Josef Nadler

Nadler attended the Jesuit seminary in Bohosudov and the gymnasium in Česká Lípa. He graduated from there in 1904, He then studied German with a minor in Classical Philology at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague under Carl von Kraus, Adolf Hauffen, and August Sauer. Under the latter, Nadler earned his doctorate in 1908 with a dissertation on Eichendorff's poetry. In 1912 Nadler published the first volume of his popular scientific history of literature. This formed the basis for his appointment as extraordinary professor, succeeding Wilhelm Kosch at the University of Fribourg in Üechtland in Switzerland. In 1914 Nadler became a full professor and taught there until 1925, although his tenure was interrupted by military service from 1914 to 1917. In 1925 Nadler was called to the Albertina in Königsberg (Prussia) as successor to Rudolf Unger. There he invited the Estonian poet and literary critic Gustav Suits to give lectures. Thanks to Nadler's good connections in Lithuania, including to his student Joseph Ehret in Kaunas, he was able to hold German language courses specifically for Lithuanian students. In 1931, Nadler was called to Vienna to succeed Paul Kluckhohn . During the appointment process, an attempt was made to characterize the two main candidates: "As a personality, Nadler probably does not have Günther Müller's winning amiability and harmony, but he does have a very strong temperament and tenacious energy."“ After the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, Nadler renamed and revised his literary history, which had previously appeared in three editions. It appeared in its fourth edition under the title "Literaturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes" (Literary History of the German People, Berlin, 1938–1941). Here, his anti-Semitic tirades are notable. Nadler viewed Judaism as a threat: He particularly hated the poet Heinrich Heine . He showered Heine with a veritable torrent of insults. Walter Grab quoted him as follows: "An intellectual bankrupt without taste, without an organ for the spirit of art, truth, or inner composure, he [Heine] was the most influential destroyer of German prose style, the creator of the newspaper phrase." Elsewhere, Nadler welcomed the murder of the writer Hugo Bettauer ( The City Without Jews ) in March 1925: This volume was included in the list of literature to be excluded in the Soviet Occupation Zone in 1947. After 1945, the more balanced 3rd edition was presented as a reprint. Nadler, like Adolf Bartels, Heinz Kindermann, Franz Koch, Hellmuth Langenbucher, Walther Linden (1895–1943), Arno Mulot and Hans Naumann, was one of the leading literary scholars of the "Third Reich" who repeatedly called for a "new 'National Socialist poetry'". Because of his activities during the Nazi era, Nadler was decommissioned in 1945 and retired in 1947. A dispute over his rehabilitation followed, and Nadler became a leading figure in the newly forming German nationalist camp in Austria. After 1945, he became known primarily as a literary historian. He published a literary history of Austria (1948), monographs on Franz Grillparzer (1948), Johann Georg Hamann (1949), Josef Weinheber (1952), and editions of the works of Hamann (Complete Works, 6 vols., 1949–57) and Weinheber (Complete Works, 5 vols., 1953–56). Nadler died on 14 January 1963, in Vienna. He was buried in the Grinzinger Cemetery. The grave has been abandoned. A biography of the writer Henry Benrath written by Nadler remained unpublished. Literary history of the German tribes and regions Nadler devoted his entire life to his main work, The Literary History of German Tribes and Landscapes (Regensburg 1912–1928). An early correspondence with August Sauer suggests that Nadler originally wanted to examine literature primarily from geographical and landscape perspectives, that is, how landscape and literature condition and interact with each other. Later, as becomes noticeable from the second volume onwards and especially clear in the fourth volume, he switched to essentialist and deterministic approaches and interpreted German literary history primarily from a "völkisch" perspective. According to this, the Germanic tribes absorbed the best characteristics of Roman culture through physical interbreeding with the Romans and thus became capable of incorporating these characteristics into the development of their " race ". Nadler assigned different ethnic groups different intellectual currents in German literature. == Membership in the NSDAP ==