Hedwig Pringsheim
Hedwig Pringsheim (nee Gertrude Hedwig Anna Dohm, born July 13, 1855 in Berlin, † July 27, 1942 in Zurich ) was a daughter of the well-known women's rights activist Hedwig Dohm, wife of maths professor Alfred Pringsheim and mother of Katia Mann, with the writer Thomas man was married.
Life
Hedwig Pringsheim was the second of five children of Ernst Dohm and his wife Hedwig Dohm. Her father was the chief editor of the satirical magazine Kladderadatsch, the mother was in the 1870s as a writer, journalist and feminist a name. In 1873 they called one of the first in Germany to vote for women. The Salon of Hedwig Pringsheim's parents was fixed meeting place for the cultural and intellectual elite of Berlin, including wrong there, Alexander von Humboldt, Ferdinand Lassalle, Fanny Lewald, Hans and Cosima von Bülow and Franz Liszt. Because of the low pay of the father but the family was a long time in financial difficulties. When Ernst Dohm 1869 even threatened the debtors' prison, the family broke up for almost a year: The daughters came in pensions bez. in a boarding school in Eisenach, Ernst Dohm fled to Weimar and Hedwig Dohm spent a year with her sister in Rome.
About a family friend, the former actress Ellen Franz, Hedwig came to the court theater at Meiningen. Her debut was on 15 January 1875 in the role of Louise in Schiller's Intrigue and Love. Other roles were the Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, the Esther in the same dramatic fragment by Franz Grillparzer Esther, Bertha in William Tell and Kate in Cathy of Heilbronn, which she portrayed on the guest performances of the Meiningen in several European cities.
1876 she met the wealthy mathematics professor and art patron Alfred Pringsheim, whom she married on October 23, 1878. With him she had five children: Erik (1879-1909), Peter (1881-1963), Heinz (1882-1974) and the 1883 -born twins Klaus ( 1883-1972 ) and Catherine ( 1883-1980 ), called Katia. Erik was the black sheep of the family and was exiled to Argentina. Their sons Peter and Klaus suggested later how her father an academic career and had held professorships in physics or composition. Heinz was a postdoctoral archaeologist. The daughter Katia was the first high school graduate in Munich and was among the first active female students at the University of Munich. It was in 1905 the wife of the writer and later Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann.
The Arcisstraße 12, 1890, completed villa at the Royal Square in Munich, under Hedwig Pringsheim Director for a long time was the center of Munich society. Hedwig Pringsheim entertained beyond a long-term exchange of letters with the publicist and actor Maximilian Harden, who also related to political issues, such as the common rejection of the Wilhelmine Empire. From her grandson Golo Mann Hedwig was later described as a "femme du monde of the Bavarian capital ," which are "as rare art perfected conversation dominated ". Although her maternal grandfather in 1817 and her family were paternal in 1827 converted to the Protestant faith, Hedwig had to flee with her Jewish -born husband in 1939 from the National Socialists in Switzerland as a non - Aryan. The family home had been expropriated in 1933, the villa was demolished. In their place, the administration building of the Nazi Party was formed. Today, the building is called the Munich House of Culture Institute. The current address is Katharina von Bora -Straße 10; the Arcisstraße is now shorter than the time Pringsheims.
Hedwig Pringsheim died penniless in exile in Switzerland from cancer.
Source
- Hedwig Pringsheim: My news service. Letters to Katia Mann 1933-1941, ed. and commented on by Dirk Heißerer, Wallenstein Verlag, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-0253-2.
- Hedwig Pringsheim: diaries. From 1885 to 1891. Volume 1 Edited and annotated by Cristina autumn, Wallenstein Verlag, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-0995-1.
- Hedwig Pringsheim: diaries. From 1892 to 1897. Volume 2 Edited and annotated by Cristina autumn, Wallenstein Verlag, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1267-8.
- Hedwig Pringsheim: My art. Letters to Maximilian Harden, ed. and commented by Helga and Manfred Neumann ( these have the title chosen ), Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-351-03075-4.
Work
- Domestic memories. 11 feuilleton in-law of Thomas Mann in " Vossische newspaper" 1929 until 1932. Ed. and inlaid. Nikola Knoth. Self- Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-00-017883- X.