclopedia of travel and adventure literature . In addition, he wrote grotesquely bizarre stories, the protagonists of which are the members of the Ranz family . Together with numerous other authors, such as Volker Dehs or Thomas Ostwald , Thadewald wrote articles for the Jules Verne Handbook published by Heinrich Pleticha in 1992 . He also published stories in series of magazines such as Terra Astra , Perry Rhodan , Spaceship Promet , Terra Nova or in Nautilus , the magazine of the Jules Verne Club .

As editor

With the help of the Jules Verne Club, the new Thadewalds Walks through Vernistik series was published, which includes stories by Verne imitators and early German-language newspaper reviews and other texts that are difficult to access to the public. Two volumes appeared during his lifetime:

  • 150 years of Jules Verne - evidence from the beginnings of a new literary genre. Bremerhaven 2013.
  • Gustav Hofmann: The trip to the moon. After Jules Verne. Bremerhaven 2014.
  • Jules Verne in penny format - book novels of the 19th century. Bremerhaven 2015 ( published posthumously )

Thadewald's magnum opus , however, is:

  • Jules Verne. Known and unknown worlds. (with CD). Directmedia, Berlin 2004.

Others

At the beginning of the 1960s, Thadewald founded the Science Fiction Group Hanover (SFGH) together with Ernst-August Poss (1935–2012 ). Between 2004 and 2006 he worked on the study “Transport Systems of the Future” by the Fantastic Library Wetzlar and the German Aerospace Center . In 2006, alongside Thomas Le Blanc , Peter von Möllendorff and Thomas Schlück, he was one of a total of 19 founders of the Fantastic Library in Wetzlar . In 2007 he was nominated for the Kurd-Laßwitz-Prize for his long-standing contributions to Jules Verne research . Thadewald is considered to be a co-inventor of the (real) drink Vurguzz , which is supposed to have been invented by Jesco von Puttkamer as a fictional alcoholic drink with 250 vol .-% and which has cult status in the science fiction fandom .

Wolfgang Thadewald, who never worked with a computer , died at the age of 78 in December 2014 after a long, serious illness. He was unmarried and had no offspring .

Impressions from the collection

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Michael Krowas: Jules Verne is at home in Langenhagen.
  2. ^ A b Georg Ruppelt: The Jules Verne Collection by Wolfgang Thadewald in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library. P. 348.
  3. ↑ Volker Dehs: In memoriam Wolfgang Thadewald (1936-2014). P. 105.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Jörg Weigand: Unbroken fascination.
  5. ^ Thomas Schlück: Wolfgang Thadewald and Stanisław Lem. In: Le Blanc Weigand (Ed.): Between Jules Verne and Ewigkeit - Wolfgang Thadewald - memories of a friend. P. 38.
  6. ↑ a b c Ulrich Blode: Wolfgang Thadewald.
  7. ↑ Heinz J. Galle: How Science Fiction Conquered Germany. Memories of the past of the future. Dieter von Reeken (Ed.), Lüneburg 2008, pp. 42–43.
  8. ↑ Volker Dehs: Wolfgang Thadewalds Vernereien. P. 7.
  9. ↑ quoted from: Georg Ruppelt: The Jules Verne Collection by Wolfgang Thadewald in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library. P. 349.
  10. ↑ Norbert Scholz: The estate of Wolfgang Thadewald, an interim balance. In: Nautilus - Magazine of the Jules Verne Club. No. 35, October 2019, pp. 43–45.
  11. ^ A b Volker Dehs: Wolfgang Thadewalds Vernereien. P. 8.
  12. ↑ Heinrich Wimmer: A bibliographical brain. In: Le Blanc Weigand (Ed.): Between Jules Verne and Ewigkeit - Wolfgang Thadewald - memories of a friend. Pp. 25-26.
  13. ^ A b Volker Dehs: Wolfgang Thadewalds Vernereien. P. 9.
  14. ↑ Alpers, Fuchs, Hahn and Jeschke: Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature . Vol. 2, p. 1204.
  15. ↑ Wolfgang Thadewald's Nautilus article
  16. ^ Official website of the Jules Verne Club
  17. ^ Publications of the Jules Verne Club
  18. ↑ Transport systems of the future - an interdisciplinary scientific study
  19. ↑ Foundation data of the Fantastic Library Wetzlar
  20. ↑ Nomination for the special award of the KLP 2007
  21. ^ House of History : Museum magazine 3/2013: "The journey is the goal!"
  22. ↑ Perrypedia -Article over Vurguzz
  23. ↑ Wolfgang Thadewald: The history of the Vurguzz. In: SFGH chronicles. No. 181, Science Fiction Group Hannover, December 1997.
personal data
SURNAME Thadewald, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German collector, bibliographer, author, publisher, editor
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 2014
Place of death Langenhagen