Born Today February 16: [Joseph] Viktor (Victor) von Scheffel

 

1826-1886

 

German writer of prose and poetry Joseph Viktor (Victor) von Scheffel was born on this day in Karlsruhe. He was born into a well off family with military ties. His mother in particular came from a very prosperous family and was herself an intellectual. This meant that the family were in a position to afford young Scheffel a first rate education, and his mother was in a position to closely over-see his schooling, even contributing to it directly.  He eventually attended universities at Heidelburg, Munich and Berlin. He, like so many of his peers at the time, studied the law and graduated with a degree in in 1847 or 1848. He acted in the capacity (basically) of a town judge for four years, ending in 1852.  He had already begun to write; in fact, there is ample evidence that his interest in writing particularly poetry stemmed from childhood.  In 1853 he wrote and published his first poem, the romantic, but lightly comedic, epic: Der Trompeter von Säckingen.  It became instantly and immensely popular.  It's success sent him traveling about the continent; though his family, hoping that this was only a phase, he would eventually return to his legal career, but Scheffel developed a serious eye ailment and this meant the end of that career and to his subsequent plans to teach at university. Normally this would be a terrible life event, but in his case, he freed him eventually to write.  He began work on novel while living in Switzerland for health reasons, the ultimate result was Ekkehard. And, it is these two works comprise the only source material that has thus far been used in films. To date only two films have been made using his work as source material and only one of those came in the silent era. In 1918 Eiko Film GmbH released Der Trompeter von Säckingen, obviously based on his epic poem of the same name. That film was adapted and directed by German director Franz Porten, with some help from his much more famous daughters Rosa and Henny. Well Rosa more so than Henny, whose involvement in the film is currently unconfirmed.  Both daughters were well known film actors in their own rights and Rosa was greatly instrumental in the adaptation of the script.  It was filmed on location in Bad Säckingen (on the border with France), the town in which Scheffel wrote the book and is popularly still known as "Trumpeter's City" because of the poem. Unfortunately the survival of the film is unknown and unlikely.  The film was also a remake of an earlier film by the same name that Franz Porten had made in 1907. That version was directly based on the popular opera produced from Scheffel's work in 1884 by Viktor Nessler. The only other production so far to use Scheffel's work is the 1990 mini-series using his novel Ekkehard for the script. It was a 5 part series made for German television and was completely directed by the now retired Diethard Klante.  Scheffel, who enjoyed a great deal of personal popularity during his lifetime, worked for a couple of years as custodial managerial librarian for a royal house in the Black Forest, but continued health woes forced him to give it up. He eventually settled back into life in his birth town of Karlsruhe, marrying for the first time and having a child--a namesake son--in 1867. The family moved to a villa on Lake Constance in 1872. In 1876 he was formally granted the right to claim hereditary nobility (hence the "von" in his name).  Scheffel died at the age of 60 on the 9th of April and his interred in his home town at the Hauptfriedhof/Karlsruhe Main Cemetery in an family crypt that now includes his parents, wife and son. There is also a memorial statue of him in the town of Bad Säckingen.  He published several more collections of writings, poems, even songs, but none were more popular than his original epic.

 

[source: Frank K. (Find a Grave)]

[source: Frank K. (Find a Grave)]

 

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