Annotated Edition of the Correspondence between Gottfried Benn and Gertrud Zenzes

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stephan Kraft
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 361170198

This project seeks to produce an annotated edition of the correspondence between Gottfried Benn and Gertrud Zenzes which they exchanged between 1921 and the death of Benn in 1956. In all, the correspondence consists of 156 letters and numerous other accompanying enclosures. These papers are without question one of the most important as yet unedited bodies of correspondence belonging to this avid writer of letters. Zenzes was the lover of Benn in the years 1921/22, emigrated to the USA in 1928 and provided Benn with the basic necessities of life in the aftermath of the war. Benn always held her in high regard, seeing her as his intellectual partner. The final edition will be in hybrid form. The printed version, which is intended to appeal to a broader literary public, will be published by Klett-Cotta. In addition to the meticulously edited letters themselves, it will contain a detailed commentary, selected accompanying enclosures, numerous illustrations and an index. The digital edition, which will be more research-orientated, will be published at a later date and be available online as an open access file on the document server at the German Literature Archive in Marbach, which is soon to go online. Going beyond the the printed edition, this edition will contain digitalised versions of each individual letter and its accompanying enclosures, together with transcriptions. A further advantage of this edition is that the online version can be connected not only to existing correspondences of exiled persons on the platform, but also to future supplements, thereby enabling digital research to be conducted across numerous bodies of correspondence which are interlinked in a host of different ways.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants