ABSTRACT
Hausmann was born in Kassel and studied in Göttingen; as a young man he was greatly influenced by the Jugendbewegung, being present at the first great assembly of the youth groups at the Hoher Meißner (1913). He served in the army in the First World War, was wounded in 1918 and returned home. At Heidelberg he studied under Friedrich Gundolf, then tried various jobs and became editor of the magazine section of the Weserzeitung in Bremen. He then turned to writing; the story Holder (1922) shows Hausmann influenced by expressionism (the protagonist being simpleton, murderer and also visionary); Die Frühlingsfeier of the following year eschews expressionist intensity and dislocation and is written with a lyrical delicacy more typical of its author. A collection of poems appeared in 1923 under the title Jahreszeiten. Hausmann achieved outstanding popularity with the picaresque novel Lampioon küβt Mädchen und kleine Birken (1928), which describes the adventures of a tramp: it is largely derived from Eichendorff and Hesse and steeped in Wandervogelromantik. The hero, who is also a murderer, defies social norms and exults in nature and freedom; a darker strain of pessimism is also present. The continuation, Salut gen Himmel (1929), is a collection of stories mostly dealing with outsiders. Hausmann, now able to live by his writing, settled in Worpswede; in 1929 he visited America and recounted his experiences in Kleine Liebe zu Amerika (1930), a light-hearted account of an innocent abroad. Another very popular book was Abel mit der Mundharmonika (1932), a story of three boys and a girl on an adventure in the North Sea (the book was filmed in 1950). The short stories Der schwarze Tag (1933), Ontje Arps (1934) and Mond hinter Wolken (1935) all deal with youth and comradeship. A repetitive strain in Hausmann cannot be denied, but Demeter (1935) and Abschied vom Traum der Jugend (1937) show a greater awareness of maturity, the latter particularly (Frau Fehsenfeld, after being infatuated with a young Icelander, realizes her husband’s sterling qualities). In Hausmann’s later work a religious element becomes discernible, although Lilofee (1937) is a variation on the theme of water and seduction. Quartier bei Magelone (1940) deals with delusion and the dangerous fascination of the past. Der Überfall (1944) is overtly religious in the depiction of the quest for God. Hausmann’s religious thought was clearly influenced by Kierkegaard and Karl Earth, both of whom he studied in detail. The novel Liebende leben von der Vergebung contains little more than a series of discussions on the theme of forgiveness. Das Hirtengespräch (1951) is a prose portrait of the three shepherds of the nativity, as is Das Worpsweder Hirtenspiel (1946). Der dunkle Reigen, a mystery play (1951), describes the Dance of Death; Hafenbar, performed in 1954, tells of the power of a Salvation Army girl to convert a British sailor. Another play, Aufruhr in der Marktkirche (1957), commemorates the six hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the famous church in Hannover. The short story Was dir nicht angehört (1956) is very reminiscent of Tonio Kröger, both in setting and theme. Hausmann’s work appeared in seven volumes, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelbänden, between 1949 and 1956; an omnibus edition, Fünf Romane, appeared in 1961. A collection of plays, poems and random fiction, Und wie Musik in der Nacht, appeared in 1965. Hausmann was also an accomplished translator: Liebe, Tod und Vollmondnächte (1951) are poems from the Japanese, and Hinter dem Perlenvorhang (1954) from the Chinese. A further Gesammelte Werke began to appear in 1983.
