Clara Emma Amalia Viebig (17 July 1860 – 31 July 1952) was a German author.

Life Viebig was born in the German city of Trier, the daughter of a Prussian civil servant. She was related to Hermann Göring. At the age of eight, her father was transferred, and the family moved to Düsseldorf, where Clara attended school. She frequently returned to the Moselle scenery at Trier and vicinity, and took many walks there. When her father died, she was sent to live on the estate of some relatives in Posen, where she frequented the local Luisenschule. At the age of twenty, Clara moved to Berlin with her mother. She went to Berlin to study music, but instead of doing it, found that the stimulus of the great city, in addition to the landscapes she had already seen, was beginning to steer her toward a literary career.

She was married to the Jewish publisher Fritz Theodor Cohn (a partner in the firm of Fontane and Company, later of Egon Fleischel and Company) in 1896. The following year, Clara began a successful career as a writer and her works became much admired. After her marriage, she lived most of the time in Berlin and its suburbs (Schöneberg, Zehlendorf). Her son Ernst adopted communist positions and fled from Nazi regime pressure to Brazil; he became father to Reinhart and Susanne, mother of—among further children—the TV producer Pedro Bial.

Das Schlafende Heer In her novel Das Schlafende Heer ("The Dormant Army" or "The Sleeping Army"), published in 1903, Viebig praised conquest of Polish territories by German settlers and warned of "dangers" posed by Polish minority in Germany, which she characterised as "disloyal" and "uncultured". Left unchecked, she warned, Poles would overwhelm Germany and thus need to be controlled, repressed and assimilated. Viebig's viewpoint was characteristic of German attitudes at the time, and her work formed part of the German (regionalism) literary movement during this period. This novel became a bestseller in German Empire in 1904 and 1905, and, besides Die Wacht am Rhein, was her most read novel.Sonja Dehning (2000) Tanz der Feder: künstlerische Produktivität in Romanen von Autorinnen um 1900, p. 111, Königshausen & Neumann.

In Das Schlafende Heer she depicted the alleged racial division between Poles and Germans, focusing on character of Polish women, obsessing with the distinction between blonde and black, white and dark and portraying them as plotting the demise of German men, who needed to be warned in advance.Eric Ames, Marcia Klotz, Lora Wildenthal (2005) Germany's colonial pasts, pp. 86–88, University of Nebraska Press. . The Poles were living according to Viebig in a state of "animalistic and barbaric state", from which only German "civilizing mission" could save them, the solution to this "Polish problem" was exclusive colonization (preferably combined with expulsions), Viebig warned that "Polish degeneracy" was "contagious".Eric Ames, Marcia Klotz, Lora Wildenthal (2005) Germany's colonial pasts, pp. 89–90, University of Nebraska Press. . Kristin Kopp from University of Missouri writes that Viebig's novel represents a "prominent example" of narrative strategy that presents Polish characters whose external "whiteness", conceals hidden "blackness", which allows them to infiltrate German culture and undermine German colonial projects.Michael Perraudin, Jürgen Zimmererm (2010) German Colonialism and National Identity, p. 38, Routledge. .

Later career As her fame faded, in 1933 she published Insel der Hoffnung ("Island of Hope"), which condemned the Weimar Republic and praised the colonization of the border with Poland.Jan Chodera (1969) Literatura niemiecka o Polsce w latach 1918–1939, p. 49, Wydawnictwo Śląsk

However, in 1936 her publications became forbidden by the Third Reich because her husband was Jewish. As Viebig was related to Hermann Göring she herself was not persecuted.Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman (2000) Heimat – A German Dream Regional Loyalties and National Identity in German Culture 1890–1990, Oxford University Press, p. 43. . She moved in 1937 to Brazil for a year, but returned a year later and tried to accommodate herself in Nazi Germany. Her work continued to be published, albeit with less regularity; eventually, on her 80th birthday in 1940, she was celebrated by the press and Nazis for her work, with Das Schlafende Heer being praised by Nazi critics as the first "Volksdeutsche novel" and important document of "national fight".Barbara Krauss-Theim (1992) Naturalismus und Heimatkunst bei Clara Viebig: darwinistisch-evolutionäre Naturvorstellungen und ihre ästhetischen Reaktionsformen, p. 240, P. Lang. While her works differ from racist Blut und Boden literature and her correspondence shows a distance from Nazism, they are filled with nationalist spirit and show some similarities to volkisch thinking.

Works

Novels

Wildfeuer, 1896 Dilettanten des Lebens, 1897 (online copy) Rheinlandstöchter, 1897 Vor Tau und Tag, 1898 Dilettanten des Lebens, 1899 (online copy) Es lebe die Kunst, 1899 Das Weiberdorf, 1899 (online copy) Das tägliche Brod, 1900 English edition: Our Daily Bread, 1909 (online copy) Die Wacht am Rhein, 1902 (online copy) Vom Müller Hannes, 1903 Das schlafende Heer, 1904 (online copy) English edition: The Sleeping Army, 1929 Einer Mutter Sohn, 1906 (online copy) English edition: The Son of his Mother, 1913 (online copy) Absolvo te!, 1907 English edition: Absolution, 1908 (online copy) Das Kreuz im Venn, 1908 (online copy) Die vor den Toren, 1910 Das Eisen im Feuer, 1913 Eine Handvoll Erde, 1915 (online copy) Töchter der Hekuba, 1917 English edition: Daughters of Hecuba, 1922 Das rote Meer, 1920 Unter dem Freiheitsbaum, 1922 (online copy) Menschen und Straßen, 1923 Die Passion, 1925 Die goldenen Berge, 1928 English edition: The Golden Hills, 1928 Charlotte von Weiß, 1929 Die mit den tausend Kindern, 1929 English edition: The woman with a thousand children, 1930 Prinzen, Prälaten und Sansculotten, 1931 Menschen unter Zwang, 1932 Insel der Hoffnung, 1933 Der Vielgeliebte und die Vielgehaßte, 1935

Short stories & novellas

Kinder der Eifel, 1897 (online copy) Vor Tau und Tag, 1898 Die Rosenkranzjungfer, 1900 Die heilige Einfalt, 1910 Heimat, 1914 West und Ost, 1920 Franzosenzeit, 1925

Plays

Barbara Holzer, 1896 Die Pharisäer, 1899 (online copy) Kampf um den Mann, 1903 (online copy) Das letzte Glück, 1909 Pittchen, 1909

References

External links

Clara Viebig Gesellschaft – website of the Clara Viebig Society with information on Viebig's life and works, scholarly literature, exhibitions and local museum Clara Viebig Zentrum – museum at Eisenschmitt

Online works

Kindheit in Düsseldorf (University of Düsseldorf) Drei Brauten (University of Düsseldorf) Mein Eifelland (University of Düsseldorf)