Kurt Martens
Kurt Martens was a German writer born on January 21, 1870, in Leipzig into a wealthy family. He received his education at a boarding school and later attended the University of Heidelberg, where he studied law at the University of Berlin. Although he pursued a legal career briefly after moving to Dresden, Martens ultimately chose to devote himself entirely to writing. His literary debut came in 1892 with the publication of a collection of short fiction, and he gained further recognition for his semiautobiographical novel, "Roman aus der Décadence," which explored themes of decay and corruption. Martens maintained a strong friendship with fellow writer Thomas Mann, who admired his work and even dedicated a novella to him. Throughout his career, Martens produced a variety of literature, including novellas, plays, and critical essays, but he faced criticism for his perceived lack of vividness in style. His life took a tragic turn at the end of World War II when he lost his home and manuscripts in the firebombing of Dresden. Struggling with the aftermath, Martens took his own life on February 16, 1945.
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Kurt Martens
Writer
- Born: January 21, 1870
- Birthplace: Leipzig, Germany
- Died: February 16, 1945
- Place of death: Dresden, Germany
Biography
Kurt Martens was born into a wealthy family on January 21, 1870, in Leipzig, Germany, the son of Heinrich Oscar Martens and Henriette Ercke Martens. He was educated at a boarding school. He later attended the University of Heidelberg and studied law at the University of Berlin.
Martens began to write while he was a university undergraduate and published his first work, a collection of short fiction, Sinkende Schwimmer: Novellistiche Skizzen aus Strudel der Zeit, in 1892. He also published stories in periodicals, such as The Literary Echo and Simplicissimus, a journal edited by writer Thomas Mann. Martens and Mann became friends, correspondents, and mutual admirers through their common interests in literature and writing. Mann dedicated his novella Tonio Kröger (1903) to Martens, and the two men later shared a mansion in Enterfels.
In 1895, Martens moved to Dresden to begin a legal practice. However, he gave it up after a year to focus completely on his writing. He published a collection of novellas, Die gehetzten Seelen: Novellen, in 1897. The next year, he published the work for which he is best known, a semiautobiographical novel about a young legal trainee, Roman aus der Décadence. Decay and corruption were favorite themes in Martens’s novels, novellas, short stories, plays, and nonfiction. However, the critics maintained that his work suffered from a dry and colorless style that was incapable of bringing characters, plots, or atmosphere to life.
In 1899, he published a collection of novellas, Aus dem Tagebuch einer Baronesse von Treuth, und andere Novellen. That year, he also moved to Munich, where he married Mary Fischer; the couple later had a daughter, Hertha Helena. During the twentieth century, Martens continued to produce a steady stream of novellas, short fiction, and novels set in various historical periods, including the three novels in Die alten Ideale trilogy, which were published from 1913 through 1915. Occasionally, Martens wrote plays and critical or historical nonfiction, including a study of German literature published in 1910. He also published a two-volume autobiography in 1921 and 1924.
Martens was living in Dresden at the end of World War II. When the Allies firebombed the city, his house and all his possessions, including two manuscripts he was working on at the time, went up in flames. Unable or unwilling to start over at the age of seventy-five, he committed suicide amid the shambles of his home on February 16, 1945.