ABSTRACT
Born in Silesia, Heynicke described himself as ‘Arbeiterkind, Volksschüler, Bureaumensch, Kaufmann’. His first poems were published by Herwarth Walden in the Sturm, although Heynicke’s association with the other contributors was never close. He fought on the French and Russian fronts during the First World War. His first collection of poems, Rings fallen Sterne, appeared in 1917: the themes are generally those of loneliness and striving (‘Nach Strindbergs Ostern’ and ‘Erhebung’). Otiose abstractions prevail in Gottes Geigen, Gedichte (1918); Das namenlose Angesicht (1919) is much indebted to Werfel, particularly ‘Psalm’. The poem ‘Volk’ included in Menschheitsdämmerung (‘Mein Volk, blühe ewig, Volk…/einst werden alle Dinge knien/vor dir …’) anticipates Heynicke’s later contributions to the literature of the Third Reich. During the Weimar Republic Heynicke worked as Dramaturg for theatres in Düsseldorf and Berlin; he also worked for the UFA film studios. A series of somewhat trivial novels and plays dates from this time. In 1933 Heynicke wrote his first ‘ThingSpiel’ (festival cultic play) Neurode, a ‘Play of German Work’ dealing with the creation of a work community run on Nazi lines in the Silesian town of that name. The second, Der Weg ins Reich (1935), deals in religious, mystical terms with the ‘Heimkehrer’ who persuades ‘Die Opfernde’ to surrender land to the community. Heynicke lived in obscurity in the Black Forest throughout the Second World War; Ausgewählte Gedichte appeared in 1952. He also turned to Hörspiele and plays for television. Das lyrische Werk (three vols) appeared in 1975.
