Gerhard Storz

Gerhard Storz (19 August 1898 – 30 August 1983) was the son of a Lutheran pastor from Württemberg who at various stages distinguished himself in theatre productions, as a scholar, an educationalist, a politician and an author-journalist, sometimes pursuing one career at a time and sometimes several in combination. Throughout his adult life he liked to see himself as a "language therapist". "Human speech seems to have been encoded, sealed into formulaic structures, and pressed into service for mechanistic operations" ("Menschliche Rede scheint chiffriert worden zu sein, versiegelt in Formeln, hineingepreßt in mechanische Funktionen"), he once wrote.

Life Provenance and early years Gerhard Storz was born in Rottenacker, a village along the upper reaches of the Danube in the hills to the south west of Ulm. Otto Storz (1857–1942), his father, was a Lutheran pastor who was assigned to a succession of parishes in the area during Gerhard's childhood. His paternal grandmother had been a great grand daughter of the philosopher Jacob Friedrich von Abel, known to literature scholars as a teacher and friend of Friedrich Schiller.

He attended school at Ehingen He worked at the Württembergische Volksbühne Theatre in Stuttgart as an actor-producer ("Oberspielleiter") between 1923 and 1925. He then moved to the Badisches Staatstheater (subsequently rebuilt) in Karlsruhe where he stayed till 1927 before moving on again, this time to the National Theatre Mannheim. In 1931 he took a senior post as a producer-director at the Stadttheater in Saarbrücken and in 1934/35 he moved north to the Stadttheater in Dortmund

In January 1933 the Nazis had taken power and lost little time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship. On 1 June 1933 Gerhard Storz became a member of the party sponsored Nazi Teachers' Association ("Nationalsozialistische Lehrerbund" / NSLB). Gerhard Schorz would remarry only in 1944. when after the withdrawal of government support and several years of declining readership the newspaper was suppressed.

Politics Storz also had contacts in the world of politics. In Schwäbisch Hall he became a local councillor. He was a founder member of the CDU (party). and Kansas, Lawrence (1965). Within the Academy he consistently opposed the more radical proposals for spelling reform "Rechtschreibung" that were already appearing on the political agenda in the 1950s. (The Academy has continued to resist successive "Rechtschreibung" proposals since his departure.)

Output From as early 1927 Gerhard Storz was a writer of scholarly and literary pieces and a compiler of translations. Between 1948 and 1968 he collaborated with Fritz Martini, Friedrich Maurer and Robert Ulshöfer to produce the academic journal, "Der Deutschunterricht" (loosely: "Teaching German"). Between 1945 and 1948 he joined with Dolf Sternberger and Wilhelm E. Süskind to provide contributions to Die Wandlung (loosely "The Changeling") in a series which later appeared as a book under the title "From the Dictionary of Inhumanity" ("Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen"), analysing the changes and manipulations of the German language implemented by the National Socialists.

Standalone pieces (selection)

Das Theater in der Gegenwart. Eine zeitkritische Betrachtung. Karlsruhe 1927 Laienbrevier über den Umgang mit der Sprache. Frankfurt a. Main 1937 Der Lehrer. Erzählung. Frankfurt a. Main 1937 under the pseudonym Georg Leitenberger) Das Drama Friedrich Schillers. Frankfurt a. Main 1937 Musik auf dem Lande. Mit 15 Zeichnungen von Albert Fuß, Frankfurt a. Main 1939 (unter dem Pseudonym Georg Leitenberger) Der immerwährende Garten. Eine Erzählung. (unter dem Pseudonym Georg Leitenberger), Tübingen 1940 Gedanken über die Dichtung. Frankfurt a. Main 1941 Die Einquartierung. Erzählung. Stuttgart 1946 Jeanne d'Arc und Schiller. Eine Studie über das Verhältnis von Dichtung und Wirklichkeit. Freiburg i Br. 1947 Der Lehrer. Erzählung. Stuttgart 1948 Reise nach Frankreich. Erzählung. Stuttgart 1948 Umgang mit der Sprache. Stuttgart 1948 Goethe-Vigilien oder Versuche in der Kunst, Dichtung zu verstehen. Stuttgart 1953 Kennst du das Land...? Italien Con Amore bereist von Gerhard Storz. (Kleine Turmhausbücherei, H. 9), Stuttgart 1955 Sprache und Dichtung. München 1957 with Dolf Sternberger und Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind: Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen. Hamburg 1957 Der Dichter Schiller. Stuttgart 1959 Friedrich Schiller. (Athenäum-Schriften, Bd. 2), Frankfurt a. Main/Bonn 1960 Figuren und Prospekte. Ausblicke auf Dichter und Mimen. Sprache und Landschaft, Stuttgart 1963 40 Jahre Freilichtspiele Schwäbisch Hall. Schwäbisch Hall 1966 Schwäbische Romantik. Dichter und Dichterkreis im alten Württemberg. Stuttgart 1967 Heinrich Heines Lyrische Dichtung. Stuttgart 1971 Im Lauf der Jahre. Ein Lebensbericht aus der ersten Jahrhunderthälfte. Stuttgart 1973 Sprachanalyse ohne Sprache. Bemerkungen zur modernen Linguistik. (Versuche, Bd. 21), Stuttgart 1975 Das Spiel auf der Treppe. Freilichtspiele Schwäbisch Hall. Schwäbisch Hall 1975 Zwischen Amt und Neigung. Ein Lebensbericht aus der Zeit nach 1945. Stuttgart 1976 Capriccios. Stuttgart 1978 Das Wort als Zeichen und Wirklichkeit. Von der Zwienatur der Sprache. Ein Essay. Stuttgart 1980 Karl Eugen. Der Fürst und das „alte gute Recht“ Stuttgart 1981 Deutsch als Aufgabe und Vergnügen. Stuttgart 1984