Art stele Paul Weymar

In 1955, the renowned Kindler publishing house published a luscious read, a whopping 800 pages long. It provides a comprehensive insight into the life of the first chancellor of the young Federal Republic, was also translated into English, Italian, and Spanish, and was authorized by Konrad Adenauer. It was written by Paul Weymar, whose career as a writer began so promisingly: After studying law in Berlin, he obtained a position at the renowned Ullstein publishing house. Here, however, he became acquainted with a circle of communist intellectuals whose membership was shattered in 1933 by the events surrounding Hitler's rise to power. Weymar was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Literature and summarily dismissed from the publishing house. In despair, he left Berlin and, on the recommendation of a colleague, retreated to Kampen. This was the journalist Hans Zehrer, later editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Die Welt," who had also been banned from writing by the Nazis and lived in Kampen for several years from 1934 onwards. From then on, Weymar earned his living anonymously on Sylt by writing for others. In 1936, he married Nanny Dreßler, the landlady of the Kampen inn "Zum Roten Kliff," and settled in Kampen. Weymar only became known after the war when he wrote the Adenauer biography. Several historical novels and numerous poems followed, and in 1969, Weymar wrote a series of novels titled "The Island of Love - a Sylt Summer Adventure" for the newspaper "Die Welt." Inspired by his adopted home, he wrote, among other poems, a poem entitled "Little Kampen Evening Comfort": "When it gets dark, when it gets dark, then the tall, old shepherd comes - in his coat, blue and heavy, from the east across the Wadden Sea. And slowly he climbs to the beach, he raises his old, heavy hand: Go, sun, go now to sleep - I'll stay with my sheep." "For my father, Sylt became a field of tension between heaven and earth, in which he found meaning and home, and drew personal confidence," his son later stated. Paul Weymar himself defined Sylt as "Orplid," a fantasy land conceived by the poet Eduard Mörike: "You are Orplid, my land, shining from afar. From the sea, your sun-drenched shore steams the mist, moistening the gods' cheeks!" Paul Weymar also campaigned on Sylt for the introduction of a Progymnasium (pro-gymnasium) on the island; his eldest son later belonged to the first graduating class of the grammar school that still exists today. He told a friend who visited Weymar in August 1971 and found him lying ill in bed: "I'm waiting for my death." Paul Weymar was not mistaken: just a few weeks later, the funeral service took place in the Keitum church.