Hans Friedrich Blunck
Hans Friedrich Blunck was a German lawyer, writer, and notable figure during the Nazi era, born into a family of educators in Schleswig-Holstein. Educated in law, Blunck worked in various legal roles before becoming chief lawyer for the University of Hamburg. He gained prominence as an author in the 1930s, particularly for his works that celebrated Germanic roots and the connection to the land, which resonated with the Nazi regime. Blunck's literature was used to promote the ideologies of the National Socialists, and he held significant positions such as president of the Reich's chamber of authors, a role that supported the regime's censorship of Jewish authors. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and actively promoted German culture until the end of World War II. After the war, he faced imprisonment and restrictions on his writing but continued to feel unrepentant about his past actions. Despite his literary contributions, including receiving awards during the Third Reich, only his fairy tales have endured in publication, with contemporary criticism describing much of his work as tedious. His legacy is complicated, reflecting the tensions of collaboration and the cultural landscape of his time.
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Hans Friedrich Blunck
- Born: September 3, 1888
- Birthplace: Altona, Germany
- Died: April 24, 1961
Biography
Hans Friedrich Blunck was the first of six children born to Ernst Blunck and his wife Sophia Blunck, née Schrader. Both parents were teachers from Protestant families that had lived for generations in Schleswig-Holstein,the northern part of Germany that borders Denmark. They instilled in Hans a strong sense of his Germanic roots and a lasting appreciation of the Nordic legends.
Hans was taught by his parents until he was seven, and then attended the middle school where his father was headmaster. When he was ten, he entered the Altona Gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1907 he did a year’s military service in Kiel, then took his undergraduate law degree at the University of Kiel and earned his doctorate in law at the University of Heidelberg in 1910.
From 1910 to 1914, Blunck worked for various law firms in Schleswig-Holstein. During World War I, he was posted in Brussels as an aide-de-camp. He then worked in the city of Hamburg’s legal department and devoted his evenings to writing. On December 23, 1919, Blunck married Emmes Ruoff. She had studied agriculture and shared his enthusiasm for rural life. Shortly after the wedding, Emmes became seriously ill with influenza and subsequently required surgery to remove a tumor. They had no children. In 1920, they bought a townhouse in Hamburg, and in 1923 they built a new house near Ahrensburg and started an orchard.
In 1925, Blunck became chief lawyer for the University of Hamburg and joined the international PEN Club (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists). He traveled widely recruiting students from the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, North and South America, exhausted himself, and resigned from the university position at forty-one. He spent the next five years concentrating on his writing. His lack of success made him resentful of the prominent writers in the nation’s capital, Berlin, many of whom were Jewish. In 1932, he bought an eighty- acre farm in Grebin, south of Kiel, and called it Mölenhoff.
When Hitler’s National Socialists were elected in 1933, Blunck’s literature suddenly became popular. His glorification of the homeland, emphasis on North German roots, promotion of healthy contact with the soil, and Pan-Germanism provided a respectable front for the intolerant and expansionist Nazi regime. In 1933, Blunck became president of the newly formed Reich’s chamber of authors, the Reichsschrifttumskammer. Only approved authors were allowed to write and publish in Germany. Jews were excluded. Blunck resigned in 1935 and was made honorary president. He soon devised a new manner of promoting the Reich: As chair and then honorary president of Das deutsche Auslandswerk (German international work) he traveled extensively from 1936 to 1944 promoting German culture, continuing well into the war years. He joined the Nazi party on June 25, 1937.
After World War II, Blunck was imprisoned until January of 1946 and not allowed to publish until 1949. His wife died in 1956, and in 1959 he moved to Hamburg with his sister. To the end, Blunck did not feel he had done anything wrong. However, as demonstrated by his biographer, W. Scott Hoerle, Blunck was “the consummate collaborator.”
Blunck received two awards for literature during the Third Reich: the Wartburgrose prize in 1933 and the Goethe Medal in 1939. Critic Karin Doerr described his novels as “long- winded and tedious.” Only his fairy tales remain in print.