Jakob Schaffner

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File:Jakob Schaffner c1920b.jpg
Jakob Schaffner, c. 1920
File:Jakob Schaffner c1920.jpg
Jakob Schaffner, c. 1920

Jakob Schaffner (14 November 1875 – 23 September 1944)[1] was a Swiss novelist.

Writings

Born on 14 November 1875 in Basel, both his father and his mother, a native of the State of Baden, died when he was young, leaving him to be reared in an orphanage.[1][2] His early experiences inspired his most celebrated novel Johannes (sometimes known as Roman einer Jugend), which was published in 1922 and was a semi-autobiographical story of life in an orphanage.[1] He initially worked as a shoemaker before turning to writing and held a number of other jobs throughout his life whilst an author.[1] As a young shoemaker Schaffner travelled extensively as a journeyman in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, which heavily influenced his later writing, much of which was concerned with travel.[2]

He studied at the University of Basel, and wrote his early works in Basel.[3] In his very early days Schaffner was sympathetic to communism but he would switch at an early age to nationalism.[1][4]

In 1912, Schaffner moved to Charlottenburg, near Berlin, Germany, after marrying a German woman and was driven by his German ethnic identity.[1][3] His native spoken tongue was the Alemannic German dialect but seeking to rid himself of regional peculiarities and become what he described as an "all-German" he consciously adopted north German forms and expressions in his writing.[2] He was strongly critical not only of Judaism but also of Christianity, dismissing the Bible as "a foreign collection of texts".[5]

Political life

He later returned to Switzerland and from 1936 to 1938 was active on behalf of the National Front, leaving the movement along with Rolf Henne and Hans Oehler.[1] For a time Schaffner was a member of the Bund Treuer Eidgenossen Nationalsozialistischer Weltanschauung, a pro-Nazism group established by Henne, Oehler and others on the extreme wing of the National Front.[6] Schaffner had initially been a sceptic about Nazism but soon became a strong supporter of Adolf Hitler, feeling that he could spearhead a renovation of Europe.[1]

During the Second World War Schaffner returned to live in Germany.[1] He joined the Nazi Party and worked as a propagandist for Joseph Goebbels.[citation needed] He rarely returned to Switzerland, except for a meeting with cabinet minister Marcel Pilet-Golaz in 1940 alongside Ernst Hofmann and Max Leo Keller, two leading members of the recently established Swiss Nazi movement the National Movement of Switzerland.[7]

He was killed in 1944 during an air raid on Straßburg[1] and was buried in his hometown Buus in September 1944. Having formerly been widely regarded as a writer, Schaffner's reputation in the German-speaking literary ciricles was damaged significantly after the war due to his support for Nazism.[1]

Works

  • Irrfahrten (1905; "Wanderings") — a novel
    • Die Irrfahrten des Jonathan Bregger (1912; "The Wanderings of Jonathan Bregger")
  • Die Laterne und andere Novellen (1907; "The Lantern and Other Novellas")
  • Die Erlhöferin (1908) — a novel
  • Hans Himmelhoch. Wanderbriefe an ein Weltkind (1909)
  • Konrad Pilater (1910) — story of whimsical journeyman shoemaker, embodying scenes of Schaffner's boyhood as a shoemaker[3]
  • Der Bote Gottes (1911; "The Messenger of God") — a novel
  • Die goldene Fratze (1912; "The Golden Fratze")[8]
  • Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (1915)
  • Die Schweiz im Weltkrieg (1915)
  • Das Schweizerkreuz (1916)
  • Der Dechant von Gottesbüren (1917) — a novel
  • Die deutsche Auferstehung. Deutschlands Rettung durch die deutsche Erde! (1919)
  • Die Weisheit der Liebe (1919; "The Wisdom of Love") — a novel
  • Die Erlösung vom Klassenkampf (1920)
  • Kinder des Schicksals (1920) — a novel
  • Der Passionsweg eines Volkes 1918–1920 (1920)
  • Johannes (1922)
  • Das Wunderbare (1923) — a novel
  • Brüder (1925; "Brothers")
  • Die Glücksfischer (1925) — a novel
  • Das große Erlebnis (1926; "The Grand Experience") — a novel
  • Die Jünglingszeit des Johannes Schattenhold (1930; "The Young Manhood of Johannes Schattenhold") — a novel, sequel to Johannes
  • Eine deutsche Wanderschaft (1933; "A German Journey") — a novel, third Johannes book
  • Offenbarung in deutscher Landschaft. Eine Sommerfahrt (1934; "Revealing in German Landscape – A Summer Journey")
  • Larissa (1935)
  • Volk zu Schiff. Zwei Seefahrten mit der KdF-Hochseeflotte (1936)
  • Berge, Ströme und Städte. Eine schweizerische Heimatschau (1938; "Mountains, Rivers and Cities – A Swiss Homeland Show")
  • Die Landschaft Brandenburg (1938)
  • Kampf und Reife (1939; "Struggle and Journey") — a novel, final part of Johannes tetralogy
  • Die schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft und das Dritte Reich (1939)
  • Der ewige Weg im Bundesbrief von 1291 (1940)
  • Der Aufgang des Reiches Heinrich I. (1940)
  • Der Schicksalsweg des deutschen Volkes (1940)
  • Die Klarinette (1941)
  • Das Reich in uns (1943)
  • Das kleine Weltgericht. Schauspiel (1943)
  • Stadtgänge. Frühe Erzählungen (1979)

References

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External links

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Rees, Philip (1990) Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 347. ISBN 0-13-089301-3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Wikisource-logo.svg Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Georges André Chevallaz (2001) The Challenge of Neutrality: Diplomacy and the Defense of Switzerland, Lexington Books, p. 96, ISBN 0739102745
  5. ↑ Heinrich Karl Fierz (1991) Jungian Psychiatry, Daimon, p. 392, ISBN 3856305211
  6. ↑ Philip Rees (1990) Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, Simon & Schuster, p. 178, ISBN 0-13-089301-3
  7. ↑ Pierre-Th Braunschweig (2004) Secret Channel To Berlin: The Masson-Schellenberg Connection And Swiss Intelligence In World War II, Casemate Publishers, p. 337, ISBN 1612000223
  8. ↑ "Fratze" is a German term for a distorted or ugly face or grimace.
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