Münchhausen, Börries von 1874–1945

(H. Albrecht, Boerries von Muenchausen)

PERSONAL: Born March 20, 1874, in Hildesheim, Germany; committed suicide, March 16, 1945; son of Börries and Clementine (von der Gabelentz) von Münchhausen. Education: Studied law and political science at universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Göttingen, and Berlin; University of Leipzig, doctorate, 1899.

CAREER: Poet and educational administrator. Prussian Academy, Berlin, Germany, senator under Nazi regime. Military service: Officer in German military.

WRITINGS:

Gedichte (poems), [Germany], 1899.

Juda (poems), illustrated by Ephraim Moses Lilien, [Germany], 1900.

Auf der Wiesen!: das Oktoberfest in München, Piloty & Loehle (Munich, Germany), 1900.

Handbuch der sozialen Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland: auf Grund des Materials der Zentralstelle für Arbeiterwholfahrtseinrichtungen, C. Heymann (Berlin, Germany), 1902.

(As H. Albrecht) Schottes Tellurium mit Lunarium und seine Anwendung; ein Leitfaden für lehrer und schüler, Schotte (Berlin, Germany), 1903.

(With K. Memmeler and others) Der Baustoff und seine bearbeitung … Baustoffe, betonmischmaschinen, betonierungsregeln, vorrichten und verlegen des eisens, schalung im hochbau, transportvorrichtungen, schalung bei belkenbrücken, und schalung bei bogen, Ernst (Berlin, Germany), 1907.

In der Coloradowüste: Geschichte aus California, Max Fischer (Dresden, Germany), 1910.

Die Balladen und ritterlichen Lieder, [Berlin, Germany], 1921.

Contributor to literary journals.

SIDELIGHTS: Although in his day Börries von Münchhausen was well known, his name has been virtually forgotten. He was a poet who sought his ideal in the past; he published heraldic ballads and identified himself with the literary movement in Berlin at the turn of the twentieth century, earning himself a good deal of fame at the time. When Münchhausen saw his popularity declining following Germany's loss in World War I, he cast about for a way to get his ideas into the public eye. As head of the Prussian Academy, he thought the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler might provide the backing he needed to regain his profile in the literary world. His dreams were never fulfilled, however, and he ultimately committed suicide, an embittered, frustrated artist trapped in a world he had not chosen for himself.

Münchhausen was born in 1874 in Hildsheim, the eldest son of a nobleman. His title was "freiherr," which means "baron." He went to a religious school at the age of thirteen and then studied law and political science in Heidelberg, Munich, Göttingen, and Berlin. In 1899 he received a doctorate from the University of Leipzig and returned to Göttingen.

Münchhausen was fascinated with medieval history and Germanic legends and wanted to apply the heroic ideals embodied by these works to his own life. During his student days he began composing ballads, and heroic ballads formed the heart of his early works, including his 1899 debut, the collection Gedichte, which was well received. A year later his ballad collection Juda, illustrated by his Jewish friend Ephraim Moses Lilien, attracted attention because it positioned a Jew as the hero. The work was in contrast to the general trend in writings of the period, which was to describe Jews as an inferior class of people.

Münchhausen's early works were quite successful and sold well. In 1900, 1901, 1905, and 1923 he published many ballads in the Göttingen literary magazine. That he had hit the spirit of the times was shown in the resonance his publications had; they were immensely popular with the German people. Their popularity, however, ebbed quickly after World War I and the general disillusionment it brought to Europe.

After the war, the value system of the nineteenth century was gone, and art and literature were set on a new course. Münchhausen felt the end of the war to be his own defeat. Attempting to regain his literary status, he sought new friends and alliances. In letters he wrote to the anti-Semite Adolf Bartels in 1911, Münchhausen claimed that he was not the same man he had been when he wrote in Juda, more than a decade earlier, that he held Jews in high regard and had done so since childhood. Attempting to distance himself from his previous work, he wrote that he thought the only possibility for liberation from Jews would be a "secret union" of all Germans and perhaps the elimination of alien elements through Zionism, which he likened to the national lancing of an abscess.

By 1916 Münchhausen was in Berlin, where he associated with various specialists in foreign literature, including Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Hans Grimm, Waldesmar Bonsels, and Friedrich Gundolf. In 1919 he joined Grimm and van den Bruck in forming an elite conservative union that freed itself from the politics of the kaisers and strove for a new authoritarian system of government. Münchhausen, in contrast to his colleagues, was not interested in theoretical discourse but only in practical organization. His new conservative convictions—inspired by the failure of a business enterprise as well as by the decline of his literary popularity—caused him to discontinue the liberal, cultured lifestyle he had once led. By 1929 he was writing to a friend that he believed Germany was faced with possible conquest by a secret Jewish conspiracy.

Disappointed over his lack of literary reputation, Münchhausen wished to at least succeed as a true poet. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he concentrated his energies on bringing his name once again before the German literary elite. His first opportunity to realize his goal presented itself in the person of his cousin, Hans von der Gabelentz Burghauptmann der Wartburg. Under his cousin's name, but with Münchhausen in the background, the German Poetry Academy was organized and headquartered in Wartburg. The location symbolized for Münchhausen the philosophy of the academy: that Germany, Christianity, and, above all, respect for tradition should be united. He saw the poetry department of the Prussian Academy in Berlin as his own academy's opponent. Münchhausen gathered around him a small, select circle of writers who shared his beliefs in literature, and he had regular meetings with Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer, Wilhelm Schäfer, and Hans Friedrich Blunck. By the beginning of the 1930s, he had gathered a circle of men interested in political-literary objectives. That group was the prelude to much bigger plans involving great influence in cultural matters and the independence of poetic thought.

Under Reich chancellor Franz von Papen, Münchhausen sought influence in culture and politics. However, before his plan could be realized, von Papen resigned from his position. Hitler's "Machtübernahme" presented Münchhausen with a new opportunity to influence the Prussian Academy because its poetry department—which he had long detested—was being brought into line with national socialist policies. As "uncooperative" members such as Thomas Mann and Alfred Döblin resigned or were dismissed, academy positions became available, and in May of 1933 Münchhausen was appointed to a vacancy by the Prussian minister of culture, education, and church affairs. Other members of the Wartburg circle were also brought into the Prussian Academy after Münchhausen negotiated openings.

Münchhausen was able to pursued the expansion of the academy, always working in the background, moving his colleagues into positions of influence almost unnoticed, and helping his favorites achieve successful careers. His plan—to run the Prussian Academy independent of the government—was soon thwarted by the National Socialist regime. Nevertheless, he supported the government when his poet colleagues rebelled against the Nazi operation, and in January of 1934 he was appointed senator of the academy.

Münchhausen's relationship with National Socialism was always conflicting. On the one hand he affirmed Hitler's Machtpolitik, but on the other he wanted to protect poetic freedom. These were not necessarily separate goals, but there were areas in which his and the government's worldviews did not correspond and in which the poet was at a disadvantage. When his early work came under scrutiny during Nazi censorship, Münchhausen accepted the criticism of Juda and did not protest the deletion of poems in his collection. In March 1936 he stood at Hitler's side and signed an oath stating the necessity for German poets to support the führer. However, when an anthology that originally included the works of 170 poets was published with ninety-two poets stricken—including Heinrich Heine, Hermann Hesse, and Hugo Hofmannsthal—Münchhausen protested publicly, attracting the condemnation of the National Socialist press.

When Hermann Göring took over the office of protector of the Prussian Academy in July 1937, he expressed plans to transform the academy into a German institution. This was a wish Münchhausen shared and supported, but it was never to be realized. Over the next few years, the academy experienced increasing strife over the influence of politics on poetry. The opinion of Münchhausen and his friends became less and less important, and their protests went unacknowledged. During World War II the academy's poetry department increasingly lost meaning.

At the beginning of the 1940s, Münchhausen returned to public life. As a poet he was disillusioned, his plans for a German Academy were shattered, and his influence was once again dwindling. He took an overdose of sleeping pills and died on March 16, 1945.

Münchhausen's role in literature was like that of Franz von Papen in politics: each in his area of expertise worked to put National Socialism in power, but each nurtured the illusion that it was possible to maintain independence from the political system. Through his writing Münchhausen sought the union of various conservative trends with the activism of the National Socialist movement. He offered only ideas and strategy; aggressive polemics were not his style. He preferred exchanges of letters, diplomatic speeches, and giving old ideas an unexpected turn of phrase. He worked as a quiet, behind-the-scenes manager, trying to function within the Prussian Academy to maintain poetic independence in the face of increasing political oppression, and was ultimately caught between literary freedom and his desire for German nationalism.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Forum Homosexualität und Literatur, Volume 34, 1999, Jürgen Reulecke, "Männerleid im Männerlied," pp. 105-116.

Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft, Volume 25, 1981, Reinhard Alter, "Gottfried Benn und Börries von Münchhausen: ein Briefwechsel aus den Jahren 1933/34," pp. 139-170.

Sinn und Form, July-August, 1992, Werner Mittenzwei, "Börries, Freiherr von Münchhausen—der Heimliche Gegenspieler," pp. 566-589.

ONLINE

Schiller-Nationalmuseum, German Literary Archives Web site, http://www.dla-marbach.de/ (April 20, 2001), Ingrid Kussmaul, "Die Nachlässe und Sammlungen des Deutschen Literaturarchivs Marbach."