Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer
Encyclopedia
Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (December 30, 1878, Budapest
- April 12, 1962, Munich
) was an Austria
n novelist, poet and playwright. Later based in Germany
, he belonged to a group of writers that included the likes of Hans Grimm
, Rudolf G. Binding
, Emil Strauß, Agnes Miegel
and Hanns Johst
, all of whom found favour under the Nazis
.
part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he attended school in Budapest before furthering his education in Karlsbad
and Vienna
. He became a freelance writer and came to specialise in historical novels that were characterised by their fixation with all things German. Between 1917 and 1925 he produced his most celebrated works, a trilogy of novels about Paracelsus
, and in these books Kolbenheyer explored the many of the Völkisch movement concepts prevalent at the time by presenting his hero as the Nordic race archetype struggling against racial degeneracy and immorality. Having settled amongst the Sudeten Germans
, Kolbenheyer's right-wing attitudes solidified and he came to pre-empt many ideas of Nazism
, notably in his theoretical work Die Bauhütte (1925), which predicted a turn away from 'Judeo-Christianity' as the source of German salvation. This work has been identified as being one of the main influences on Alfred Rosenberg
's The Myth of the Twentieth Century
. A strong opponent of left-wing politics
, he joined Wilhelm Schäfer
in resigning from the Akademie der Künste
in 1931 over what he saw as their support for the activities of Heinrich Mann
and Alfred Döblin
.
in a poem and to defend the Nazi book burnings
, as well as to write pro-Nazi war novels such as Karlsbader Novellen 1786 (1935) and Das Gottgelobte Herz (1938). Indeed his star rose under the Nazis because his literature fitted their world view
. He was one of a number of writers added to the Prussian Academy of Arts
after the Nazis came to power in 1933 at the expense of the likes of Franz Werfel
, Ludwig Fulda
and Jakob Wassermann
, none of whom shared the Nazi weltanschauung.
His 1934 play Gregor und Heinrich, concerning Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
and Pope Gregory VII
, demonstrated an instance of his pro-Nazi stance as he dedicated it to "the German spirit in the process of being resurrected". As a reward for his high standing under the Nazis he was one of six writers included on 'List A' or the 'List of the Immortals', properly known as the Gottbegnadeten list
, who were exempted from military service on account of their prestige. He was also awarded the Goethe Prize
in 1937.
he continued to publish novels that were largely in the same nationalist
spirit as his previous output. He also became a regular contributor to the far right
, pan-European nationalist
journal Nation Europa
.
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
- April 12, 1962, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
) was an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n novelist, poet and playwright. Later based in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, he belonged to a group of writers that included the likes of Hans Grimm
Hans Grimm
Hans Grimm was a German writer.His father, Julius Grimm, was a professor of law who retired early and devoted his time to private historical and literary studies and to political activity as a founder member of the National Liberal party, which he represented in the Prussian parliament, and was a...
, Rudolf G. Binding
Rudolf G. Binding
Rudolf Georg Binding was a German writer.He was born in Basel, Switzerland and died in Starnberg. He studied medicine and law before joining the Hussars. On the outbreak of the First World War, Binding, who was forty-six years old, became commander of a squadron of dragoons...
, Emil Strauß, Agnes Miegel
Agnes Miegel
Agnes Miegel was a German author, journalist, and poet. She received the Kleist Prize for lyric in 1913, the Herder Prize in 1936, the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt in 1940, the literature prize of the Bavarian Academy of Art in 1959 and the...
and Hanns Johst
Hanns Johst
Hanns Johst was a German playwright and Nazi Poet Laureate.Hanns Johst was born in Seehausen as the son of an elementary school teacher. He grew up in Oschatz and Leipzig. As a juvenile he planned to become a missionary. When he was 17 years old he worked as an auxiliary in a Bethel Institution...
, all of whom found favour under the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
Early life
A Volksdeutscher from the HungarianHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he attended school in Budapest before furthering his education in Karlsbad
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. He became a freelance writer and came to specialise in historical novels that were characterised by their fixation with all things German. Between 1917 and 1925 he produced his most celebrated works, a trilogy of novels about Paracelsus
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
, and in these books Kolbenheyer explored the many of the Völkisch movement concepts prevalent at the time by presenting his hero as the Nordic race archetype struggling against racial degeneracy and immorality. Having settled amongst the Sudeten Germans
Sudeten Germans
- Importance of Sudeten Germans :Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over 3 million ethnic Germans, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the republic and about 29.5% of Bohemia and Moravia....
, Kolbenheyer's right-wing attitudes solidified and he came to pre-empt many ideas of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, notably in his theoretical work Die Bauhütte (1925), which predicted a turn away from 'Judeo-Christianity' as the source of German salvation. This work has been identified as being one of the main influences on Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
's The Myth of the Twentieth Century
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
The Myth of the Twentieth Century is a book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi party and editor of the Nazi paper Völkischer Beobachter. It was the most influential Nazi text after Hitler's Mein Kampf. The titular "myth" is "the myth of blood, which under the sign of...
. A strong opponent of left-wing politics
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
, he joined Wilhelm Schäfer
Wilhelm Schäfer
- Life :Born in Ottrau , until 1896 Schäfer was a school teacher. He gained a scholarship to study in Switzerland and France through the Cotta-Verlag publishing house, and in 1898 became a freelance writer in Berlin...
in resigning from the Akademie der Künste
Akademie der Künste
The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
in 1931 over what he saw as their support for the activities of Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
and Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin was a German expressionist novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz .- 1878–1918:...
.
Nazism
He continued to write widely under the Nazis, taking up his pen to praise Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in a poem and to defend the Nazi book burnings
Nazi book burnings
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the authorities of Nazi Germany to ceremonially burn all books in Germany which did not correspond with Nazi ideology.-The book-burning campaign:...
, as well as to write pro-Nazi war novels such as Karlsbader Novellen 1786 (1935) and Das Gottgelobte Herz (1938). Indeed his star rose under the Nazis because his literature fitted their world view
World view
A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...
. He was one of a number of writers added to the Prussian Academy of Arts
Prussian Academy of Arts
The Prussian Academy of Arts was an art school set up in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and later king in Prussia. It had a decisive influence on art and its development in the German-speaking world throughout its...
after the Nazis came to power in 1933 at the expense of the likes of Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
, Ludwig Fulda
Ludwig Fulda
thumb|200px|Ludwig FuldaLudwig Anton Salomon Fulda was a German writer and a poet with a strong social commitment.-Biography:...
and Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann
Jakob Wassermann was a Jewish-German writer and novelist.- Life :Born in Fürth, Wassermann was the son of a shopkeeper and lost his mother at an early age. He showed literary interest early and published various pieces in small newspapers...
, none of whom shared the Nazi weltanschauung.
His 1934 play Gregor und Heinrich, concerning Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV was King of the Romans from 1056 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 until his forced abdication in 1105. He was the third emperor of the Salian dynasty and one of the most powerful and important figures of the 11th century...
and Pope Gregory VII
Pope Gregory VII
Pope St. Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death. One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal...
, demonstrated an instance of his pro-Nazi stance as he dedicated it to "the German spirit in the process of being resurrected". As a reward for his high standing under the Nazis he was one of six writers included on 'List A' or the 'List of the Immortals', properly known as the Gottbegnadeten list
Gottbegnadeten list
The Gottbegnadeten list was a 36-page list of artists considered crucial to Nazi culture. The list was assembled in September 1944 by Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler.The list exempted the designated artists from...
, who were exempted from military service on account of their prestige. He was also awarded the Goethe Prize
Goethe Prize
The Goethe Prize of Frankfurt-am-Main is a German literary award of high prestige named after Johann Wolfgang Goethe. It was initially an annual award, but became triennial...
in 1937.
Post-war writing
Unsurprisingly Kolbenheyer's star fell somewhat after the Second World War although from his base in West GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
he continued to publish novels that were largely in the same nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
spirit as his previous output. He also became a regular contributor to the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
, pan-European nationalist
Pan-European nationalism
The idea that Europe should be united politically has been present in European culture since the Middle Ages, and inspired several proposals for some form of confederation. With the growth of nationalism in the 19th century, several pan-national ideas of Europe developed, some of them based on...
journal Nation Europa
Nation Europa
Nation Europa is a monthly magazine, published in Germany, that was originally established in support of Pan-European nationalism...
.