Ludwig Thoma (; 21 January 1867 in Oberammergau – 26 August 1921 in Tegernsee) was a German author, publisher and editor, who gained popularity through his partially exaggerated description of everyday Bavarian life.
After graduation from the Imperial Latin School in Landstuhl (today: Sickingen- Gymnasium Landstuhl), he first studied Forestry in Aschaffenburg, then Law until 1893 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. Subsequently, he settled down as a lawyer, at first in Dachau, later in Munich.
After 1899, he worked for the magazine Simplicissimus and published humorous narrations, comedies, novels and stories. Thoma satirized Bavarian rural and small-town life. His serious peasant novels Andreas Vöst (1905), Der Wittiber (1911), and Der Ruepp (1922), as well as his humorous collections Assessor Karlchen (1900), Lausbubengeschichten (Tales of a Rascal, 1904), and Tante Frieda (Aunt Frieda, 1906), are characterized by authenticity of regional language and life. Thoma's dramas, including Die Medaille (The Medal, 1901), Das Säuglingsheim (The Orphanage, 1913), and especially Moral (1908), reflect elements of folk theatre.
In 1907, he married 25-year-old Marietta di Rigardo, who was born in the Philippines. The marriage, however, did not last; Marietta was soon bored and by 1911 Thoma and Marietta were divorced. In the later years of his life, he wrote nationalistic propaganda agitating against left-wing politicians (e.g. for the newspaper Miesbacher Anzeiger).Historisches Lexikon Bayerns – Miesbacher Anzeiger
During World War I, he served as a medical orderly. In July 1917, he joined the German Fatherland Party.
His best-known works are Der Münchner im Himmel (The Munich Man in Heaven), which was adapted into an animated short film released in 1962,Ein Münchner im Himmel on IMDb the Lausbubengeschichten (Tales of a Rascal) and Jozef Filsers Briefwexel (Jozef Filser's Letters). Lausbubengeschichten was made into a movie in 1964, also released in English under the title Tales of a Young Scamp.
Birth and schooling
Ludwig Thoma was born as the fifth child of forester Max Thoma and his wife Katharina Thoma, née Pfeiffer, in Oberammergau. His paternal ancestors were active in the forest service; his great-grandfather (1767–1849) had headed the Bavarian Forestry Commission and had been elevated to the nobility as a life peer for his services.Biographical website for Joseph von ThomaThoma, Erinnerungen, p. 6 His mother's family initially ran an inn in Oberau, later in Oberammergau.Thoma, Erinnerungen, p. 12 He spent the first years of his life in the forester's lodge of Vorderriß on the River Isar near the Tyrolean border, a very remote and lonely area at the time. His upbringing was essentially in the hands of his nanny Viktoria Pröbstl, with whom Ludwig Thoma had a very close relationship.Klaus (2016), Rösch (2012)
According to Katharina Thomas Willen, Ludwig was to have pursued a career as a priest. As a result, she attached great importance to a good education for her son; private tutors taught him to read and write even before he started school, and he received private Latin lessons early on.Klaus (2016), p. 11 f
Shortly after the family moved to Forstenried near Munich in 1874, when Ludwig was only seven years old, his father died and the family were surprised to find themselves destitute: Viktoria Pröbstl had to sell furniture from the forester's lodge to pay for the burial.Klaus (2016), p. 15, sees alcoholism and gambling as the reason for the impoverishment and assumes that Thomas's description of Ruepp can be traced back to his experiences with his father. Thoma's mother had to raise seven children alone. The children initially had one of their father's colleagues, Karl Decrignis, as a guardian.Rösch (2012), p. 144 Ludwig and his sister Luise were taken in by their uncle Albert Paulus in Landstuhl. There Ludwig attended one year of primary school, and then went into the second year of the Latin school. The death of his father and separation from his family affected his school work; as a result he was a difficult student who received few favourable reports:
In 1876, his mother rented the pub Zur Kampenwand in Prien am Chiemsee, which she managed together with Viktoria Pröbstl and her daughters.Klaus (2016), p. 13 Ludwig began a period of alternating between boarding school and holidaying in his family's "idyllic home", as he calls it in Lausbubengeschichten ("Tales of a Rascal"). Misdemeanours and conflicts with teachers there are probably based on real experiences: "There is sufficient evidence that Thoma condensed these altercations for his stories, but by no means invented them."Klaus (2016), p. 26 In 1877, he moved to the boarding school of the study seminar in Neuburg an der Donau. He had to repeat a year at the study centre in Burghausen. Here Georg Pauliebl was one of his friends; his life story was described by Thoma in the story Der heilige Hies ("Saint Hies").Lerchenberg (2017).
In 1879, Thoma moved from Burghausen to the Wilhelmsgymnasium. During his school days he lived as a lodger, and he described this time in his Erinnerungen ("Memoires"). He also had to repeat a year in Munich and stayed until 1885. The family moved to Traunstein in 1883, where his mother leased the inn Zur Post. The trigger for the change of location seems to have been a "shameful act" on the part of Ludwig, which also made it impossible for his sister Marie to accept a suitor.Klaus (2016), p. 33 In 1884, after the death of Karl Decrignis, the forest officer Ludwig von Raesfeldt took on the guardianship of the Thoma siblings.
In 1885, Raesfeldt succeeded in getting Ludwig admitted to the final year of the grammar school in Landshut, after he was threatened with expulsion from his school in Munich. Martin A. Klaus quotes the "special remarks" from Thomas Landshut's high school diploma:
In Landshut, Thoma passed his Maturität examinations in 1886. At the suggestion of his classmates, he went up to give the graduation speech: "But the young man failed. Thoma stood silently in front of the auditorium, unable to choke out a word, until the headmaster rushed to the podium, improvised a speech and saved the situation."Klaus (2016), p. 40. Thoma himself also describes the event in his Erinnerungen, p. 129.
Legal studies and career Like his father, Thoma wanted to be a forester and began studying forest science in Aschaffenburg in the winter term of 1886/87, but dropped out after the first year. During his time in Aschaffenburg he joined the oldest forestry corps (Forstcorps), the Corps Hubertia of Munich. Because he did not attend a Mensur, he was dishonourably dismissed ("without a ribbon").Rösch (2012), p. 21
In the winter term of 1887/1888 he moved to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and enrolled for a degree in law. Like his father before him, he became a member of the Corps Suevia Munich.Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 114, 980 In Munich he did compete in two compulsory duels, but stayed on the defensive each time. So he received the (at his time) desirable schmiss ("duelling scar"), but was also released from the Corps Suevia without a ribbon.Rösch (2012), p. 22 On the advice of a fellow student, he switched to the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg for the summer term; he studied here without getting involved in any clubs, and on 1 August 1890, he received the certificate for entry into legal clerkship. For Martin Klaus, failure and the subsequent change of educational establishment is symptomatic of Thoma's character:
In his Erinnerungen, Thoma describes his times as a schoolboy in Munich and Prien verbosely, but he treats his degree studies very briefly:
From 1890, he worked as a legal intern at Traunstein. At the same time he wrote a dissertation on the topic The Theory of Self-Defence with criminal law professor Karl Lueder. On 6 December 1890, he passed the oral exam with the (lowest possible) grade of Rite ("satisfactory"). A handwritten copy of his doctoral thesis with its final correction edits was found in Thoma's estate; However, Thoma never had them printed and therefore did not receive a doctorate certificate. Strictly speaking, he was therefore wrong to claim a doctorate.Rösch (2012), pp. 22 ff.
Early successes as a writer
In April 1895, Ritter published Thoma's short story "Der Truderer" in the literary supplement Sammler, in which cheerful events of rural life were recorded for the first time in prose form. Ludwig Thoma also commented on political issues, writing an article about the party conference of the Bavarian SPD and their agricultural policy for the Augsburger Abendzeitung in October. In it, he opposed the reform efforts of the Social Democrats and described Clara Zetkin as a "Russian virago".Rösch (2012), pp. 30 ff.
His early successes and better financial circumstances made him consider marriage. As early as 1892 he had met Johanna Sachs from Nuremberg, daughter of a grain dealer, whom he cautiously began to woo. But when her father gave him no further hopes, he gave up the plan.Klaus (2016), pp. 62-64
In late 1896, Thoma made another attempt to find a wife. On the basis of a marriage advertisement, he began to exchange letters with several candidates, which, however, did not result in anything. He mocked women a little later in his first comedy Witwen ("Widows"). In spring 1897, Thoma moved to Munich, where he shared a bachelor's apartment with his school friend, Richard Rothmaier, while Viktoria Pröbstl ran the household.Klaus (2016), pp. 73 ff. With a student friend, he started a legal practice, to which he devoted less and less time in the years that followed. Adolf Hölzel, who worked in the Dachau Artists' Colony, and Bruno Paul, who celebrated his first successes in the Jugend, illustrated his collection of stories Agricola: Bauerngeschichten ("Stories of the Peasantry") in 1897. This, Thoma's first book, appeared in the Waldbauer bookstore in Passau.Rösch (2012), pp. 35, 145 Paul switched in 1897 to the satirical weekly Simplicissimus founded the year before by Albert Langen, whose employees Thoma also met in Café Heck on Odeonsplatz.
In 1898, he sent the first manuscripts to Simplicissimus, which were well received by publisher and public. When the edition of 31 October 1899 was confiscated for lèse-majesté, author Frank Wedekind, draftsman Thomas Theodor Heine and publisher Langen fled abroad to avoid prosecution.Rösch (2012), p. 145 Simplicissimus needed a responsible person on site at the editorial office in Munich. Langen considered hiring Thoma as editor-in-chief, his confidant Korfiz Holm had previously spoken out against Thoma:
But Langen chose Thoma, whose comedy Die Witwen had failed him as well as Munich director Jocza Savits. In September 1899, Thoma sold his law firm and became a permanent editor of Simplicissimus.Klaus (2016), p. 145.
Editor-in-Chief at Simplicissimus In the years that followed, Thoma was one of the most important authors for Simplicissimus. He appeared as a satirist under several pseudonyms - he usually wrote his poems as "Peter Schlemihl". At the beginning of 1901 he wrote the one-act play Die Medaille,Klaus (2016), p. 74. set in Dachau which was premiered at Munich's Residence Theatre. The play was also staged in Berlin; Thoma accompanied the production at Überbrettl there in November 1901.