Ernst Wiechert was one of the most widely read authors in Germany.
From 1936 to 1948 he lived and worked in Wolfratshausen - on the path that bears his name today.
Wolfratshausen
- 2020 will be the 70th anniversary of the death of the poet Ernst Wiechert.
On August 24, 1950, in exile in Switzerland, he died of a protracted illness at the age of 63.
As unknown as the native East Prussia may be today, at that time he was one of the most widely read German authors.
He spent twelve years, from 1936 to 1948, in Wolfratshausen and wrote book after book up in the mountain forest - in the street that today bears his name.
It was an upsetting decade for him: During the Nazi era, the Nazis harassed him because he could not be brought into line.
In the years after the war, many discussions sparked off about him and his - supposedly - outdated conception of art.
Ernst Wiechert was born in Kleinort in the Masurian forests in 1887 as the son of a forester.
He studies in Königsberg and becomes a teacher, first in Königsberg, then in Berlin.
His early novels "Der Wald" (1922) and "Der Totenwolf" (1924) play with nationalistic ideas, the Nazis speculate on getting him to their side.
Ernst Wiechert in Wolfratshausen
Ernst Wiechert is by no means forgotten in his adopted home Wolfratshausen.
The street on which the Görderthof stood on the mountain forest bears his name, and in front of the local history museum there is a bust of the poet.
The city's archives hold works by him and a collective file that presumably contains newspaper articles.
Several books are currently available, namely “Der Wilddieb” (1907), “Die Magd des Jürgen Doskocil” (1932), “Die Majorin” (1934), “Forests and People” (Jugenderinnerungen, 1936) as well as volumes 1 and 2 of the "Jerominkinder" (1945 to 1947).
In 2021 Suhrkamp will re-publish “Totenwald” (1946).
The International Ernst Wiechert Society has been researching life and work since 1989.
Wiechert is present with numerous translations in Poland.
As a Mazurian author who brings people together, he is part of the Polish cultural heritage.
Personally, Wiechert has to cope with strokes of fate: like his mother in 1912, his first wife Meta also committed suicide in 1929.
In 1917 his only child dies, it is only one day old.
When he moved to Bavaria - first Ambach, then Wolfratshausen - he decided not to work as a teacher anymore.
He dares to start over as a freelance writer.
The times are dangerous, those who have just come to power Nazis watch with eagle eyes over everything that is published.
Wiechert, who now adheres to Christian humanism, opposes.
In 1935, he gave a critical speech entitled “The Poet and Time” not only at Munich University.
He also refuses to take part in the elections to join Austria.
Wiechert thus finally falls out of favor.
On May 8, 1938, he was arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.
After protests at home and abroad, he was released to be brought before Joseph Goebbels, President of the Reich Chamber of Culture.
He writes in his diary: “I have the writer Wiechert from the concentration camp brought to me and hold him a Philippica that has washed itself.
I do not tolerate any confessional front in the area I oversee.
I'm in the best of shape and mentally stab him.
One last warning!
I leave no doubt about that either.
Behind a new offense there is only physical annihilation.
We both know that now. ”Wiechert now and then sleeps with a pistol under the covers in Wolfratshausen:“ They won't get me alive, ”he is supposed to have said.
It becomes quiet about the successful author.
Until the end of the war, the only works that appeared was “The Simple Life” (1939).
The work contains clear references to the concentration camp imprisonment suffered.
For Klaus Weigelt of the International Ernst Wiechert Society, the fact that the book was able to appear at all is a "case of strange discontinuity in National Socialist literary policy".
During the war years, the poet wrapped other books that were written in the mountain forest in oil paper and buried them in his garden in Wolfratshausen.
They are only published after 1945.
Many colleagues are critical of Wiechert
But times have changed.
Although Wiechert is still very well respected by his readers, many colleagues are critical of him.
When, for example, the “Totenwald” appeared in 1946, in which he discussed his concentration camp experiences, Max Frisch only found “an escape into pathos” and “self-enjoyment of grief”.
Oskar Maria Graf is even more skeptical, from whom the quote has been passed down: "With the best will in the world, I cannot find the steadfast Wiechert to be something extraordinary, I always have the impression of terrible egocentrism and mannerism." 1948, so only after the war , Wiechert goes into exile.
His path leads him from the Wolfratshauser Bergwald to the Canton of Zurich.
Klaus Weigelt thinks that the poet has been wrongly forgotten.
"He's not an easy author, and his multidimensionality remains puzzling and versatile," he says.
Nevertheless, he had succeeded in exploring the German catastrophe of the 20th century most comprehensively in literary terms.
Wiechert put his hope in a limitless "nation of those who are of good will".
"In this approach, Wiechert connects a lot with Christian thinking, which cannot be appropriated by the church."
Reading tip:
Klaus Weigelt: “Silence and language.
Literary encounters with Ernst Wiechert ”, Quintus-Verlag.
Also read: What is behind the street names?
This Wolfratshauser knows.