der ziegelbrenner

DESCRIPTION
- Subtitle Kritik an Zuständen und widerwärtigen Zeitgenossen.
- Heft 1 (September 1917) - Heft 35/40 (December 1921).
- Edited by Ret Marut [= B. Traven]. Published by Ziegelbrenner-Verlag, Munich; last issue published in Cologne.
- Bibliographic reference: Datenbank des deutschsprachigen Anarchismus - DadA.

FACSIMILES/REPRINTS
printed
- Reprinted as Der Ziegelbrenner. Schriftleitung: Ret Marut 1917-1921 / hrsg. von Max Schmid. Bibliothek literarischer Neudrucke (De Boekenvriend : Hilversum / Limmat-Verlag : Zürich 1967).
- Reprinted as Der Ziegelbrenner. Faksimiledruck des von Ret Marut hrsg. Periodikums 1917-1921 / Nachwort von Rolf Recknagel (Edition Leipzig : Leipzig 1968).
- Reprinted as Der Ziegelbrenner. 1917-1921 / Hrsg. Max Schmid (Klaus Guhl : Berlin 1976).

SECONDARY LITERATURE
Armin Richter
Der Ziegelbrenner. Das individual-anarchistische Kampforgan des frühen B. Traven. Abhandlungen zur Kunst-, Musik-, und Literaturwissenschaft, 209 (Bouvier : Bonn 1977). PhD University Bochum 1975.

Ret Marut
The first trace of Ret Marut [=B. Traven] (1882 or 1890-1969) under that name is in Essen in 1907. He was twenty-five year old actor at the theatre there. Over the following years he acted in a number of German towns as a member of various local theatre companies [...]. In 1915 he arrived in Munich, where he was to stay for the next four years.
He had already begun writing stories and articles, and in Munich het set up his own publishing company and began a magazine called Der Ziegelbrenner [= Brick-burner or Brick-maker]. The magazine was, in format, the size, shape and color of a brick. The bricks were fired by Ret Marut to comment upon the corrupt society in which he lived and to begin the rebuilding of a new and better world. Marut was aided in the publication of the magazine by his girlfriend, Irene Mermet, but he appears to have written most of it himself. The first issue came out on September 1, 1917. The targets at which these bricks were hurled were the war, then into its fourth year, the capitalist society, which had brought the war about. Marut had a particular hatred for the press, which he considered to be utterly corrupt and to have misled the German people [...].
By the end of 1918 Der Ziegelbrenner was sounding an euphoric note. The issue of November 9, 1918, was entitled 'The Day is Dawning' and the issue of January 30, 1919, was headed 'The World Revolution Begins'. Munich was in turmoil. As the war dragged on, its unpopularity increased, particularly in Bavaria, where the Independent Socialists, immplacable in their opposition to the war, began to flourish at the expense of the majority Socialists.
[After the assasination of Kurt Eisner, Ret Marut joined the anarchists around Landauer, Mühsam and Ernst Toller. On May 1, 1919 Berlin soldiers attacked the Räterepublik Munich and Ret Marut was one of those captured. Shortly before his trial he was able to escape.]
Marut was accompanied on his flight by Irene Mermet. The were at various times in Vienna, Berlin, and finally Cologne, where they stayed with a group of artists, the Kalltallgemeinschaft, among whose members was Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. Seiwert completed several portrait drawings of Marut and illustrated the last issue of Der Ziegelbrenner, which was published from Cologne on December 21, 1921. marut and Mermet crossed the German border into Holland and probably travelled together across the Atlantic to Canada, where Marut was refused entry [...].
TEXT CREDITS
Will Wyat, 'Introduction', in To the Honourable Miss S... and other stories by Ret Marut a/k/a/ B. Traven / with an introduction by Will Wyat; translated from the German by Peter Silcock (Lawrence Hill etc. : Westport 1981) viii-xi.
Tapio Helen, B. Traven's Identity Revisited. Historiallisia Papereita 12 (last updated on July 10, 2001).