ABSTRACT
Dramatist and novelist, Bronnen was one of the most extreme of the young talented writers who made the opening years of the Weimar Republic a fascinating and often disturbing experience. His play Vatermord (written in 1915, performed in Berlin in 1922) was the first of many scandals that surrounded his name; the portrayal of brutal violence and uninhibited sexuality outraged the audience. The son murders his father and then rejects the incestuous advances of his mother (‘Geh deinen Mann begraben, du bist alt/lch bin jung aber/lch kenn dich nicht’). Die Geburt der Jugend (1922) is a chaotic description of anarchic youth; the older generation is annihilated by sexually demented adolescents. Bestiality is extolled: Bronnen’s manifesto Jugendkunst explains that ‘tiefstes menschentum ist tiefstes tiertum’. In his comedy Die Exzesse (1923) the erotic desires of the woman, Hildegarde, find satisfaction in contemplation of intercourse with a goat. Katalaunische Schlacht (1924) looks back to the war as a time of frenzied (and erotic) ecstasy. Bronnen’s exultant cult of violence and primitivity led him to greet National Socialism with enthusiasm. Rheinische Rebellen (1925) is an overtly nationalist play; Ostpolzug (1925), a monodrama, fuses ancient and modern in its portrayal of Alexander the Great. The novel O.S. (1929) praises the exploits of the Freikorps, and Rossbach (1930) glorifies Hitler’s Munich putsch. Bronnen worked for the film industry in the 1930s, also the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft. His relations with the Nazis were, however, strained. He had difficulty in proving his Aryan ancestry, and a man who once confessed that his ego was a ‘Gewirr der sexuellen Planetoiden’ was an uncomfortable fellow-
traveller. During the Second World War Bronnen joined the communist opposition in Austria and briefly became mayor of Goisern (Oberösterreich). His autobiography Arnolt Bronnen gibt zu Protokoll appeared in 1954; Tage mit Brecht posthumously in 1960. Viergespann (Dramen) was published in 1958; Stücke in 1977; Werke, in five volumes, in 1989.
