Siegfried Kadner

Siegfried Kadner (29 May 1887 – 19 April 1970) was a German writer and educator.

Biography

Siegfried Kadner was born in Kirchenthumbach, the son of a forester. He studied German, French and geography in Marburg, Paris and Strasbourg after attending the Altes Gymnasium Regensburg. In 1906, he became a member of the Marburg fraternity Rheinfranken. In 1911, Kadner passed his state examination and, after a period in England, became an assistant teacher in Wandsbek.

He served in World War I and received the Iron Cross 1st Class. In 1918, Kadner became a member of the SPD. In 1919, he received a degree in literary studies from the University of Kiel. He became a student councilor in Berlin, where he worked part-time as a lecturer in German stylistics at the Folk high school. From 1929, he received teaching assignments on racial studies from the Friedrich Wilhelm University.

In 1933, he worked as a culture and press officer and became a member of both the NSLB and the NSDAP. He joined the SS and served as a Gau speaker for racial science and heredity in the Gau training office. From 1933 to 1935, he was honorary director of the Folk high schools. Kadner became a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture and was an employee in the SS Training Office. He became an SA-Oberscharführer. He was an assiduous collaborator of the SS-Leitheft. Kadner was a student of Herman Wirth. In 1941, he became Senior Councillor of Studies.

In the Soviet Occupation Zone, his works Deutsche Väterkunde. Einkehr in die Vorzeit (1934) and Rasse und Humor (1939) were placed on the list of literature to be censured and discarded.

Writings

Kadner wrote notably Rasse und Humor (1930) in which he studied how humor expressed a people's racial character. He also translated some works by French humorist Jean-Charles.

Works

• Gottfried August Bürgers Einfluss auf Ernst Wilhelm Schlegel (1919; dissertation)
• Einführung in die deutsche Stilkunst (1920)
• "Christentum und Kultur," Jahrbuch für die evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche Bayerns (1921)
• Rasse und Humor (1930; 1939; reprinted in 2018 by Verlag der Schelm)
• Urheimat und Weg des Kulturmenschen (1931)
• Die Prosaschmiede. Vom richtigen Lesen, Sprechen, Schreiben (1932)
• Deutsche Väterkunde. Einkehr in der Vorzeit (1934)
• "Rasse und Deutschunterricht," Die deutsche Schule, Vol. XXXVIII (1934)
• "Humor als Ausdruck der Rassenseele," Die Sonne, Vol. XIV (1937)
• Vorstoss ins Unbekannte. Entdeckungsfahrten in Tat und Dichtung (1939)

External links

• Works by Siegfried Kadner at German National Library