Hanns Heinz Ewers

Hanns Heinz Ewers (November 3, 1871, Düsseldorf - June 12, 1943, Berlin) was a German actor, poet, philosopher, and writer of short stories and novels. While he wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is today known chiefly for his works of horror, particularly his trilogy of novels centered around the adventures of Frank Braun, a character modeled not too loosely on himself. The best known of these is "Alraune".

Career

Ewers's literary career began with a volume of satiric verse, entitled "A Book of Fables", published in 1901. That same year he collaborated with Ernst von Wolzogen in forming a literary vaudeville theatre before forming his own such company, which toured Central and Eastern Europe before the operating expenses and constant interference from censors forced him to abandon the enterprise. A world traveller, Ewers was in South America at the outbreak of World War I, and relocated to New York City, where he continued to write and publish.

Ewers' reputation as a successful German author and performer made him a natural speaker for the German cause to keep the United States from entering the war on the side of Britain. Ewers toured cities with large ethnic German communities and raised funds for the German Red Cross.

During this period, he was involved with the "Stegler Affair". American shipping lines reportedly collaborated with the British, allowing male Germany-bound passengers to be arrested and interned in concentration camps by the British Navy, German volunteers required fake passports to reach Europe unmolested. Ewers was implicated by one of these ethnic Germans, Richard Stegler.

After the United States entered the war he was arrested in 1918 as an “active propagandist,” although the US government, as well as British and French intelligence agencies asserted that Ewers was a German agent. They pointed to his travels to Spain in 1915 and 1916, both under an alias using a falsified Swiss passport. A travel report in the archives of the German foreign office also indicates that he may have been traveling to Mexico, maybe to encourage Pancho Villa to tie down the U.S. military by an attack on the United States.

Ewers is linked to the pro-German George Sylvester Viereck, son of the German immigrant and reported illegitimate Hohenzollern offspring Louis Sylvester Viereck (a Social Democrat famous for sharing a prison cell with August Bebel), who was a member of the same Berlin student Corps (fraternity) as Ewers.

Ewers' activities as an "Enemy Alien" in New York were documented by J. Christoph Amberger in the German historical journal "Einst & Jetzt" (1991). Amberger points at arrival records that show Ewers enter the United States in the company of a "Grethe Ewers", who is identified as his wife. Enemy Alien Office records make reference to a recent divorce. The identity of this otherwise undocumented wife has never been clearly established and is missing from most biographies.

As a German national he was sent to the internment camp at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Ewers was never tried as a German agent in the United States. In 1921, he was released from the internment camp and returned to his native Germany.

Ewers's first novel, "Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)", was published in 1910, with an English translation appearing in America in 1927. It introduces the character of Frank Braun, who, like Ewers, is a writer, historian, philosopher, and world traveller with a decidedly Nietzschean morality. The story concerns Braun's attempts to manipulate a small cult of evangelical Christians in a small Italian mountain village for his own financial gain, and the horrific results which ensue.

This was followed in 1911 by "Alraune", a reworking of the Frankenstein myth, in which Braun collaborates in creating a female homunculus or android by impregnating a prostitute with the semen from a hanged murderer. The result is a young woman with no moral center, who commits numerous monstrous acts. The novel was filmed several times, most recently by Erich von Stroheim in 1952.

The third novel in the sequence, "Vampyr", written in 1921, concerns Braun's own eventual transformation into one of these blood-drinking creatures. Another novel, "Der Geisterseher", was published in 1922.

Ewers also wrote several plays, poems, fairy tales, opera librettos, and critical essays. These included "Die Ameisen", translated into English as "The Ant People", "Indien und ich", a travelogue of his time in India, and a 1916 critical essay on Edgar Allan Poe, to whom he has often been compared. Indeed, Ewers is still considered by many a major figure in the evolution of the horror literary genre, cited as a major influence by no less than H. P. Lovecraft. Students of the occult are also attracted to his works, due to his longtime friendship and correspondence with Aleister Crowley.

Movie work

Ewers was one of the first critics to recognize film as a legitimate artform, and wrote the scripts for numerous early classics of the medium, most notably "The Student of Prague (1913)", a reworking of the Faust legend which also included the first portrayal of a double role by an actor on the screen. Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, then a member of the same Corps (student fraternity) that Ewers had been a member of, appears as an extra in a 1928 version of the movie, also written by Ewers. Ewers was later commissioned by Adolf Hitler to write a biography of Wessel ("Einer von vielen"), which also was made into a movie.

Nazi involvement

During the declining years of the Weimar Republic, Ewers became involved with the burgeoning Nazi Party, attracted to its Nationalism, its alleged Nietzschean moral philosophy, and its cult worship of Teutonic culture, although he never officially joined its ranks. He did not agree with the party's anti-Semitism (his character Frank Braun has a Jewish mistress, Lotte Levi, who is also a patriotic German) and this plus his homosexual tendencies quickly led to his falling out of favor with the party leadership. In 1934 most of his works were banned in Germany, and his assets and property seized. Ewers eventually died in poverty from tuberculosis.

Despite his enormous influence on 20th century fantasy and horror literature, Ewers remains out of favor in many literary circles because of his brief association with the Nazis. As a result, post-World War II editions of his works are often difficult to find, and earlier editions can command a premium price from collectors.

Trivia

Ewers appears in Kim Newman's novel "Anno Dracula", as a predatory vampire who travels briefly with Edgar Allan Poe.

External links

* [http://www.hanns-heinz-ewers.com/ Hanns Heinz Ewers Online ]
*imdb name|0263912|Hanns Heinz Ewers
* [http://homepages.pavilion.co.uk/users/tartarus/e9.htm Supernatural Fiction Database ]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/2944 Die toten Augen] an opera with music by Eugen d'Albert and poetry by Ewers; Vocal Score from Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection