Ernst von Solomon
Ernst von Solomon is a German writer born in 1902 with Kiel, died in 1972. He was initially a nationalist militant under the Weimar Republic before devoting himself entirely to the writing.
Biography
This Prussian small landed proprietor resulting from a family of origin huguenote and Lorraine was enemy democrats as much as demagogy hitlérienne.
Deeply marked by its formation at the School of the Juniors by Karlsruhe where it enters at twelve years, it approaches the nationalist mediums after the defeat of 1918, then joined the Irregular forces, which will carry out it in High-Silesia, Prussia Orientale and in the Baltic States (irregular force " Baltikum").
Member of the Organization Consul, it is condemned to five years of imprisonment for complicity in the assassination of the liberal Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau in 1922, escaping the death sentence because he was minor at the time of the facts.
After its coming out of prison, it continues the political combat by other means, by taking share in particular with the movement of the peasants in the area of the Schleswig-Holstein, which is worth to him to be still imprisoned for four months.
With their come to power, the Nazis offer honors to him which he refuses. During this period, he writes scenarios for UFA, the large German cinematographic production company, while abstaining from any political commitment.
After the defeat of Germany in 1945, it is interned in an American camp during a few months, the Allies suspecting it of having been Nazi. Released, it continues to work for the cinema and attempts to defend the German memory while posting pacifist positions.
Work
Its work, mainly autobiographical, depicts with a mixture of irony and cynicism the German company in decomposition, taken between the nationalist, communist and country spasms and the bitterness of the defeat of 1918. These convulsions of Germany of the first post-war period appear in its principal novels: Rejected the (1930, Die Geächteten), the City (1932, Die Stadt) and the Juniors (1933, Die Kadetten). He is also the author of a test on the spirit of the irregular forces, close Histoire (1936, Nahe Geschichte).
Its most famous book is the Questionnaire (1951, Der Fragebogen), in which it tells in particular the experiment of its internment in an American camp in Germany between 1945 and 1946. The title of the book refers to the document including/understanding 131 questions to which any German citizen had to answer to establish his possible bonds with the Nazi regime (the case emblématique was that of the leader Wilhelm Furtwängler). the Questionnaire met a sharp success, thus revealing the persistence of a traumatism among Germans.
the Destiny of A.D. appears in 1960, Beautiful Wilhelmine in 1965.
He is admired very early in France, in particular by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Its works remain a reference in the culture of the nationalist right. Alain de Benoist, which devoted to him a rather long note in its book Vu of right-hand side , attaches it to the movement of the preserving Révolution.
Its literary importance was also recognized by authors like Roger Stephan, which compares it with Thomas Edward Lawrence and André Malraux ( Portrait of the adventurer ), and Marcel Schneider, which brings it closer to Ernst Jünger ( lost Shade of Germany ).
In addition to the first editions, its books are appeared in French with the Paperback in 1966, 10/18 in 1986 and in the collection the imaginary one at Gallimard more recently.
External bonds
- Site in German devoted to Ernst von Solomon Photo
- and signature (German Site)