When DH Lawrence fell in love with a German Valkyrie
Wrote and lived sexually freely: DH Lawrence
Quelle: picture alliance / Heritage Images
British writer DH Lawrence became famous for his scandalous novel Lady Chatterley. His wife in real life was nee Baroness von Richthofen. Many years later she enthused our author about her “Lorenzo”.
Dhe British author DH Lawrence hated his two first names David Herbert and therefore always signed with his initials. He hated many other things too. In particular, the frozen modern society that hardly noticed him, the miner’s son.
He retaliated with tales in which a powerful prole seduced a noblewoman, “making her body sing,” bringing her to real life. A vitalist worldview, somewhere between Nietzsche and Freud, plus a dangerous shot by Karl May.
DH Lawrence (1885 to 1930) died young of tuberculosis
What: picture alliance / Effigy/Leemage
In Munich, Lawrence then met his aristocratic German Valkyrie: Baroness Frieda von Richthofen. A cousin or sister, depending on the reference book, of the famous Manfred von Richthofen, World War I flying ace. Unfortunately, Lawrence’s beloved is already married to an elderly literature professor and has three children with him. Lawrence persuades Frieda to leave her husband and children and leads an unsteady wandering life with her for years. His dream: an artist colony of like-minded people. He finally finds her near the Indian settlement of Taos in the US state of New Mexico.
His call for companions, however, yields only one comrade-in-arms, the British maiden Dorothy Brett. After all, he also meets the rich, exalted authoress Mable Dodge, who buys him a nearby ranch with the fortune of her enterprising husband. He celebrates his “victory” over Frieda in various novels, especially the famous “Lady Chatterley”. Seduced by the game warden Mellors, she comes to life through thirteen explicit sexual acts – the “dark gods” – (the book accordingly remained on the index in most countries until 1960).
My history with Lady Chatterley
But as for my story with the lady: It’s about the time I just earned my bachelor’s degree from the University of California, including an enthusiastic semester on DH Lawrence. And start hitchhiking, which should also bring me to Taos (Lawrence himself unfortunately died of tuberculosis in 1930). From Taos, as a romantic youth, I rent a horse to the ranch.
The three ladies mentioned, long bored of each other, welcome me enthusiastically. Towered over by the statuesque Frieda, a burly, portly seventies woman with the voice of a war trumpet. This gorgeous woman would once have been “redeemed” by the weak poet with lung disease, that should have been possible? Rather the opposite seems to have been the case! She has the right anecdote ready. Here she once rode out with “Lorenzo”, as he liked to hear himself called, and for his sake she raved about the “dark gods” between her thighs. Then her companion: “Frieda, you’ve read too much in my books.”
Frieda von Richthofen in a dirndl
In the evening, when Frieda found out about my Viennese origins, she turned up in a plump Bavarian dirndl and made apple strudel for me, smoking countless cigarettes in between. Then to say goodbye: “What a pity that you didn’t meet my husband.” I too express my regret at not having met the great poet. She laughing: “I’m talking about Angelino!” This, I am amazed to learn, is her long-time Italian lover, dating back to Lawrence’s time. After his death, she telegraphed him just one word: “Come!” And he came.
Georg Stefan Troller, writer and documentary filmmaker, born a Jew in Vienna in 1921, met all the intellectual greats of the 20th century. How was it? Ask him at [email protected]. And read his answers in the column “Troller’s Century”, every first Sunday of the month in the print edition of “Literarische Welt”.
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