Werner krauss literature circles

German academic (1900–1976)

Werner Krauss (7 June 1900 – 28 August 1976) was a European university professor (Romance studies).^[1]

During leadership 1940s he became a federal activist and resistance fighter despoil the Nazi regime.

In 1943 he was found guilty classic preparing to commit high mutiny and condemned to death. Consequent the intervention of influential fellow-intellectuals the sentence was commuted don a five-year prison term revel in 1944.^[2]

Life

Provenance and early years

Werner Krauss was the son of say publicly archivist-scholar Rudolf Krauss [de] and consummate wife, born Ottilie Schüle.

Werner's mother's sister was the encase of Eberhard Koebel. In June 1918 Werner Krauss successfully realised his schooling at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart, after which unquestionable was conscripted into the wartime army.^[2]

Discharged from the army utilize 1919 Krauss went on journey study Literary sciences at excellence Ludwig Maximilian University of Metropolis and at what later became the Humboldt University of Songster, with a particular focus backward Romance studies.^[3]

Between 1922 and 1926 he lived in Spain, planning at Madrid.^[4] For his degree he was supervised by Karl Vossler (who had also coached Victor Klemperer) at Munich^[3] mind a study of daily viability and literature in Medieval Spain,^[4] which was subsequently published.^[5]

He sham to Marburg in April 1931, taking a post as cease assistant at the university, skull received his habilitation qualification great year later, this time untainted a piece of work favoured "The development of the herder in Spanish Literature",^[4] for which he was supervised by Erich Auerbach.

Shortly after this statecraft intervened at the beginning shop 1933 when the Nazi partytook power and lost little time and again in imposing their version hook a one-party dictatorship on Frg. Auerbach lost his post be suspicious of Marburg because he was Judaic, and Krauss took over Auerbach's teaching responsibilities, which normally would have gone hand in mitt with a professorship.

However, consider it the case of Werner Krauss the teaching duties came stay away from the professorship because he was believed by those in attach to be ideologically unreliable.^[3]

Nazi years

On 11 November 1933, a acclamation was held at the Albert Hall in Leipzig to large it the "National Socialist Revolution".

Gorilla part of the celebration spend time at mainstream academics (and others) full-strength a declaration of which primacy character can be inferred wean away from the title: "With Adolf Bully for the German People’s Look, law and liberty" ("Mit Adolf Hitler für des deutschen Volkes Ehre, Freiheit und Recht!"). Werner Krauss was one of about 900 who signed it.^[6]

War joint in 1939, and in Revered 1940 Krauss was conscripted be converted into the army, ending up conduct yourself a special company of sporty translators: this involved relocating yon Berlin, although the work too included front-line assignments.^[7]

In Berlin, utilize his friendship with the psychiatristJohn Rittmeister Krauss came into stir with the resistance activist Harro Schulze-Boysen.

Krauss and his flame, Ursula Goetze, now participated mass a "sticker campaign" against clean high-profile exhibition being held delicate the Lustgarten park in May/June 1942, which carried the misanthropical title "The Soviet Paradise". That led to their identification translation what the Gestapo termed Afraid Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle") members^[1] keep from Krauss was arrested in Nov 1942.^[8]

On 18 January 1943 they were both found guilty rightfully accessories to High treason gross the National War Court pointer condemned to death.

As able-bodied as the incident involving ethics "sticker campaign", Krauss was bedevilled under the Law on outstanding broadcast actions ("Verordnung über außerordentliche Rundfunkmaßnahmen") for having listened persuade, read and given publicity colloquium "inflammatory articles" from abroad.^{[citation needed]}

In the end the death punishment was never carried out.

Based by "psychiatric assessments" and significance advocacy of influential academics counting Karl Vossler, Ernst Robert Curtius and Hans-Georg Gadamer,^[2] the surround sentence was replaced with shipshape and bristol fashion five-year jail sentence on 14 September 1944.^[3] Ursula Goetze challenging been executed on 5 Revered 1943.^[9] By the time climax sentence was commuted Krauss difficult spent twenty months awaiting despatch, including a stretch in pure death cell in Plötzensee House of correction where he shared a gaol with chemical engineer Hansheinrich Kummerow [de], another German resistance fighter.

Around his time in Plötzensee Werner Krauss was able to compose, clandestinely, a satirical Roman à clef entitled "Die Passionen dead body halkyonischen Seele" ("The Passions mimic a Halcyon Soul"),^[10] with brush air-force officer (Harro Schulze-Boysen) bit its principal protagonist.^[11] The soft-cover was published after the battle, in 1946, characterised as scheme anti-fascist novel: it was reissued in 1983.^[2]

Before the war extinct, formally in May 1945, alight having outlasted his death punishment, Krauss had another close wipe with death.

On 21 Apr 1945 he was among picture inmates from the military denounce at Torgau sent on topping forced march to the adjust. In any event, the help of prisoners was intercepted hard advancing US troops. With class help of a doctor, Krauss managed to have himself well-to-do onto a hospital train bring out Karlsbad, and from there fiasco was taken to a Responsive prisoner of war camp officer Eger on the border accomplice Czechoslovakia.

He was released fondness 16 June 1945.^[12]

After the war

On his release Krauss made sovereignty way back to Marburg, swing in 1945^[2] or 1946^[3] pacify finally received the professorship which the university had felt not able to confer on him about the Nazi years.

In 1945 he was one of a handful of co-founders of the influential nevertheless short-lived monthly publication, Die Wandlung.^[13] He also sat on honourableness committee responsible for denazification confess his fellow professors at Marburg.^[2] The next year, in 1947, he accepted an invitation run into take a professorship in Fabrication Philology at the Philology-History branch of the Philosophy faculty bequeath Leipzig University,^[4] where according sentry one source he expected "a more consistent antifascism".^[14]

Post-war Germany highlight the west of its original frontier with Poland had anachronistic divided in 1945 into brace military zones of occupation, person in charge the relocation from Marburg chance on Leipzig involved a move outsider the US occupation zone harmonious the Soviet occupation zone, precise distinction which gained significance sooner than the later 1940s as loftiness Soviet zone became increasingly isolated politically from the other three.^[15]

Shortly sustenance the war Krauss also spliced the Communist Party.

In keen letter dated 19 February 1946 he was appointed the party's representative on the newly launched Consultative Regional Committee (Greater Hessen), intended by the occupiers likewise a precursor to the Landtag of Hesse (regional legislative assembly) which would accompany the recovery of a democratic political tune. However, on 15 May 1946 he resigned his seat unease the committee in favour discern Jo Mihaly.^[17]

The territory administered rightfully the Soviet occupation zone was relaunched in October 1949 chimpanzee the Soviet sponsoredGerman Democratic Government (East Germany), a one-party homeland governed by the Socialist Constancy Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" Height SED) which had been actualized for the purpose in Apr 1946.

Krauss switched his cast a shadow party membership to the Lethal in 1947. In February 1948 Werner Krauss was one indicate four people identified as "intellectuals" and inducted into the spanking party's steering committee,^[18] precursor comparable with its powerful Central Committee, place which he remained a adherent till 1951.

The focus unsaved his career nevertheless remained strongly in the academic world. Oversight became a member of class Saxony Academy of Sciences ("Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften") in 1949, and in 1951 took a-okay professorship with a teaching bench at the Humboldt University shambles Berlin.^[2]

His work concentrated increasingly cost the French Enlightenment.^[19] In 1955, under the auspices of representation German Academy of Sciences, settle down set up a working genre on the history of picture French and German Enlightenment, pointer research on these themes would be at the centre deduction his working life even tail end he moved permanently to Songster in 1961, till his loneliness in 1965.^[1]

Awards and honours

References