Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer

{{Expand German|topic=bio|Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer|date=December 2009}}

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Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (30 December 1878, in Budapest – 12 April 1962, in Munich) was an Austrian 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.Raymond Furness, The twentieth century, 1890-1945, 1978, p. 255

Life and work

A Volksdeutscher from the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he attended school in Budapest before furthering his education in Karlsbad and Vienna.Robert S. Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, 2001, p. 144 Kolbenheyer studied philosophy, psychology and zoology at the University of Vienna and earned his PhD in 1905. He became a freelance writer and came to specialise in historical novels that were characterised by their fixation with all things German. In 1908 he published Amor Dei, a novel about life and thinking of the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, which made Kolbenheyer fairly known. Kolbenheyer published an anthology with own poetry under the title Der Dornbusch brennt (i.e. Burning bush) in 1922. Between 1917 and 1925 he produced his most celebrated works, a trilogy of novels about Paracelsus, and in these books Kolbenheyer explored 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.Andrew Weeks, Paracelsus, 1997, pp. 25-6 In 1929 he published „Heroische Leidenschaften“ (i.e. Heroic Passions), a drama about the Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno. 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.Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi Germany: A New History, London, 1996, p. 369 In Kolbenheyer's own words the addressee of his book "Bauhütte" is the "philosophical conscience ... of the white race" which he wanted to arouse.Christian Jäger, Minoritäre Literatur: Das Konzept der Kleinen Literatur am Beispiel Prager- und Sudetendeutscher Werke, Deutscher Universitats-Verlag, 2005, {{ISBN|3824446073}}, p. 158; Kolbenheyer: "weltanschauliche Gewissen [...] der weißen Menschheit" 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.Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets, 2008, p. 54

Nazism

He continued to write widely under the Nazis, taking up his pen to praise Adolf Hitler 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). The Gottgelobte Herz (i.e. The God-blessed heart) is a novel about the Dominican nun Margareta Ebner. Indeed, his star rose under the Nazis because his literature fitted their world view.Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, Penguin, 1970, p. 324 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.Viktor Reimann, The Man Who Created Hitler, William Kimber, 1977, p. 182

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".Karl-Heinz Schoeps & Kathleen M. Dell'Orto, Literature and film in the Third Reich, pp. 130-1 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 God-gifted', properly known as the Gottbegnadeten list, who were exempted from military service on account of their prestige.Reimann, The Man Who Created Hitler, p. 192 He was also awarded the Goethe Prize in 1937.R. Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, 1984, p. 177 In 1940 he published the anthology Vox humana and became a member of the Nazi party.Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, P. 296.

Post-war writing

Kolbenheyer was banned from writing for five years after the Second World War although from his base in West Germany he continued to publish novels that were largely in the same nationalist spirit as his previous output.Karl-Heinz Schoeps & Kathleen M. Dell'Orto, Literature and film in the Third Reich, p. 289 He also became a regular contributor to the far right, pan-European nationalist journal Nation Europa.Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, Penguin, 1970, p. 585

Quotation

In Kolbenheyer's drama Menschen und Götter (i.e. Men and Gods), Orbis, Prague, 1944:

:SON OF MAN

:Go further monk, and heal

:your excessive pain through my pain.

:It flows to you as a part of yourself

:out of the infiniteness.

:Lo, the drops descend,

:drops of blood out of heart and hand.

:You shall humbly drink

:the salvation by sacrifice, sent by God.Drama: Menschen und Götter (i.e. Men and Gods), Orbis, Prague, 1944; "Begib dich, Mönch, und heile dein Übermaß an meinem Leid. Es fließt als Teil dem Teile dir zu aus der Unendlichkeit. Sieh an, die Tropfen sinken des Blutes rot aus Herz und Hand. In Demut sollst du trinken des Opfers Heil, von Gott gesandt."