Hans Carossa
Encyclopedia
Hans Carossa was a German
novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his innere Emigration (inner emigration) during the Nazi era
.
He was born in Bad Tölz
, Bavaria
and studied medicine
, working as a field surgeon from 1916 to 1918.
He was awarded the Swiss Gottfried Keller Prize in 1931, and the Goethe Prize
in 1938.
He died in Rittsteig near Passau
.
n Germans. Hans' father was a well-known lung specialist, who had published some significant research in his field. He had a calm humanitarian outlook which endeared him to the local Catholic
population in spite of his cool relationship with the Church. Carossa explains in the first volume of his autobiography, Eine Kindheit: Mein Vater war der einzige Mann in der Gemeinde, der selten zur Kirche ging und nicht gern vor einem Kreuze den Hut abnahm. Die Art aber, wie er seine Kranken behandelte, war so selbstlos und ganz dem Leiden zugewandt, so erfinderisch und glücklich, dass er überall für einen Gottesfürchtigen gehalten wurde.
Carossa's mother, on the other hand, was a devoutly Catholic and quite sensitive person. The young couple had just settled in the south Bavarian resort town of Bad Tölz
when Hans was born. They then lived in several Bavarian hamlets. These moves left a feeling of insecurity in the mind of their sensitive and introspective son. Although Hans had a younger sister, Stephanie, a close relationship with her is not evident. He attended the Volksschule
in Pilsting
, the Gymnasium in Landshut
, and the Hochschule
in Munich
.
Hans' interest in poetry began when he was quite young, but it was soon rivaled by the family tradition of medicine. The disparity between the impractical, otherworldly realm of the poet and the very down-to-earth life of a medical doctor haunted him for most of his life. He studied medicine at three universities, Munich, Würzburg
, and Leipzig
. Practically all of his spare time, however, was spent in literary circles. Just after the turn of the century the twenty-four-year-old Carossa began medical practice in the south-east Bavarian border city of Passau
. In 1907, the successful young doctor married a patient, Valerie Endlicher, and moved to the country.
The young doctor begins to write:
Hans Carossa's first publication, the poem Stella Mystica, appeared in 1907. This work, which is faintly reminiscent of a thirteenth century Tagelied
, contains a classic theme which continues throughout the rest of Carossa's writings: unshakable faith in the ultimate victory of the powers of light over darkness. But, as might be expected of a first publication, the poem lacks the polish and maturity so typical of the poet's later work.
The year 1907 was a crucial one for a young Roman Catholic who longed to become a writer, especially one whose idols had been poets such as Richard Dehmel
and Frank Wedekind
; for it was in 1907 that Pope Pius X
issued the encyclical
Pascendi Dominici Gregis
bitterly condemning modernism
in the arts. As with later more serious threats to his freedom of expression, Carossa was not deeply moved by this
order from his church. Other literary and political figures fought the encyclical vigorously; Carossa neither complied nor complained.
It is evident from the Hofmannsthal-Carossa correspondence of the period that in the following year, 1908, Carossa all but quit medicine in favor of writing. Actually the literary career of young doctor Carossa only began three years later with a little forty-eight page collection of poems simply titled Gedichte. The publication of this book also marked the inauguration of Carossa’s life-long association with the Insel
publishing house.
The problem of the relationship between the doctor and his patient, especially the moribund patient, tore at the soul of the youthful physician. It was natural that Carossa should attempt, as his literary idol Goethe had done in Werther
, to write his way out of his most perplexing problems. In fact, Carossa's Doktor Bürgers Ende of 1913 had too much in common with Werther, not only in its motivation, but also in form and plot, to be an original artistic creation. It represents, rather the culmination of the author's period of imitation which had started with the apery of contemporary modernists, and worked backwards in time, until in copying Goethe, Carossa discovered himself. As a guiding thought or Leitwort for Doktor Bürger Carossa splendidly epitomized his patient-doctor relationship in ideas borrowed from his father: Ja, meinem Herzen am nächsten sind jetzt die Verlorenen, die, von denen ich weiss, dass ich sie nicht retten werde.
In the years just before World War I
, literary interests were the chief concern in the young doctor's life. He took notes, planned works, and sought companionship and criticism of such literary figures as Rilke and Hofmannsthal.
(Rumänisches Tagebuch). In 1918 Carossa's unit was transferred back to northern France where he suffered a shoulder wound which ended his military career.
Weimar Republic
The gay Munich, which Carossa had remembered from before the war, greeted the convalescent veteran with somber, black-veiled women, limping men, and empty store windows. This was no time for poets of limited ability, as Carossa considered himself. At the time he felt earnestly: In den Jahren der Prüfung und Erniedrigung, wenn das Volk trauernd zur Erde schaut, wird ihm der Dichter stets am allernächsten sein. But his own destiny was to be primarily that of a doctor.
Ich werde wieder an Krankenbetten sitzen, über fremde Leiden Buch führen, Diagnosen und Prognosen stellen, Heilmittel verordnen, Zeugnisse verfassen, öfters Nachts gerufen werden, und von Zeit zu Zeit eine Urlaubsreise antreten und hie und da einmal ein paar Verse oder eine Seite Prosa schreiben ... Dem ärztlichen Wesen wollte ich verbunden bleiben und falls ich etwas schriebe, mit der Sprache kaum anders umgehen als mit den Heilgiften, auf deren genaue Dosierung ich eingeübt war. He considered it a good omen that while purchasing new medical instruments during his convalescence in Munich, he met Rilke who then turned out to be the first patient of his renewed practice. Upon his own recovery he returned to his Passau office. With renewed dedication, he read medical journals and went to lectures at the clinic to improve his abilities. The Passau practice grew and kept him quite busy. Nevertheless, in a later addition to his autobiographies, published posthumously, he concedes that when he moved to Munich, not long after reestablishing his Passau practice he fully intended to give up medicine for the life of a 'freier Schriftsteller': a wish which could not then become reality.
Doctor Carossa did however, find a little time for the "Heilgifte" of literature. In 1922, the author of Doktor Bürger, which had been so glaringly modelled on Goethe's Werther, published the first volume of his autobiography, Eine Kindheit. The relationship between Carossa's four part autobiography (Eine Kindheit, Verwandlung einer Jugend, Das Jahr der schönen Täuschungen, and Der Tag des jungen Arztes) and Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit
is much more subtle than that between Werther and Doktor Bürger. Doctor Carossa had already by this time published three other works: Stella Mystica, Gedichte, and a fifteen page lyrical pamphlet titled Ostern. The success of Eine Kindheit rekindled Doctor Carossa's enthusiasm. Again, as in 1908, a completely literary career hung temptingly before his eyes. His writings were as yet producing only a meager income, but each new word of praise by friends and critics made the switch in emphasis from a career as doctor-poet to one of poet-doctor a little more feasible. In 1923 he published a third edition of Gedichte, now twice as large as the original 1910 edition. Further heartened by the response to his newer poems, Carossa released later in the same year his third prose work, Rumänisches Tagebuch. This book was very well received and was remunerative enough that in the mid-twenties Carossa was relieved of financial dependence on his medical practice.
The most obvious sign of Carossa's financial success and definite turn toward literature was his ability to fulfill his desire for a Goethean pilgrimage to classic Italy. Such a pilgrimage had meant much to Goethe' s classical development and could have perhaps done the same for Carossa, but Carossa had had to wait too long for his "Italienische Reise". The world of 1925 was being shaken by ominous political happenings which were soon to bar any possibility of Carossa's accomplishing the degree of classic
] detachment that Goethe had been able to enjoy. In 1922, three years before Carossa's Italian trip, Italy had become the second totalitarian state of Europe. It called itself Fascist, while the first had designated itself Communist; but in terms of freedom of expression for an individual citizen, Communism and Fascism were synonymous. Germany, at the time, was still a democratic republic, but already in 1924, a little-known party with
the catch-all name of National Socialist German Workers' Party had won 6.5% of the votes in the Reichstag election.
Classically oriented Carossa did not seem to be at all impressed by these events. By leaving his Munich practice for Italy, he made a major break with the medical profession; when he returned only old friends, those he wanted to treat, would visit his office, and he could spend most of his days at literary composition. Soon after coming back from the classic land, he published the second of his autobiographical series, Verwandlung einer Jugend (1926). This same year also brought sadness into Carossa's life when on 29 December his dear friend Rilke died.
Autobiographical material from Carossa dealing with the period from the mid-twenties to the early thirties is scant; and, since Carossa's own writings are to an excessive degree the only source of information about the man, very little is known about those years. Letters to his wife's family indicate that he was very concerned with his wife's illness, which resulted in her dependency on morphine. During the 1920s he began a relationship with his later second wife, Hedwig Kerber, with a child born in 1930. The lack of literary production may indicate that problems of the German economy, primarily the disastrous inflation
, had made it necessary for Carossa to return to practice. He did rework Doktor Bürger and republished it in 1929 as Schicksal Doktor Bürgers, and one year earlier his home city of Munich had honored him with its Dichterpreis. Perhaps these years of relative silence were filled with preparation for the two fine works in the offing, the first of which was to appear in 1931.
On May 25, 1931, Thomas Mann
's son Klaus Mann
first considered
emigrating from his native land because of the political situation. Two years later, he, the rest of the Mann family, and many others of Germany's finest minds did go into exile. In 1931 Carossa, outwardly at least, undisturbed by the "gathering storm" published Der Arzt Gion. Although still strongly autobiographical, this work was his first and only major work written in the third person. (The only other one was his short story Ein Tag im Spätsommer 1947.) Der Arzt Gion reflects a maturity and optimism which had been becoming increasingly evident in Carossa's works, but which seems strangely out of place in the depression-scarred, dictator-threatened Europe of 1931. From now on, except for a short period toward the end of World War II, the poet-doctor Carossa gave up medical practice completely. Carossa's last book before the Nazi Regime began was Führung und Geleit (1932), an inner survey rather than a true autobiography of his life from early youth to the 1920.
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...
novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his innere Emigration (inner emigration) during the Nazi era
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
.
He was born in Bad Tölz
Bad Tölz
Bad Tölz is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and administrative center of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen.- History :Since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the Ice Age, archaeology has shown continuous occupation of the site of Bad Tölz...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
and studied medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, working as a field surgeon from 1916 to 1918.
He was awarded the Swiss Gottfried Keller Prize in 1931, and 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 1938.
He died in Rittsteig near Passau
Passau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....
.
Carossa family
The Carossas were originally of North Italian stock; but by 1878, when Hans was born; they no longer spoke Italian and were considered simply Upper BavariaBavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n Germans. Hans' father was a well-known lung specialist, who had published some significant research in his field. He had a calm humanitarian outlook which endeared him to the local Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
population in spite of his cool relationship with the Church. Carossa explains in the first volume of his autobiography, Eine Kindheit: Mein Vater war der einzige Mann in der Gemeinde, der selten zur Kirche ging und nicht gern vor einem Kreuze den Hut abnahm. Die Art aber, wie er seine Kranken behandelte, war so selbstlos und ganz dem Leiden zugewandt, so erfinderisch und glücklich, dass er überall für einen Gottesfürchtigen gehalten wurde.
Carossa's mother, on the other hand, was a devoutly Catholic and quite sensitive person. The young couple had just settled in the south Bavarian resort town of Bad Tölz
Bad Tölz
Bad Tölz is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and administrative center of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen.- History :Since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the Ice Age, archaeology has shown continuous occupation of the site of Bad Tölz...
when Hans was born. They then lived in several Bavarian hamlets. These moves left a feeling of insecurity in the mind of their sensitive and introspective son. Although Hans had a younger sister, Stephanie, a close relationship with her is not evident. He attended the Volksschule
Volksschule
A Volksschule was an 18th century system of state-supported primary schools established in the Habsburg Austrian Empire and Prussia . Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that only one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples...
in Pilsting
Pilsting
Pilsting is a municipality in the district of Dingolfing-Landau in Bavaria in Germany....
, the Gymnasium in Landshut
Landshut
Landshut is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also the seat of the...
, and the Hochschule
Hochschule
Hochschule is a German term with two meanings.The literal meaning of the word Hochschule is “high school” which is not appropriate as a translation.- Generic term :...
in 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...
.
Hans' interest in poetry began when he was quite young, but it was soon rivaled by the family tradition of medicine. The disparity between the impractical, otherworldly realm of the poet and the very down-to-earth life of a medical doctor haunted him for most of his life. He studied medicine at three universities, Munich, Würzburg
University of Würzburg
The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...
, and Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
. Practically all of his spare time, however, was spent in literary circles. Just after the turn of the century the twenty-four-year-old Carossa began medical practice in the south-east Bavarian border city of Passau
Passau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....
. In 1907, the successful young doctor married a patient, Valerie Endlicher, and moved to the country.
The young doctor begins to write:
Hans Carossa's first publication, the poem Stella Mystica, appeared in 1907. This work, which is faintly reminiscent of a thirteenth century Tagelied
Tagelied
The Tagelied is a particular form of mediaeval German language lyric, taken and adapted from the Provençal troubadour tradition by the German Minnesinger...
, contains a classic theme which continues throughout the rest of Carossa's writings: unshakable faith in the ultimate victory of the powers of light over darkness. But, as might be expected of a first publication, the poem lacks the polish and maturity so typical of the poet's later work.
The year 1907 was a crucial one for a young Roman Catholic who longed to become a writer, especially one whose idols had been poets such as Richard Dehmel
Richard Dehmel
Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel was a German poet and writer.- Life :...
and Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
; for it was in 1907 that Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X
Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...
issued the encyclical
Encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...
Pascendi Dominici Gregis
Pascendi Dominici Gregis
Pascendi dominici gregis was a Papal encyclical letter promulgated by Pope Pius X on 8 September 1907.The pope condemned Modernism, and a whole range of other principles described as "evolutionary", which allowed change to Roman Catholic dogma...
bitterly condemning modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
in the arts. As with later more serious threats to his freedom of expression, Carossa was not deeply moved by this
order from his church. Other literary and political figures fought the encyclical vigorously; Carossa neither complied nor complained.
It is evident from the Hofmannsthal-Carossa correspondence of the period that in the following year, 1908, Carossa all but quit medicine in favor of writing. Actually the literary career of young doctor Carossa only began three years later with a little forty-eight page collection of poems simply titled Gedichte. The publication of this book also marked the inauguration of Carossa’s life-long association with the Insel
Insel
Insel is a village and a former municipality in the district of Stendal, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 September 2010, it is part of the town Stendal....
publishing house.
The problem of the relationship between the doctor and his patient, especially the moribund patient, tore at the soul of the youthful physician. It was natural that Carossa should attempt, as his literary idol Goethe had done in Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, to write his way out of his most perplexing problems. In fact, Carossa's Doktor Bürgers Ende of 1913 had too much in common with Werther, not only in its motivation, but also in form and plot, to be an original artistic creation. It represents, rather the culmination of the author's period of imitation which had started with the apery of contemporary modernists, and worked backwards in time, until in copying Goethe, Carossa discovered himself. As a guiding thought or Leitwort for Doktor Bürger Carossa splendidly epitomized his patient-doctor relationship in ideas borrowed from his father: Ja, meinem Herzen am nächsten sind jetzt die Verlorenen, die, von denen ich weiss, dass ich sie nicht retten werde.
In the years just before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, literary interests were the chief concern in the young doctor's life. He took notes, planned works, and sought companionship and criticism of such literary figures as Rilke and Hofmannsthal.
World War I
In 1914 Carossa, who was a little too old to be called up immediately, volunteered as an army physician. While doing the inevitable waiting so common to all military service, Carossa collected childhood memories into what was to become Eine Kindheit, kept a record of his war experiences later published as Rumänisches Tagebuch, and also made notes which served as the basis for a large section of his Lebensgedankenbuch titled Führung und Geleit. Carossa served as battalion medical officer on both fronts: first a short period in France, then an extended stay in the southeastern theaterTheater (warfare)
In warfare, a theater, is defined as an area or place within which important military events occur or are progressing. The entirety of the air, land, and sea area that is or that may potentially become involved in war operations....
(Rumänisches Tagebuch). In 1918 Carossa's unit was transferred back to northern France where he suffered a shoulder wound which ended his military career.
Weimar RepublicWeimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
The gay Munich, which Carossa had remembered from before the war, greeted the convalescent veteran with somber, black-veiled women, limping men, and empty store windows. This was no time for poets of limited ability, as Carossa considered himself. At the time he felt earnestly: In den Jahren der Prüfung und Erniedrigung, wenn das Volk trauernd zur Erde schaut, wird ihm der Dichter stets am allernächsten sein. But his own destiny was to be primarily that of a doctor.Ich werde wieder an Krankenbetten sitzen, über fremde Leiden Buch führen, Diagnosen und Prognosen stellen, Heilmittel verordnen, Zeugnisse verfassen, öfters Nachts gerufen werden, und von Zeit zu Zeit eine Urlaubsreise antreten und hie und da einmal ein paar Verse oder eine Seite Prosa schreiben ... Dem ärztlichen Wesen wollte ich verbunden bleiben und falls ich etwas schriebe, mit der Sprache kaum anders umgehen als mit den Heilgiften, auf deren genaue Dosierung ich eingeübt war. He considered it a good omen that while purchasing new medical instruments during his convalescence in Munich, he met Rilke who then turned out to be the first patient of his renewed practice. Upon his own recovery he returned to his Passau office. With renewed dedication, he read medical journals and went to lectures at the clinic to improve his abilities. The Passau practice grew and kept him quite busy. Nevertheless, in a later addition to his autobiographies, published posthumously, he concedes that when he moved to Munich, not long after reestablishing his Passau practice he fully intended to give up medicine for the life of a 'freier Schriftsteller': a wish which could not then become reality.
Doctor Carossa did however, find a little time for the "Heilgifte" of literature. In 1922, the author of Doktor Bürger, which had been so glaringly modelled on Goethe's Werther, published the first volume of his autobiography, Eine Kindheit. The relationship between Carossa's four part autobiography (Eine Kindheit, Verwandlung einer Jugend, Das Jahr der schönen Täuschungen, and Der Tag des jungen Arztes) and Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit
Dichtung und Wahrheit
Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit is an autobiography by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that comprises the time from the poet's childhood to the days in 1775, when he was about to leave for Weimar....
is much more subtle than that between Werther and Doktor Bürger. Doctor Carossa had already by this time published three other works: Stella Mystica, Gedichte, and a fifteen page lyrical pamphlet titled Ostern. The success of Eine Kindheit rekindled Doctor Carossa's enthusiasm. Again, as in 1908, a completely literary career hung temptingly before his eyes. His writings were as yet producing only a meager income, but each new word of praise by friends and critics made the switch in emphasis from a career as doctor-poet to one of poet-doctor a little more feasible. In 1923 he published a third edition of Gedichte, now twice as large as the original 1910 edition. Further heartened by the response to his newer poems, Carossa released later in the same year his third prose work, Rumänisches Tagebuch. This book was very well received and was remunerative enough that in the mid-twenties Carossa was relieved of financial dependence on his medical practice.
The most obvious sign of Carossa's financial success and definite turn toward literature was his ability to fulfill his desire for a Goethean pilgrimage to classic Italy. Such a pilgrimage had meant much to Goethe' s classical development and could have perhaps done the same for Carossa, but Carossa had had to wait too long for his "Italienische Reise". The world of 1925 was being shaken by ominous political happenings which were soon to bar any possibility of Carossa's accomplishing the degree of classic
Classic
The word classic means something that is a perfect example of a particular style, something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality. The word can be an adjective or a noun . It denotes a particular quality in art, architecture, literature and other cultural artifacts...
] detachment that Goethe had been able to enjoy. In 1922, three years before Carossa's Italian trip, Italy had become the second totalitarian state of Europe. It called itself Fascist, while the first had designated itself Communist; but in terms of freedom of expression for an individual citizen, Communism and Fascism were synonymous. Germany, at the time, was still a democratic republic, but already in 1924, a little-known party with
the catch-all name of National Socialist German Workers' Party had won 6.5% of the votes in the Reichstag election.
Classically oriented Carossa did not seem to be at all impressed by these events. By leaving his Munich practice for Italy, he made a major break with the medical profession; when he returned only old friends, those he wanted to treat, would visit his office, and he could spend most of his days at literary composition. Soon after coming back from the classic land, he published the second of his autobiographical series, Verwandlung einer Jugend (1926). This same year also brought sadness into Carossa's life when on 29 December his dear friend Rilke died.
Autobiographical material from Carossa dealing with the period from the mid-twenties to the early thirties is scant; and, since Carossa's own writings are to an excessive degree the only source of information about the man, very little is known about those years. Letters to his wife's family indicate that he was very concerned with his wife's illness, which resulted in her dependency on morphine. During the 1920s he began a relationship with his later second wife, Hedwig Kerber, with a child born in 1930. The lack of literary production may indicate that problems of the German economy, primarily the disastrous inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, had made it necessary for Carossa to return to practice. He did rework Doktor Bürger and republished it in 1929 as Schicksal Doktor Bürgers, and one year earlier his home city of Munich had honored him with its Dichterpreis. Perhaps these years of relative silence were filled with preparation for the two fine works in the offing, the first of which was to appear in 1931.
On May 25, 1931, Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's son Klaus Mann
Klaus Mann
- Life and work :Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a...
first considered
emigrating from his native land because of the political situation. Two years later, he, the rest of the Mann family, and many others of Germany's finest minds did go into exile. In 1931 Carossa, outwardly at least, undisturbed by the "gathering storm" published Der Arzt Gion. Although still strongly autobiographical, this work was his first and only major work written in the third person. (The only other one was his short story Ein Tag im Spätsommer 1947.) Der Arzt Gion reflects a maturity and optimism which had been becoming increasingly evident in Carossa's works, but which seems strangely out of place in the depression-scarred, dictator-threatened Europe of 1931. From now on, except for a short period toward the end of World War II, the poet-doctor Carossa gave up medical practice completely. Carossa's last book before the Nazi Regime began was Führung und Geleit (1932), an inner survey rather than a true autobiography of his life from early youth to the 1920.
Works
- Gedichte (1910) Poems
- Eine Kindheit (1922) novel, translated as Childhood
- A Romanian Diary (1924), about the 3 months he spent as a military physician on the Romanian Front during WWI.
- Verwandlungen einer Jugend (1928) novel
- Doctor Gion (1931)
- Führung und Geleit (1933) essays
- Tagebuch eines jungen Arztes (1955)