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Hermann von Wedderkop (1875–1956) was a German writer. He also served as editor of the art magazine ''

Der Querschnitt ''Der Querschnitt'' () was an art magazine published by German art dealer Alfred Flechtheim between 1921 and 1936. The magazine was based in Berlin. According to Erika Esau, the magazine "represented the politically detached aspirations of the a ...

''.Brooker, Peter, et al. (eds.
The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Volume III, Europe 1880-1940 Part I
p. 869 (2013)

Career

Originally a legal assessor in Cologne, he met

Alfred Flechtheim Alfred Flechtheim (1 April 1878 – 9 March 1937) was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis. Early years Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a g ...

in Paris in 1907, who was an art dealer and later founder of

. In 1912 he wrote an exhibition guide for the

Sonderbund The Sonderbund War (german: Sonderbundskrieg, fr , Guerre du Sonderbund, it , Guerra del Sonderbund) of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic canton ...

in Cologne. During

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 ...

, Wedderkop was a civilian commissary of the German civilian administration in Brussels. Among others, he met there

Gottfried Benn Gottfried Benn (2 May 1886 – 7 July 1956) was a German poet, essayist, and physician. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1951. Biography and work Family and beginnings Go ...

and Thea Sternheim and is said to have had an affair with

Yvonne George Yvonne de Knops (1896 in Brussels – 1930 in Genoa), better known by her stage name Yvonne George, was a Belgian singer, feminist and actress. Biography George started her artistic career on the stage, where she befriended Jean Cocteau, but g ...

during that time. At the beginning of the 1920s, Wedderkop was a member of the advisory committee of the artists' association ''Das Junge Rheinland''. In the series ''Junge Kunst'' published by Verlag Klinkhardt and Biermann Leipzig, he published the volumes on

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

(1920) and

Marie Laurencin Marie Laurencin (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or. Biography Laurencin was born in Paris ...

(1921). From 1921 he was an employee of the Der Querschnitt. As editor, Wedderkop succeeded in making Der Querschnitt into the leading German

Zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. F. ...

magazine of the 1920s: open to the artistic avant-garde, such as

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

and

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

, and in addition to the heroes of boxing, ironically elitist and artistic photos of male and female nude models. In

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

's posthumous memoirs "

A Moveable Feast ''A Moveable Feast'' is a 1964 memoir ''belles-lettres'' by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling expat journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s. It was published posthumously. The book details Hemingway's fir ...

", Wedderkop is mentioned as a purchaser of his works and described as "awfully nice". Wedderkop's removal as chief editor in 1929 by the

Ullstein Verlag The ''Ullstein Verlag'' was founded by Leopold Ullstein in 1877 at Berlin and is one of the largest publishing companies of Germany. It published newspapers like '' B.Z.'' and ''Berliner Morgenpost'' and books through its subsidiaries ''Ullstein B ...

, and from his editor's post there in May 1931, is said to have had something to do with his publicistic enthusiasm for

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

, according to Wilmont Haacke. Wedderkop visited Mussolini on May 5 and October 10, 1930, and on May 28, 1935. He spent most of the period of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in Italy. Wedderkop's book ''Deutsche Graphik des Westens'' was placed on the list of harmful and undesirable literature by the Reichsschrifttumkammer of the

Reichskulturkammer The Reich Chamber of Culture (''Reichskulturkammer'') was a government agency in Nazi Germany. It was established by law on 22 September 1933 in the course of the '' Gleichschaltung'' process at the instigation of Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels a ...

in 1938.

Alternatives

Wedderkop rejected the "old literature" by

Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He recei ...

and

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

, pressing instead for the

social novel The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". Mor ...

. In 1927, he published a corresponding autobiographically colored novel with ''Adieu Berlin''. The book, set in the North Sea resort of Kampen, did not receive much attention. More success came with his alternative travel books for Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Bonn (1928), Paris (1929), London and Rome (1930) and Oberitalien (1931), published by Piper Verlag in the series ''Was nicht im ″Baedeker″ steht''. After 1938, Wedderkop appeared as the translator of the motivational trainer and author

Dale Carnegie Dale Carnegie (; spelled Carnagey until c. 1922; November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer, and the developer of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal ...

, later co-authored in German editions. Wedderkop also translated into German ''Et in Arcadia ego'' by the Italian writer

Emilio Cecchi Emilio Cecchi (14 July 1884 – 5 September 1966) was an Italian literary critic, art critic and screenwriter. One English language source describes him as "an 'official' - although radically anti-academic - intellectual". He was made artistic ...

Works

*''Der Rhein von den Alpen bis zum Meere'' (1931) *''Sizilien, schicksal einer insel'' (1940) *''Die falsche Note; ein Musikroman'' (1940)

References

1875 births 1956 deaths German male writers {{Germany-writer-stub