Carl (Hermann) Busse (12 November 1872 – 3 December 1918) was a German lyric poet. He worked as a literary critic and published his own poetry and prose, occasionally under the pseudonym ''Fritz Döring''.

Life

Busse was born in Lindenstadt near Birnbaum (today

Międzychód Międzychód (, german: Birnbaum) is a town in Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland, the administrative seat of Międzychód County. It is located on the southern shore of the Warta river, about west of Poznań. Population is 10,915 (2009). His ...

) in the Prussian

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (german: Provinz Posen, pl, Prowincja Poznańska) was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920. Posen was established in 1848 following the Greater Poland Uprising as a successor to the Grand Duchy of Posen, w ...

(

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...

). He received his secondary education in

Wągrowiec (german: Wongrowitz) is a town in west-central Poland, from both Poznań and Bydgoszcz. Since the 18th century it has been the a seat of a powiat. Administratively it is attached to the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The town is situated in the mi ...

(German: Wongrowitz). From 1893 he lived in Berlin and received a military education. In 1894 he studied philology, history, and philosophy at the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

and in 1898 earned a doctorate from the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock (german: link=no, Universität Rostock) is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continen ...

where he wrote a thesis on the poetry of

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of ...

advised by Wolfgang Golthier. Upon graduation, he was active as a freelance author and literary critic in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He was an associate editor of the ''Deutschen Wochenblatt'', a journal for politics, art, and literature, and contributed to Leipzig publisher Velhagen & Klasings ''Monatsheften''. Busse was a founding member of the "Cartel of German Lyric Authors". The composer Heinrich Kaspar Schmid included a setting Busse's poem "Schöne Nacht" in his Op. 9 songs of 1903. The song premiered on 18 June 1903 at the Munich Odeon in a concert of students from the Academy of Music in Munich with the composer at the piano. German composer Luise Schulze-Berghof (1889-1970) also set Busse’s text to music. Busse belonged to a circle of writers supported by Ludwig Stollwerck, a Cologne chocolate magnate and entrepreneur. They helped design the Stollwerck firm's series of collectable scrapbooks and print albums, "Stollwerck's Sammel-Album". Other writers included poet "T. Resa" (Theresa Gröhe, née Pauli-Greiffenberg), zoology professor

Paul Matschie Paul Matschie Paul Matschie (11 August 1861, Brandenburg an der Havel – 7 March 1926, Friedenau) was a German zoologist. He studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Universities of Halle and Berlin, afterwards working as an unpaid v ...

, author Hans Eschelbach, journalist

Julius Rodenberg Julius Rodenberg (originally ''Julius Levy''; 26 June 1831, Rodenberg – 11 July 1914, Berlin) was a German Jewish poet and author. He studied law at the universities of Heidelberg, Göttingen, Berlin, and Marburg, but soon abandoned jurisprud ...

, author Joseph von Lauff, novelist

Gustav Falke Gustav Falke (11 January 1853 – 8 February 1916) was a German writer. Life Falke was born in Lübeck to merchant Johann Friedrich Christian Falke and his wife Elisabeth Franziska Hoyer. The historians Johannes and were his uncles, and the t ...

, and the poet Anna Ritter. During the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1916, Busse joined the

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

and was decorated with an

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...

, Second Class. He died in Berlin, in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

. Busse was buried in the Friedrichswerderscher Friedhof in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. Busse married Paula Sara Jacobsen and had two daughters, Ute and Christine. In 1924, his widow rented the ground floor of their house at 25-6 Heidestrasse in Berlin's Steglitz district to

Dora Diamant Dora Diamant (Dwojra Diament, also Dymant) (4 March 1898 – 15 August 1952) is best remembered as the lover of the writer Franz Kafka and the person who kept some of his last writings in her possession until they were confiscated by the Gest ...

and

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

under the name "Dr. Kaesboher". Heidestrasse was named the "Busseallee" in his honor in 1931. In the Nazi period, Paula Busse survived internment at

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

. Busse's brother, Georg Busse-Palma, was also a writer.

Works

* ''Gedichte'' 1892 * ''In junger Sonne'' 1892 * ''Geschichte einer Jugend'' 1892 * ''Jugendstürme'' 1896 * ''Jadwiga'' 1899 * ''Die Schüler von Polajewo'' 1901 * ''Das Gymnasium zu Lengowo'' 1907 (Roman) * ''Geschichte der Weltliteratur'' zwei Bände, Bielefeld / Leipzig 1909–1912 * ''Sturmvögel'' 1917 * ''Trittchen''(aus dem Tagebuch eines Verwundeten) * ''Der dankbare Heilige'' und andere Novellen * ''Deutsche Kriegslieder'' (1914/1915) * ''Heilige Not'' (Ein Gedichtbuch 1910) * ''Neue Gedichte'' (1892–1895) * ''Aus verklungenen Stunden'' (Sketchbook 1919), Jugenderzählungen – collected by Paula Busse * ''Träume'' 1895 * ''Über Zeit und Dichtung'' (Aufsätze zur Literatur 1915) * ''Vagabunden'' (Neue Lieder und Gedichte) * ''Federspiel'' (westliche und östliche Geschichten) * ''Im polnischen Wind'' (Ostmärkische Geschichten) * ''Flugbeute'' (Neue Erzählungen) * ''Annette von Droste'' * ''Feuerschein'' (Novellen und Skizzen aus dem Weltkrieg) * ''Klar Schiff'' (Seekriegslieder 1914/1915) Georg Busse-Palma: * ''Lieder eines Zigeuners'' (1899), with an introduction by Carl Busse * ''Zwei Bücher Liebe und andere Gedichte'' (1903)

References

* kauperts directory Berlin street names * H.K. Schmidt Archive, private communication from Walter Homolka * "Paula Busse" in ghetto-theresienstadt.info * "Paula Busse" in the German Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) * Mark Harman, "Missing Persons: Two Little Riddles About Kafka and Berlin" * Georg Busse-Palma in DNB * Detlef Lorenz: "Reklamenkunst um 1900. Künstlerlexikon für Sammelbilder", Reimer-Verlag, 2000.

External links

Short biography (German) from Literaturport.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Busse, Carl Hermann 1872 births 1918 deaths German poets University of Rostock alumni People from Międzychód People from the Province of Posen Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 2nd class Deaths from Spanish flu German male poets