Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (December 30, 1878, Budapest - April 12, 1962, Munich) was an Austrian novelist, poet and playwright. Later based in Germany, he belonged to a group of writers that included the likes of Hans Grimm, Rudolf G. Binding, Emil Straub, Agnes Miegel and Hanns Johst, all of whom found favour under the Nazis.
Kolbenheyer studied philosophy, psychology and zoology at the University of Vienna and earned his PhD in 1905. He became a freelance writer and came to specialise in historical novels that were characterised by their fixation with all things German.
In 1908 he published Amor Dei, a novel about life and thinking of the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, which made Kolbenheyer fairly known. Kolbenheyer published an anthology with own poetry under the title Der Dornbusch brennt (i.e. Burning bush) in 1922. Between 1917 and 1925 he produced his most celebrated works, a trilogy of novels about Paracelsus, and in these books Kolbenheyer explored the many of the Volkisch movement concepts prevalent at the time by presenting his hero as the Nordic race archetype struggling against racial degeneracy and immorality.
In 1929 he published "Heroische Leidenschaften" (i.e. Heroic Passions), a drama about the Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno. Having settled amongst the Sudeten Germans, Kolbenheyer's right-wing attitudes solidified and he came to pre-empt many ideas of Nazism, notably in his theoretical work Die Bauhutte (1925), which predicted a turn away from 'Judeo-Christianity' as the source of German salvation. This work has been identified as being one of the main influences on Alfred Rosenberg's The Myth of the Twentieth Century. In Kolbenheyer's own words the addressee of his book "Bauhutte" is the "philosophical conscience... of the white race" which he wanted to arouse. A strong opponent of left-wing politics, he joined Wilhelm Schafer in resigning from the Akademie der K?nste in 1931 over what he saw as their support for the activities of Heinrich Mann and Alfred Doblin.
Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer Works (Partial):
- Giordano Bruno, Drama, 1903 - Amor Dei, Spinoza novel, 1908 - Master Joachim Pausewang, Roman to Jakob Bohme, 1910 (see also Adam of Dobschutz) - Montsalvasch, Roman, 1912th - Aholibamah stories, 1913th - The bush is burning, poems, 1922nd - Paracelsus (Kolbenheyer): ISBN 3-469-00108-1. - The Childhood of Paracelsus, 1917 - The star of Paracelsus, 1922 - The Third Reich of Paracelsus, 1926 - Three legends 1923rd - The building works in 1926 (revised in 1939 and entitled The Philosophy of Bauhutte 1952) - The smile of the Penates, Roman, 1927th - The bridge, drama, 1929th - Carlsbad amendment, 1929th - Chasing it - a man! Acting, 1931st - The law in you, drama, 1931st - Reps, personality, Roman, 1932nd - The encounter in the Giant Mountains, amendment, 1932nd - Klaas Y, the large Neutral, stories, 1936th - The god promised heart, novel, 1938th - Dedications, poems 1938th - Vox Humana, poems 1940th - Two Speeches: The intellectual life in its social-biological importance. Youth and seal., 1942 - Men and gods, dramas Fallot, 1944th - Sebastian Karst about his life and his time. 3 vols. 1957/58 - People on the threshold. 1956th
