Hans Carossa
Hans Carossa (15 December 1878 in Bad Tölz, Kingdom of Bavaria – 12 September 1956 in Rittsteig near Passau) was a German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his inner emigration during the Nazi era.
But the manner in which he treated his patients was so selfless and entirely attentive to their ailment, so ingenious and successful, that in spite of this he was regarded everywhere as a God-fearing man.
The year 1907 was a crucial one for a young Roman Catholic who longed to become a writer, especially one whose idols had been poets such as Richard Dehmel and Frank Wedekind; for it was in 1907 that Pope Pius X issued the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, bitterly condemning modernism in the arts.
In fact, Carossa's Doktor Bürgers Ende of 1913 had too much in common with Werther, not only in its motivation, but also in form and plot, to be an original artistic creation.
A guiding thought or Leitwort for Carossa splendidly epitomized his patient-doctor relationship, in ideas borrowed from his father: Ja, meinem Herzen am nächsten sind jetzt die Verlorenen, die, von denen ich weiss, dass ich sie nicht retten werde.
He took notes, planned works, and sought companionship and criticism of such literary figures as Rainer Maria Rilke and Hofmannstahl.
During the inevitable waiting so common to all military service, Carossa collected childhood memories into what was to become Eine Kindheit, kept a record of his war experiences later published as Rumänisches Tagebuch, and also made notes which served as the basis for a large section of his Lebensgedankenbuch titled Führung und Geleit.
Carossa served as battalion medical officer on both fronts: first a short period in France, then an extended stay in the southeastern theater (Rumänisches Tagebuch), where his unit was involved in the Second Battle of Oituz.
[2] In 1918 Carossa's unit was transferred back to northern France where he suffered a shoulder wound which ended his military career.
The gay and lively Munich which Carossa had remembered from before the war greeted the convalescent veteran with somber, black-veiled women, limping men, and empty store windows.
He considered it a good omen that while purchasing new medical instruments during his convalescence in Munich, he met Rilke who then turned out to be the first patient of his renewed practice.
Nevertheless, in a later addition to his autobiographies, published posthumously, he concedes that when he moved to Munich, not long after reestablishing his Passau practice he fully intended to give up medicine for the life of a 'freier Schriftsteller': a wish which could not then become reality.
Doctor Carossa had already by this time published three other works: Stella Mystica, Gedichte, and a fifteen-page lyrical pamphlet titled Ostern.
The most obvious sign of Carossa's financial success and definite turn toward literature was his ability to fulfill his desire for a Goethean pilgrimage to classic Italy.
By leaving his Munich practice for Italy, he made a major break with the medical profession; when he returned only old friends, those he wanted to treat, would visit his office, and he could spend most of his days at literary composition.
From now on, except for a short period toward the end of World War II, the poet-doctor Carossa gave up medical practice completely.
Carossa's last book before the Nazi Regime began was Führung und Geleit (1932), an inner survey rather than a true autobiography of his life from early youth to the 1920.
[4] Success and honors in the neutral and friendly (fascist) foreign countries (Premio San Remo 1939) and the financial rise – quadrupling his income in 1941 – met an internally distanced Carossa, who also knew how to use his position.
Shortly before the capitulation in 1945, Carossa pleaded in a letter to the Lord Mayor of Passau to hand over the city without a fight and was sentenced to death in absentia.
