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 (, ) 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 10,844 (2010). History The town w ...

) in the Prussian

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (; ) was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920, occupying most of the historical Greater Poland. The province was established following the Greater Poland Uprising (1848), Poznań Uprisi ...

(

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

). He received his secondary education in

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

(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 The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

and in 1898 earned a doctorate from the

University of Rostock The University of 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 continental northern Europe and the Baltic Se ...

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 nobility, German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and Mysticism, mystic. He is regarded as an inf ...

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

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. 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 Heinrich Kaspar Schmid (11 September 1874 – 8 January 1953) was a German composer. Biography Schmid was born at Landau. As a boy he studied music with his father who was a school teacher and choral conductor. He also sang in the boys cho ...

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 file: Paul Matschie (BerlLeben 1901-09).JPG, 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 Universi ...

, author Hans Eschelbach, journalist Julius Rodenberg, 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 or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1916, Busse joined the

militia A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...

and was decorated with an

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...

, Second Class. He died in Berlin, in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, H1N1 subtype of the influenz ...

. 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) ( – 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 Gestapo in 1933. This rete ...

and

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

under the name "Dr. Kaesbohrer". 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 SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

. 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 Writers from the Province of Posen Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 2nd class German male poets Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in Germany Humboldt University of Berlin alumni