Josef Magnus Wehner

Josef Magnus Wehner (November 14, 1891 – December 14, 1973) was a German writer and playwright. Celebrated (locally, in Fulda) as a "great German poet" his reputation is criticized for the militarism displayed in his work and his allegiance to the Nazi Party.

Wehner was one of the 88 German authors who signed the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft, a 1933 "promise of most loyal obedience" to Adolf Hitler.^[1] After the war, he wrote a number of feast plays for religious occasions, including celebrations for Rabanus Maurus and Saint Boniface. In a 1988 study of Wehner, Joachim Hohmann concluded that Wehner's past was too easily forgotten and that his reputation as a Catholic Heimatdichter was undeserved and white-washed his Nazi-past.^[2]

Works (selection)

• Das Fuldaer Bonifatiusspiel. Fulda: Parzeller, 1954.
• Die Versuchung des Rabanus Maurus. Fulda, 1956.

References

1. 88 "writers", from Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1900–1949, Volume 12 of Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism, University of California Press 1998, ISBN 0-520-07278-2, p. 367-8
2. Hohmann, Joachim S. (1988). Leben und Werk des Kriegs- und Heimatdichters Josef Magnus Wehner. Zeitdruck. pp. 120–23. ISBN 3-924789-12-6.

External links

• Works by or about Josef Magnus Wehner at Internet Archive