Will Vesper
Encyclopedia
Will Vesper was a German
author
and literary critic
.
(Germanistik) in Munich
. From 1906 he was active as literary adviser and translator at the C.H. Beck publishing house. In 1913-1914 he was in Florence, Italy. He rose to early fame as the editor of several anthologies of German poetry of a ‘spiritual’ kind, including Der deutsche Psalter and two volumes of Die Ernte aus acht Jahrhunderten deutscher Lyrik, and for his retelling of the Tristan and Isolde
and Parzifal stories, all of which sold in tens of thousands before 1914. In World War I
Vesper took part from 1915 to 1918, first as an infantryman, and towards the end of the war as scientific or intelligence assistant in the military staff.
After a two-year period as manager of the cultural section of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
from 1918 to 1920, Vesper was employed from 1923 until 1943 as editor of the periodical Die schöne Literatur (Beautiful Literature) (later under the title Die Neue Literatur (The New Literature)), which became the leading Nazi literature magazine. At the same time he published his own novels, stories and poems. His works predominantly dealt with German history, and above all with protogermanic times. In these he displayed a decidedly nationalistic perception, which together with his glorification and exalting of the love of the native soil, of motherhood and war, made it inevitable that he would become a representative of Nazi ideology. His best-known work Das harte Geschlecht, about the Christian conversion of Iceland, appeared in 1931 and in May 1933 was praised in the Völkischer Beobachter
as a 'thoroughly bloodthirsty Northland novel.'
In 1931 Vesper, whom Thomas Mann
said publicly had become already one of the worst of the nationalist buffoons, joined Hitler's NSDAP. After the exclusion of the disapproved authors from the Poetry department of the Academy of Prussian Arts (like Thomas Mann
, Leonhard Frank
, Alfred Döblin
and others), in around 1933 Vesper installed (for instance) Hans Friedrich Blunck, Hans Carossa
and Hans Grimm
in the Poets Academy. In the public book-burning in May 1933 in Dresden
, Vesper gave the ceremonial speech. He was also one of the 88 authors who in October 1933 signed the Vow of the Loyal Followers (Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft
) for Adolf Hitler
published in the Vossische Zeitung
and Frankfurter Zeitung
.
Already, at the beginning of the thirties, Vesper was becoming known as an author of the Bertelsmann
editions.
In his literary Journal Die Neue Literatur Vesper carried out a kind of private censorship
or revisionism
, in that he regularly embarked upon defamatory campaigns against authors and publishers who did not agree with his personal views. When he also did not hold back from attacking the State Directives in regard to writing, he lost the advantage of his situation, so that in 1936 he withdrew from his duties to the estate of his wife Rose (Rimpau) Vesper at Triangel bei Gifhorn. Here he occupied himself as a farmer, but continued to issue his literary newsletters until the year 1943.
After the war Vesper was active as editor in the Bertelsmann-Verlag and further took part in right-wing circles through readings and Writers' Congresses for Hans Grimm in Lippoldsberg, and also in his own place of occupation. There he died on March 14 1962. His son, the author Bernward Vesper, also became well-known: he was the partner of Gudrun Ensslin
, a founder of the Red Army Faction
.
Dramas, Farces
Poems
Essays and Editions
This article translated and abridged from German Wikipedia 2007
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...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and literary critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
.
Life
Born into a protestant countryman family, he studied history and Germanic philologyPhilology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
(Germanistik) 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...
. From 1906 he was active as literary adviser and translator at the C.H. Beck publishing house. In 1913-1914 he was in Florence, Italy. He rose to early fame as the editor of several anthologies of German poetry of a ‘spiritual’ kind, including Der deutsche Psalter and two volumes of Die Ernte aus acht Jahrhunderten deutscher Lyrik, and for his retelling of the Tristan and Isolde
Tristan and Iseult
The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult...
and Parzifal stories, all of which sold in tens of thousands before 1914. In 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...
Vesper took part from 1915 to 1918, first as an infantryman, and towards the end of the war as scientific or intelligence assistant in the military staff.
After a two-year period as manager of the cultural section of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung was a German newspaper that appeared between 1861 and 1945. It was associated with the Stinnes family, and supported right wing nationalist politics in the Weimar period, arguably contributing to the rise of Nazism.Hugo Stinnes took over the DAZ in 1920 in an effort to...
from 1918 to 1920, Vesper was employed from 1923 until 1943 as editor of the periodical Die schöne Literatur (Beautiful Literature) (later under the title Die Neue Literatur (The New Literature)), which became the leading Nazi literature magazine. At the same time he published his own novels, stories and poems. His works predominantly dealt with German history, and above all with protogermanic times. In these he displayed a decidedly nationalistic perception, which together with his glorification and exalting of the love of the native soil, of motherhood and war, made it inevitable that he would become a representative of Nazi ideology. His best-known work Das harte Geschlecht, about the Christian conversion of Iceland, appeared in 1931 and in May 1933 was praised in the Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
as a 'thoroughly bloodthirsty Northland novel.'
In 1931 Vesper, whom 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...
said publicly had become already one of the worst of the nationalist buffoons, joined Hitler's NSDAP. After the exclusion of the disapproved authors from the Poetry department of the Academy of Prussian Arts (like 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...
, Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank was a German expressionist writer. He studied painting and graphic art in Munich, and gained acclaim with his first novel, The Robber Band...
, Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin was a German expressionist novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz .- 1878–1918:...
and others), in around 1933 Vesper installed (for instance) Hans Friedrich Blunck, Hans Carossa
Hans Carossa
Hans Carossa was a German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his innere Emigration during the Nazi era....
and 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...
in the Poets Academy. In the public book-burning in May 1933 in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Vesper gave the ceremonial speech. He was also one of the 88 authors who in October 1933 signed the Vow of the Loyal Followers (Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft
Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft
The Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft was a declaration by 88 German writers and poets of their loyalty to Adolf Hitler...
) for Adolf Hitler
Adolf 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...
published in the Vossische Zeitung
Vossische Zeitung
The Vossische Zeitung was the well known liberal German newspaper that was published in Berlin . Its predecessor was founded in 1704...
and Frankfurter Zeitung
Frankfurter Zeitung
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
.
Already, at the beginning of the thirties, Vesper was becoming known as an author of the Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann AG is a multinational media corporation founded in 1835, based in Gütersloh, Germany. The company operates in 63 countries and employs 102,983 workers , which makes it the most international media corporation in the world. In 2008 the company reported a €16.118 billion consolidated...
editions.
In his literary Journal Die Neue Literatur Vesper carried out a kind of private censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
or revisionism
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
, in that he regularly embarked upon defamatory campaigns against authors and publishers who did not agree with his personal views. When he also did not hold back from attacking the State Directives in regard to writing, he lost the advantage of his situation, so that in 1936 he withdrew from his duties to the estate of his wife Rose (Rimpau) Vesper at Triangel bei Gifhorn. Here he occupied himself as a farmer, but continued to issue his literary newsletters until the year 1943.
After the war Vesper was active as editor in the Bertelsmann-Verlag and further took part in right-wing circles through readings and Writers' Congresses for Hans Grimm in Lippoldsberg, and also in his own place of occupation. There he died on March 14 1962. His son, the author Bernward Vesper, also became well-known: he was the partner of Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction . After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF...
, a founder of the Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
.
Writings
Novels, Stories, Fables- Der Segen, 1905
- Tristan und Isolde (Nacherzählung), 1911
- Parzifal (Nacherzählung), 1911
- Martin Luthers Jugendjahre, 1918
- Der Balte, 1919
- Annemarie, 1920
- Traumgewalten, 1920
- Gute Geister, 1921
- Die Nibelungensage (Nacherzählung), 1921
- Daniel Defoe. Leben und Abenteuer des Robinson Crusoe (Bearbeitung), 1922
- Die Gudrunsage (Nacherzählung), 1922
- Fröhliche Märchen (Neuerzählung), 1922
- Porzellan, 1922
- Die Wanderung des Herrn Ulrich von Hutten, 1922
- Die ewige Wiederkehr, 1922
- Der arme Konrad, 1924
- Der Pfeifer von Niclashausen, 1924 (Erzählung über den fränkischen Prediger Hans Böhm)
- Der Bundschuh zu Lehen, 1925
- Jonathan Swift: Lemuel Gullivers vier Reisen (Nacherzählung), 1927
- Der Heilige und der Papst, 1928
- Die Historie von Reinecke dem Fuchs (Nacherzählung), 1928
- Das Mutterbüchlein, 1928
- Tiermärchen aus aller Welt (Nacherzählung), 1928
- Das harte Geschlecht, 1931
- Sam in Schnabelweide, 1931
- Drei Erzählungen, 1933
- Ein Tag aus dem Leben Goethes, 1933
- Der entfesselte Säugling, 1935
- Geschichten von Liebe, Traum und Tod, 1937
- Kämpfer Gottes, 1938
- Im Flug nach Spanien, 1943
- Der unzufriedene Igel, 1943
- Seltsame Flöte, 1958
- Zauber der Heide, 1960
- Letzte Ernte, 1962
Dramas, Farces
- Spiele der Liebe, 1913
- Die Liebesmesse, 1913
- Wer? Wen?, 1927
- Eine deutsche Feier, 1936
Poems
- Die Liebesmesse und andere Gedichte, 1913
- Vom großen Krieg 1914, 1915
- Der blühende Baum, 1916
- Briefe zweier Liebender, 1916
- Schön ist der Sommer, 1918
- Das Buch vom lieben Weihnachtsmann, 1920
- Mutter und Kind, 1920
- Des Wiesenmännchen Brautfahrt, 1920
- Inschriften und Gedichte, 1928
- Kranz des Lebens. Gesamtausgabe meiner Gedichte, 1934
- Rufe in die Zeit. Sprüche und Gedichte, 1937
- Das Neue Reich, 1939
- Bild des Führers, 1942
- Dennoch!, 1944
- Kleiner Kranz des Lebens. Auswahl, 1960
Essays and Editions
- Friedrich Hölderlin: Hyperion (Nachwort), 1921
- Lob der Armut, 1921
- Die Jugendbibel (Bearbeitung), 1927
- Das Recht der Lebenden, 1927
- In den Bergen, auf dem Wasser (Einführung), 1928
- Die Weltenuhr, 1932
- (Ed.) Die Ernte aus acht Jahrhunderten deutsche Lyrik, 1906 (2 vols)
- (Ed.) Der deutsche Psalter – ein Jahrtausend geistlicher Dichtung, 1914
- (Ed.) Deutsche Lyrik von Heute: Ernte der Gegenwart und Ernte der Zeit, 1940
Sources
- Gisela Berglund, Der Kampf um den Leser im Dritten Reich. Die Literaturpolitik der "Neuen Literatur" (Will Vesper) und der "Nationalsozialistischen Monatshefte" (The struggle surrounding the reader in the Third Reich) (Worms, Heintz 1980). (= Deutsches Exil 1933-45; 11) ISBN 3-921333-11-3
- Uwe Day, Hohepriester des Hitlerkults und literarischer Inquisitor. Über Will Vesper (High-Priests of the Hitler-cult and the literary Inquisitor - about Will Vesper). In: Griffel. Hannover. 9. (2000), p. 61-73.
- Frederick Alfred Lubich, Bernward Vespers "Die Reise". Von der Hitler-Jugend zur RAF. Identitätssuche unter dem Fluch des Faschismus (Bernward Vesper's The Journey. From the Hitler-youth to the RAF. The search for identity under the curse of Fascism.) In: German Studies Review. Tempe, Ariz. 10 (1987), p. 69-94.
- Wilhelm Pleyer, Hans Grimm, E. G. Kolbenheyer, Will Vesper. Gedenkrede (on 15 July 1962 on the occasion of the Lippoldsberg Poets'-days). (Munich and elsewhere, Bogen-Verlag 1962).
- Alexander Reck (Ed.), Briefwechsel Paul Ernst - Will Vesper 1919-1933 (Letters between). Einführung - Edition - Kommentar. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2003). ISBN 3-8260-2427-3
- Bernward Vesper, Die Reise (Trip). (Novel-essay). (Frankfurt am Main: März bei Zweitausendeins 1977).
- Böckelmann/Fischler, Bertelsmann. Hinter der Fassade des Medienimperiums (Betelsmann: Behind the facade of the Media empire). (Frankfurt am Main 2004, Eichborn) ISBN 3-8218-5551-7. (pp 66, 84f., 92, 110.)
This article translated and abridged from German Wikipedia 2007