Gerhart Hauptmann:Playwright with a contradictory attitude

Gerhart Hauptmann is considered the most important representative of German naturalism. In 1912 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Politically he gave an ambivalent figure. On June 6, 1946, the playwright died in Silesia.

Gerhart Hauptmann was also born in Silesia - the son of an innkeeper on November 15, 1862 in Ober Salzbrunn, which today belongs to Poland. After attending school that was painful for him, he began an agricultural apprenticeship on a farm at the age of 16, and at the age of 18 further training as a sculptor. But Hauptmann soon tried his hand at writing and traveled a lot - including to Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

Captain was unsuccessful as a sculptor

In his early twenties, the later winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature worked unsuccessfully as a sculptor in Rome. After a serious illness, in 1885 he married his fiancee, Marie Thienemann, who had been secretly engaged until then. She is the daughter of a Dresden wool wholesaler. The artist Hauptmann no longer has any financial worries and can work as a freelance writer. During his honeymoon in Rügen, he travels with friends to Hiddensee for the first time, which later becomes his second home. But first the young couple, who later had three children, moved to Berlin.

Hauptmann celebrates his first successes as a playwright

In Berlin he learns modern, naturalistic writing methods such as the detailed description of all processes in the so-called seconds style. Hauptmann combines this with social issues that - at that time a novelty in the theater - revolve around proletarians and want to change society. The starting point for his theater work is precisely observed social reality. Hauptmann became known with his drama "Before Sunrise" (1889), which shocked the German Empire with a lot of sex and drinking, and after a scandalous premiere on the Freie Bühne.

Although he also writes romantic fairy tale plays, he remains true to the naturalistic method and its documentary character.

Performance ban and scandal about "Die Weber"

In the last decade of the 19th century, in addition to the comedy "Der Bierpelz", the naturalistic play "Die Weber" (The Weavers), which deals with the spontaneous uprising of the exploited weavers in 1844, was created. And Hauptmann knows what he is writing about:In order to see the plight of the Silesian weavers with his own eyes, he travels through the Owl Mountains and falls back on the stories of his grandfather, who himself worked at the loom.

The Silesian weavers, exposed to a cynical factory owner who is only concerned with his own advantage, form a fundamental criticism of Western European living conditions and the consequences of industrialization. The performance of the piece was initially banned by the Berlin police headquarters as the censorship authority. When what is now classic school reading is finally publicly performed for the first time in the Deutsches Theater in Berlin after Hauptmann's victory in court in 1894, Kaiser Wilhelm II angrily declares that he will not enter the theater again and resigns from his box.

"Real drama is always present"

This does not detract from the success of the piece. Several radio plays are based on the material, as well as a film adaptation in 1927 and a television play in 1980 with Klaus Maria Brandauer in the role of insurgent Moritz Jäger. "Die Weber" is still being staged on German stages because the core conflict is as relevant today as it was 125 years ago:the suffering and social injustices caused by wage dumping, exploitation and automation. Hauptmann himself said in 1930 on the occasion of a "Weber" production at the Berlin Volksbühne:"Real dramas are always present."

High point of impact and creativity at the end of the 19th century

The socio-critical drama "Die Weber" is one of Hauptmann's main works, along with "Der Beaverpelz" and "Die Ratten" and he obviously struck a chord with them. In the 1880s and 1890s, there was great interest in a new socio-critical form of drama, especially among theater innovators and leftists - as was Hauptmann's productivity. Within a few years he wrote ten plays that are still considered classics of the naturalism genre.

Hauptmann rejects advertising by the Social Democrats

The poet with a high forehead and flowing hair affords himself a lover with his success. In 1904 Margarete Marschalk became Hauptmann's second wife. Gerhart Hauptmann, on the other hand, rejects the political wooing of the Social Democrats. His pity for the poor and those without rights does not make him a political revolutionary. He is only revolutionary in his theater work.

Nobel prize for literature for Hauptmann 1912

In addition to a number of dramas and comedies, Hauptmann also wrote poetry and prose - followed by numerous awards. In 1905 he received the Grillparzer Prize for the third time and in 1912, at the age of 50, the Nobel Prize for Literature, the highest award.

Honorary doctorates and, for example, the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt/Main follow.

Driving into the lowlands of verse propaganda

The Nobel Prize in Literature makes Gerhart Hauptmann the most important living representative of German literature worldwide. But he gets caught up in contradictions. Shortly before the start of the First World War, he railed against the rearmament of the German Empire. Then, after the outbreak of war, he let himself be infected by the patriotic frenzy and rhymed poems for German propaganda, such as the "Reiterlied". When his eldest son Ivo is drafted, Hauptmann writes the poem "Come on, we want to go die". Some see Hauptmann's course as a betrayal of earlier ideals, while others attest to his mastery of adapting to new political circumstances.

The lost First World War redeemed Hauptmann from his worst adversary, the Kaiser, who twice revoked the Schiller Prize and refused to congratulate him on being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the Weimar Republic, all doors were open to Hauptmann, even for a high political office. But he is content with the role of cultural leader. For example, when he embarked on a journey to the USA in 1932, which he regarded as a spiritual mission in conveying Goethe's legacy as "Germany's gift to the world".

Ambivalences in the Third Reich

With the advent of the Third Reich in 1933, both the National Socialists and Hauptmann were ambivalent about each other. Those in power are aware of the poet's popularity. Instead of banishment, it is more important to use it for your own purposes. A number of Hauptmann's works are anything but "in line", some of his plays are banned from the stage, film adaptations are censored. Nevertheless, the regime gave Hauptmann various honors and awards - and in 1944 listed him as one of the most important writers, as an "irreplaceable artist".

Captain a Nazi sympathizer?

Although Hauptmann shares neither anti-Semitism nor racial politics, he does not do so openly. In "Before Sunset" from 1932 he rejected the National Socialists, but in 1933 he applied for NSDAP membership - which was rejected. On the one hand, he hates the Nazis because of their brutality and stupidity. At the same time, he is enthusiastic about Austria's "annexation". He reads "Mein Kampf" and in the meantime even declares the writing to be the "Bible of Germanness", is impressed by Hitler's speeches during the bombing war.

Overall, he avoids the substantive and conflictual public debate with the regime, but apparently likes to be ensnared by the pomp and wooing of the Nazis, for example on the occasion of his 75th and 80th birthdays - and also honored him without objection.

Last rest on Hiddensee

Gerhart Hauptmann dies one year after Hitler's Germany surrendered on June 6, 1946 in Agnetendorf in the Giant Mountains. The Soviets also worship him there - so his coffin can leave Agnetendorf in Polish-occupied Silesia in a special train towards Hiddensee. There he is buried near his former summer home. The big names of the SED gathered at his grave at the funeral. There is still no mention of the Nazi sympathizer Gerhart Hauptmann. The only thing that still counts is the fame of the Nobel Prize winner for literature, whom one - once again - wants to claim for oneself.