Glaser, Adolf

Writer, editor

Born: 15.12.1829 in Wiesbaden

Died: 20.03.1916 in Freiburg im Breisgau

Glaser came from an important Wiesbaden family through his mother Katharine Adelburg Scholz. His father was the pharmacist Gottfried Glaser, who had been running a materials shop in the Scholz family's Cetto House since 1828. His brother Karl Glaser later took over the business.

After leaving grammar school, Glaser completed a commercial apprenticeship with his uncle Christian Scholz in Mainz. He published poems and travelogues. The guests who frequented the Scholz house strengthened Glaser's literary interests. He gave up his unloved profession as a merchant, studied philosophy and history in Berlin from 1853 and obtained his doctorate in Jena. His first plays "Moses in Egypt" and "Joan of Flanders" were performed in Wiesbaden.

In 1856, Glaser took over the editorship of the new journal "Westermanns Monatshefte" in Braunschweig, which he moved to Berlin and held with interruptions until 1907. He turned it into a family journal typical of the 19th century, which gained importance through its preprints of narrative works of poetic realism. This brought Glaser into contact with Theodor Storm, Paul Heyse, Theodor Fontane, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach and Wilhelm Raabe.

Glaser's literary output includes historical novels and social novels. His first novel "Familie Schaller" (1857), which is partly set in Mainz and the Rheingau, contrasted with Gustav Freytag's "Soll und Haben" (Debit and Credit) with its positive portrayal of a Jew willing to emancipate himself.

Glaser and others were put on trial for homosexuality, but were acquitted because they could not be proven to have acted in accordance with § 175 StGB.

In 1910, he moved to Freiburg, where his niece Marie Suchier and her family lived. In 1915, he lived in Wiesbaden again to escape the effects of the war on Freiburg.

His urn was buried in his parents' crypt in the Old Cemetery.