Heimito von Doderer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Heimito von Doderer was a famous 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 writer.

Life and work

Heimito von Doderer was born near 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...

in 1896, son of the architect and engineer Wilhelm Carl von Doderer and his wife Wilhelmine von Hügel as the youngest of 6 children. His unusual first name was based on an attempt to germanicize the Spanish name "Jaimito", a diminutive of "Jaime" (James).

His life was spent mostly in Vienna, the longest exception being a period as a Russian prisoner of war in Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

from 1916 until his eventual return to Austria

Austria

in 1920. It was during his time in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

that he decided to become a writer.
His first published work, a book of poems Gassen und Landschaft, appeared in 1923, followed by the novel Die Bresche the following year, both with little success. A further novel, Das Geheimnis des Reichs, followed in 1930. In the same year he married Gusti Hasterlik, but they separated two years later and were divorced in 1938.

In 1933 Doderer joined the Austrian section of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and published several stories in the Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung ("German-Austrian Journal"), a newspaper closely linked to the party and propagating racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

and the unification of Germany and Austria

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

. In 1936 he moved to Dachau

Dachau

Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...

(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...

), where he met his future second wife, Emma Maria Thoma (although they were not to marry until 1952). In Germany, he renewed his NSDAP-membership (the Austrian Nazi Party had been banned since 1933). He returned to Vienna in 1938, sharing a flat with the celebrated painter Albert Paris Gütersloh

Albert Paris Gütersloh

Albert Paris Gütersloh was an Austrian painter and writer.Gütersloh worked as actor, director, and stage designer before he focused on painting in 1921....

. In that year the novel Ein Mord, den jeder begeht was published. He converted to Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

in 1940 as a result of his reading of Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

and his alienation from the Nazis, which had been growing for some years. Also in 1940, Doderer was called up to the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

and was later posted to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where he began work on his most celebrated novel Die Strudlhofstiege. Due to ill health, he was allowed in 1943 to return from the front, serving in the Vienna area, before a final posting to Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

at the end of the war.

After his return to Austria in early 1946, he was banned from publishing

Denazification

Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...

. This ban was lifted in 1947. He continued work on Die Strudlhofstiege, but although he completed it in 1948, the still-obscure author was unable to get it published immediately. However when it did finally appear in 1951 it was a huge success, and its author's place in the post-war Austrian literary scene was assured. After this Doderer returned to an earlier, unfinished project, Die Dämonen, which appeared in 1956 to much acclaim. In 1958 he began work on what was intended to be a four-volume novel under the general title of "Novel No. 7", to be written as a counterpart to Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Seventh Symphony

Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...

. The first volume Die Wasserfälle von Slunj, appeared in 1963; the second volume, Der Grenzwald, was to be his last work and was published, incomplete and posthumously, in 1967. Doderer died of intestinal cancer on 23 December 1966.

Works published during lifetime (in German)

Gassen und Landschaft (poems) (1923) ("Streets and Landscape")
Die Bresche (novel) (1924) ("The Breach")
Das Geheimnis des Reichs (novel) (1930) ("The Secret of the Realm")
Der Fall Gütersloh (monograph on the painter Gütersloh) (1930)
Ein Mord, den jeder begeht (novel) (1938) ("A Murder That Everyone Commits")
Ein Umweg (novel) (1940) ("A Detour")
Die erleuchteten Fenster oder die Menschwerdung des Amtsrates Julius Zihal (novel) (1951) ("The Lighted Window")
Die Strudlhofstiege oder Melzer und die Tiefe der Jahre (novel) (1951) ("The Strudelhof Steps")
Das letzte Abenteuer (novella) (1953) ("The Last Adventure")
Die Dämonen. Nach der Chronik des Sektionsrates Geyrenhoff (novel) (1956) ("The Demons")
Ein Weg im Dunkeln (poems) (1957) ("A Way Into the Darkness")
Die Posaunen von Jericho (novella) (1958) ("The Trombones of Jericho")
Grundlagen und Funktion des Romans (essay) (1959) ("Principles and function of the Novel")
Die Peinigung der Lederbeutelchen (short stories) (1959) ("The Torment of the Leather Bag")
Die Merowinger oder die totale Familie (novel) (1962) ("The Merovingians or The Total Family")
Roman Nr.7/I. Die Wasserfälle von Slunj
Slunj
Slunj is a town in the mountainous part of Central Croatia, located along the important North-South route to the Adriatic Sea between Karlovac and Plitvice Lakes National Park, on the meeting of the rivers Korana and Slunjčica...

(novel) (1962) ("Novel No. 7/I. The Waterfalls of Slunj")
Tangenten. Tagebuch eines Schriftstellers 1940 – 1950 (diaries) (1964)
Unter schwarzen Sternen (short stories) (1966)
Meine neunzehn Lebensläufe und neun andere Geschichten (short stories) (1966)

Published posthumously

Roman No. 7/II. Der Grenzwald (novel) (1967) ("Novel No. 7/II. The Border Forest")
Frühe Prosa. Die Bresche – Jutta Bamberger - Das Geheimnis des Reichs (early prose) (1968)
Repertorium (an ABC of ideas & concepts) (1969)
Die Wiederkehr der Drachen (essays) (1970) ("The Return of the Dragons")
Die Erzählungen (collected short stories) (1972)
Commentarii 1951 bis 1956. Tagebücher aus dem Nachlaß (diaries) (1976)
Commentarii 1957 bis 1966. Tagebücher aus dem Nachlaß (diaries) (1986)
Heimito von Doderer / Albert Paris Gütersloh: Briefwechsel 1928 – 1962 (letters) (1986)
Die sibirische Klarheit (early texts from years in Russia) (1991)
Gedanken über eine zu schreibende Geschichte der Stadt Wien (essay, facsimile of author's handwriting) (1996) ("Thoughts About a Not Yet Written History of the City of Vienna")
Tagebücher 1920 – 1939 (diaries) (1996)
Von Figur zu Figur (letters to Ivar Ivask) (1996)
Seraphica. Montefal. (2009: 2 posthumously published early stories)http://www.chbeck.de/productview.aspx?product=26105

External links

Comprehensive page on the author
www.doderer-gesellschaft.org - The Heimito von Doderer Society's website with information on the author, translations of his works into English etc.
Heimito von Doderer collection at University of Victoria, Special Collections

See also Wilhelm Carl von Doderer and Heinrich von Hügel

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