Pierre Bertaux

Pierre Bertaux ( born October 8, 1907 in Lyon, † 13 August 1986 in Saint-Cloud, Hauts -de -Seine département ) was a French specialist in German, politicians and intelligence specialist in the Resistance. He was an officer of the Legion of Honor, winner of Croix de guerre and Compagnon de la Libération.

Life

Pierre Bertaux was the son of German studies Félix Bertaux. His great-uncle Felix Piquet was in German studies. Had acquired by his father, the great achievements in the enforcement of the work of Gerhart Hauptmann in France and was friends with many German exile writers, Pierre was early acquainted with German culture and literature. He attended secondary schools in Rouen and Mainz, and later the Lycée Janson -de- Sailly and Louis -le- Grand in Paris. After changing to the École Normale Supérieure (ENS ) in 1926 were among his schoolmates among others Jean -Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron. Then Bertaux studied in Paris and Berlin. 1927-1928 He was the first French student at the University of Berlin after the First World War and lecturer at the Romani tables Institute under Eduard Wechssler. In Berlin Bertaux Brigitte Bermann-Fischer, the daughter of Samuel Fischer learned and Golo Mann, with whom joined him long-lasting friendships. With his dissertation " Hölderlin. Essai de biographie intérieure " Bertaux 1936 received his doctorate for his Docteur ès lettres recent time in France.

1932 Bertaux was election workers for the socialist MP Pierre Viénot, the (aka Mayrisch Committee) began in the late 1920s for the Comité Franco - Allemand d'Information et de Documentation and a Franco-German rapprochement. 1934-35 Bertaux was commissioned by Georges Mandel at the French Radio as Chief of émissions parlées active ( transmission conductor for speech-based programs ). 1936-37 he was the office manager at Viénot, the now developed as Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Independence statutes for the French mandated territories, Lebanon and Syria .. In the two following years took Bertaux teaching in the subject German at the Universities of Rennes and Toulouse

From 1939 to 1940 Bertaux belonged to the French army, first as a translator, then the Ministry of Information as an organizer of German-language broadcasts. After the French defeat in 1940, he was in the unoccupied zone south of France one of the leaders of the Resistance. In 1941 he was arrested and sentenced by a military court of the Vichy regime in Toulon to imprisonment. After his release, he went into hiding and was built during the 1944 Liberation Government representative ( " Commissaire " ) in Toulouse. From 1946 to 1947 he was then private secretary of public works and transportation, in 1947-48 Prefect in the department of Rhône. After further administrative activities, he was in 1949 appointed director of the Sûreté Nationale. A post he lost when he testified in court in 1951 that he ( the thief who stole the jewels of Begum ) could rely on word of honor of the gangster Leca. As a consultant of the S. Fischer Verlag, he was involved in the early 1950s instrumental in his decision to continue to publish paperbacks. From 1953 to 1955 Pierre Bertaux sat as a senator for French Sudan, now Mali, in the Senate.

1958 sat Bertaux then his high school career continued until 1965 and taught German at the University of Lille. Together with Ilse Grubrich - Simitis, he advised the early 1960s, the S. Fischer Verlag build the paperback series in the world If that is the way forward then with new issues such as evolutionary biology, cybernetics, automation, inter alia, employed. From 1965 to 1981 he was professor at the Sorbonne. In 1968 he founded the " Institut d' anglais d' Asnières " ( today the department of the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Etudes germaniques - Paris 3 ), which he served as Director and served as a laboratory for new forms of German: written and oral language of instruction was German as teaching materials should German -language daily newspapers and mass media serve. All students should have a year at a German university and a half years in a German company, the German culture ( civilization allemande ) to meet in reality. The aim of the training were " young Europeans ". Bertaux was also involved heavily for a Franco-German exchange students. 1970 Bertaux Award Germany with the Goethe Medal and in 1975 with the Heinrich Heine Prize of the city of Dusseldorf. Bertaux died on 13 August 1986 at the age of 78 years at Saint-Cloud, Hauts -de- Seine. His son Daniel Bertaux is a renowned sociologist, his son Jean -Loup Bertaux a noted astronomer.

As one of the most important French German literature of the 20th century Bertaux has the Hölderlin research given new impetus, even if his ideas in relation to the Jacobinism of the Swabian poet and regard the statement that Hölderlin insane, but a " noble Simulant " was not until today remained controversial. Bertaux was also excellent as Goethe connoisseur. His mind reached out in many ways over the usual framework of the German academic subject, both in France and in Germany.

Works (selection)

In French:

• Hölderlin, Essai de biographie intérieure, Paris, Hachette, 1936
• La mutation humaine, 1964
• La libération de Toulouse et de sa région, éd. Hachette, 1973
• Hölderlin ou le temps d'un poète, Paris, Gallimard, 1983
• Mémoires interrompus par Pierre Bertaux, Hans Gerd Schulte, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2000 ISBN 2910212149
• Un normalien à Berlin. Lettres franco- allemandes ( 1927-1933 ). Edited by Hans Manfred Bock. PIA, Asnières 2001 ( Publications de l'Institut d' Allemand 29). ISBN 2-910212-16-5 (some with German translation )

In German:

• Mutation of humanity: the future and the meaning of life. Joke, Munich 1963 ( also titled mutation of humanity: diagnosis and prognosis by S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1963)
• Africa. From prehistory to the States of the present ( Fischer World History, Vol 32). S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1966
• Hölderlin and the French Revolution. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1969 ( reprint: Structure, Berlin 1990, ISBN 978-3351017057. )
• How I became German studies. In Siegfried Unseld (ed.): How, why and to what end I was literary historian? A collection of essays on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Robert Minder, pp. 27-38. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1972
• Friedrich Hölderlin. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1978 ISBN 3-518-02148-6 ( reprint: island, Frankfurt / M. 2000 ISBN 978-3458343523 )
• A French student in Berlin. In: meaning and form 35 (1983 ), H.2, pp. 314-327
• Many a beautiful game I'll play with you! In Goethe's play instinct. Island, Frankfurt / M. In 1986. ISBN 978-3458145042