Wilhelm August Schmidtbonn
Wilhelm August Schmidtbonn was a German playwright born in Bonn in 1876, known for his contributions to the dramatic arts during the late German expressionist movement. While he achieved some success with his plays in his time, his work largely remained regional, failing to garner an international audience or lasting impact. His early notable work, "Mutter Landstrasse," explores themes of paternal authority and generational conflict through a narrative reminiscent of the Prodigal Son. Schmidtbonn's plays often incorporated mythological elements, as seen in "Der Graf von Gleichen," which intertwines a love triangle with Crusade-era conflicts, and "Der spielende Eros," which received enthusiastic reactions across German-speaking audiences.
Despite his artistic successes, Schmidtbonn’s ardent nationalism poses challenges in contemporary interpretations of his work. He utilized his writing to support the war efforts during World War I, and his nationalistic themes were later appropriated by the Third Reich, although he did not actively promote Nazi propaganda. Schmidtbonn's legacy remains relevant primarily for those studying late German expressionism, with his works often examined in the context of their historical and cultural implications. He passed away in 1952, leaving behind a complex and regionally significant oeuvre.
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Subject Terms
Wilhelm August Schmidtbonn
Linguist
- Born: February 6, 1876
- Birthplace: Bonn, Germany
- Died: July 3, 1952
- Place of death: Bad Godesberg, Germany
Biography
While Wilhelm August Schmidtbonn achieved a certain measure of success with his plays in his own era, his work did not possess the vision or integrity to survive into later eras or to find an international audience. In many ways he was an intensely regional and nation-loving German dramatist, and those qualities have given him some fame in his home country but left him untranslated in the larger world. His plays are now read chiefly for the interest they hold for students of late German expressionism.
Although Schmidtbonn was born into a well-to-do German family, he himself possessed a restless disposition which kept him from settling in any one place for very long. He was born in Bonn in 1876 and attended the gymnasium in Bonn and the Conservatory of Music in Cologne. He never matriculated from a higher institution of learning, although he spent some time at various universities in Germany and Switzerland.
Schmidtbonn had his first modest success with one of his early dramas, Mutter Landstrasse (1901). The story is a somewhat bombastic treatment of the Prodigal Son theme; the wastrel son cannot bring his father, the very figure of the authoritarian nineteenth century German patriarch, to forgive him. Like the patriarch in American expressionist dramatist Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, the father in Mutter Landstrasse represents the stubborn confidence of an age that is passing.
Schmidtbonn married Luise Freuer in 1900, and in 1905 the couple moved to Düsseldorf. Here the playwright collaborated with another expressionist artist, the poet Herbert Eulenberg, on a Faust-like story of contracted happiness. Schmidtbonn set his new drama, Der Graf von Gleichen (1908), in a Turkish prison at the time of the Crusades. The Count of Gleichen has been captured by Moorish forces, and in order to escape he makes a contract with a superhuman figure to marry a Turkish woman whose death in the future will augur his own. Released and back in Europe, the count precipitates the tragedy of a love triangle with his wife and the Turkish maiden, with whom he has fallen in love. Here the Pope becomes the authoritarian patriarchal figure, and the count the young man railing against the restrictions of society. When the count’s wife murders her rival, she unwittingly kills her husband. The play, which shows the expressionist fondness for myth, was a success with the Düsseldorf audience.
Schmidtbonn’s next play, Der Zorn des Achilles (1909) was also centered on a myth, this time the Homeric story of Achilles’s friendship with Patroclus. This play was not a success. Mythology also structures one of the playwright’s most successful productions, Der spielende Eros (1911). Schmidtbonn created in this comedy a series of one-act plays loosely based on Greek myths, all emphasizing Eros as a source of transformation. Audiences across the German-speaking world reacted with enthusiasm to this dramatic production.
One aspect of Schmidtbonn’s work which gives the twenty- first century reader pause is his ardent nationalism. During World War I, the playwright was at the height of his power and he used his talent to further the war effort. During World War II, the Third Reich found a fertile field in Schmidtbonn’s corpus of nationalistic writings. Although Schmidtbonn himself did not contribute to Nazi propaganda, his earlier body of work fanning Teutonic nationalism proved useful to the wartime government. Schmidtbonn died in 1952.