Max Kretzer

Kretzer, Max (Posen, 1854-1941, Berlin), grew up in poverty, took a job at 13, and suffered an accident at work, after which he turned to literature and journalism. Writing at first hand about the squalor of the slums and the miseries of the workman's life, Kretzer seemed likely to develop into the true novelist of the working class. Die beiden Genossen (1880), Die Betrogenen (2 vols., 1881), and Die Verkommenen (2 vols., 1883) were early Naturalistic fiction preceding his best work, Meister Timpe (1888), a novel of economic change and social decline. Der Millionenbauer (2 vols., 1891) was a successful novel at the time, and appeared in the same year as a play (Volksstück), but it stands apart from the socialistic and religious themes to which he devoted himself. He aroused considerable controversy with Das Gesicht Christi (1897), one of a number of works to which he drew attention by means of conspicuous titles (e.g. Die Bergpredigt, 2 vols., 1889, Stehe auf und wandle, 1913).

Kretzer's output, which included Novellen, some sketches, and a few plays, was prolific, and economic pressure may well have driven him to write too much. He did not repeat his initial successes. Titles of the early 20th c. include Der Holzhändler (1900), Treibende Kräfte (1903), Familiensklaven (1904), Der Mann ohne Gewissen (1905), Söhne ihrer Väter (1908), Reue (1910), and In Frack und Arbeitsbluse (1911). Among his collections of Novellen were Der Baßgeiger—Das verhexte Buch (1894) and Ausgewählte Novellen (1912). In 1927 he published a novel on his native city (Posen). Der Rückfall des Doktor Horatius (1935) was his last novel. In 1938 his confessions appeared as Ohne Gott kein Leben. Berlin, which forms the background of so much of his work and experience (including Berliner Geschichten, 1916), is central to his memoirs and last publication, Berliner Erinnerungen (1939).