Hedwig Forstreuter

Born in Oschersleben, Forstreuter was the daughter of the engineer Hermann Forstreuter and his wife Anna Elise, née Reinhardt. On her father's side, she was descended from Salzburg Protestants. She received her education together with Ella von Klitzing, who was the same age, on the von Klitzing family's Neudorf estate, as the two mothers were friends.

After finishing school, Forstreuter received an apprenticeship at the Magdeburger General-Anzeiger. She became editor and later editor of the feuilleton of this newspaper. At the same time, she edited the "Frauen-Beilage", belonging to the same publishing group Magdeburgische Zeitung. In her spare time, she wrote poetry and novellas. Until 1945, she frequently visited the family of her foster sister, who had meanwhile married Friedrich von Arnim, at Schloss Bornsdorf. She wrote there many of her works.[1]

The narrow poetry collections were published in small editions. Forstreuter reached a wider audience by publishing poems in partly renowned journals (for example Die Bergstadt, Die Dame, Die Woche, Jugend, Der Türmer, Westermanns Monatshefte). Her works were positively received by the literature critics.[2][3][4][5]

She wrote the verses of the unprinted picture book Bunte Waldgeschichten and Bärchens Abenteuer created around 1940 by the Magdeburg painter and graphic artist, Wilhelm Höpfner.[6]

After the end of the war, Forstreuter had to give up her job as editor and work as a packer at the newspaper. During this time, she was only able to present her literary works at rare readings. At the beginning of the 1950s, she left the GDR and moved to Hamburg, where the daughters of her now deceased foster sister lived and supported her until the establishment. She took on a position in the administration of the Hamburger Abendblatt. Only rarely published journals her smaller works.[1][7]

Forstreuter died in Hamburg at the age of 77.

In 1936, Forstreuter received the poetry prize of the journal "Die Dame" of the "Deutscher Verlag", endowed with 1000 RM, for her poem "Liebende in der Landschaft".[8][9]

• Gerhard Lüdtke / Werner Schuder (ed.): Kürschners deutscher Literatur-Kalender. 54. Jg. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1963, p. 165.
• Wilhelm Kosch / Carl Ludwig Lang: Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Handbuch. Vol. 9, Fischer-Abendroth – Fries. K. G. Saur Verlag, Zürich / Munich, p. 247, ISBN 3-908255-09-0.
• Heike Steinhorst: Hedwig Forstreuter. In Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon. 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Biographisches Lexikon für die Landeshauptstadt Magdeburg und die Landkreise Börderkreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis und Schönbeck. Scriptum-Verlag, Magdeburg 2002, p. 187. ISBN 3-933046-49-1.
• Heike Steinhorst: Forstreuter, Hedwig. In Eva Labouvie (ed.) Frauen in Sachsen-Anhalt, vol. 2: Ein biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon vom 19. Jahrhundert bis 1945. Böhlau, Cologne etc. 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51145-6, pp. 152–154.
• Martin Wiehle: Bördepersönlichkeiten. Biografisches Lexikon der Magdeburger Börde (Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der Magdeburger Börde und ihrer Randgebiete. Vol. 6). Dr. ziethen verlag, Oschersleben 2001, ISBN 3-935358-20-2, pp. 48–49.

• Literature by and about Hedwig Forstreuter in the German National Library catalogue
• Literatur von und über Hedwig Forstreuter im Katalog des WorldCat