Ina Seidel (15 September 1885 – 3 October 1974) was a German
lyric poet
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, t ...
and
novel
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
ist. In 1930, she published the novel generally regarded as her most famous work, ''Das Wunschkind ''("The Wished-For Child"); two years later she became the first woman admitted to the
Prussian Academy of Arts
The Prussian Academy of Arts () was a state arts academy first established in 1694 by prince-elector Frederick III of Electorate of Brandenburg, Brandenburg in Berlin, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and later king in Kingdom of ...
. Her reputation has been shadowed by her enthusiastic support of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
and the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
' 1944 God-Graced List (''"Gottbegnadeten List"'') of artists considered crucial to German culture. She has maintained some relevance in German popular culture despite a dramatic post-1945 decline in popularity.
Biography
Family provenance
Johanna Mathilde "Ina" Seidel was born in Halle, to Hermann Seidel and Emmy Loesevitz, the eldest of her parents' three children. Half a year later, the family relocated to
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
for the next ten years. Her father, Seidel was a senior surgeon at the city's main hospital. His suicide in 1895 left his widow and her children to live in seriously reduced circumstances. After her father's suicide her mother took the children to live in
Marburg
Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...
in 1896 and then to
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
in 1897. As a teenager, around the turn of the century Ina Seidel became involved with the exuberant arts scene focused on Munich's
Schwabing
Schwabing is a borough in the northern part of Munich, the Capital (political), capital of the Germany, German state of Bavaria. It is part of the city borough 4 (Schwabing-West) and the city borough 12 (Schwabing-Freimann). The population of Sc ...
quarter.
Ina Seidel's brother, Willy Seidel, also became a writer. Annemarie Seidel, her younger sister, became an actress and married a Dutchman. Her uncle,
Heinrich Seidel
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Seidel (25 June 1842, Perlin, Germany, Perlin, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Schwerin – 7 November 1906, Berlin) was a German engineer, poet and writer.
Life
Seidel was the son of a pastor and st ...
, was an engineer and a poet-novelist.
Marriage and family
In 1907, Ina Seidel married her cousin, the evangelical minister and author Heinrich Wolfgang Seidel. The couple moved to
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 ...
where Heinrich had been assigned a parish. The next year, following the birth of her first child, Heilwig, she became ill with