ABSTRACT
From a Silesian working-class background, Hermann Stehr worked as a primary-school teacher (from 1887) before devoting himself to writing. His early work, the stories Auf Leben und Tod (1898), Der Schindelmacher (1899), Der begrabene Gott (1905), show a fusion of realism and Silesian mysticism: Stehr was reprimanded by the education authorities for his unorthodox religious views and provocative stance on social matters. His most successful novel was Der Heiligenhof (two vols, 1918), set, exceptionally, in Westphalia and dealing with the Sintlinger family, farmers in a remote community. Central is the relationship between the father and his blind daughter Helene, who commits suicide. Mysticism and realism are interfused; the figure of Faber is based to a considerable extent on the author. Stehr settled in Schreiberhau in 1926 and became a close friend of Gerhart Hauptmann. Other novels convey a brooding sense of closeness to the earth (Peter Brindeisener (1924) and Das Geschlecht der Maechler (1929-44)). Stehr was hailed as a ‘Künder deutscher Seele’, and his ‘völkische Erdverbundenheit’ was greeted as exemplary by the Nazis, who appointed him to the Reichsschrifttumskammer. His play Meta Konegen (1906) met with little success; he also attempted poetry. The Gesammelte Werke (nine vols) appeared in 1924; a twelve-volume edition followed from 1927 to 1936. A considerable bulk of his work remains unpublished.
