When Franz Hessel married the same woman twice
Between Berlin and Paris: Franz Hessel
Source: ullstein picture
The love life of the writer Franz Hessel made cinema history in “Jules and Jim”. However, the real love triangle was even more crazy than in Truffaut’s cult film – and not lacking in twists and turns.
Ahen the Berlin art student Helen Grund arrived in Paris in the fall of 1912 and met Franz Hessel in the “Café du Dôme”, it was all over for both of them: Helen was fascinated by his gentleness, he was infatuated by her vitality. Franz Hessel has lived as a bohemian in Paris since 1906. He, the rich banker’s son from Berlin, has wild Munich student years behind him, got a taste of the George circle and experienced the Schwabing bohemian scene. In addition, “Hesselfranz” (Franziska von Reventlow) knows what a ménage-à-trois is.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Hessel befriended Henri-Pierre Roché in Paris, a French art dealer whose consumption of women Hessel complements: “small, round and of great empathy”, as Roché describes him in his diary. The Frenchman became Hessel’s closest friend for many years. They share the women, whereby Roché seems to be responsible for the physical and Hessel for the mental and reflective. “Do you sleep with your German girlfriends?” “Yes and no,” answers Franz, “rather no.” This is how Manfred Flügge gets to the heart of the concept of Hessel’s love friendship in the documentary novel “Gesprungene Liebe”.
The Template for Jules and Jim
Hessel’s relationship with Helen also hesitantly becomes physical, but then in May 1913 he urges Helen to get engaged. A month later they marry in Berlin. Back in Paris, they meet Hessel’s bosom friend Roché. The two men are talking, intensely as always, as if they were alone. When the three of them walk along the Seine, Helen suddenly theatrically jumps into the river. She finally has the attention of the two men. The scene, which is documented in the diaries of those involved and made its way into Roché’s 1953 novel Jules et Jim, was made famous by Truffaut’s film adaptation of the same name.
Henri Serri as “Jim”, Oscar Werner as “Jules” and Jeanne Moreau as “Catherine” in “Jules and Jim” by Francois Truffaut, 1961
Quelle: picture alliance / Keystone
In retrospect, the spirit of the Nouvelle Vague was the best thing that could have happened to this love triangle anyway. In real life, Franz and Helen moved to Blankensee near Berlin in the fall of 1913, where their first child was born: Ulrich Hessel was born in Geneva in 1914, Roché was to be the godfather, but then the war began. Franz has to go to the front and becomes estranged from Helen, who is having more and more affairs, which Franz in turn tolerates. In 1917 their second son, Stefan, was born. That Stéphane Hessel (1917 to 2013), who caused a worldwide sensation in 2010 when he published “Outraged!” at the age of 93. The pamphlet hits the nerve of the time between “Occupy Wall Street” and “Arab Spring”; it becomes a world bestseller.
In 1920, Franz and Helen Hessel were in such a crisis that they invited Roché to Germany. Franz, who had once signaled to the Frenchman that his Helen was taboo (“pas Helen”), is now watching the affair of the two. Roché even wants Helen to have a child; he wants her to divorce Franz, which is completed in July 1921. Why Helen, twice pregnant by Roché, then had two abortions anyway and married Franz again in 1922 (although the affair with Roché continued, inclusive dick pics), can be read in Marie-Françoise Peteuil’s biography of Helen Hessel.
In 1925 the couple moved to France, where Franz Hessel (together with Walter Benjamin) began to translate Proust into German. Hessel, who died in 1941 shortly after his release from the Les Milles camp, is best known today for his city exploration classic “Walking in Berlin” (1929). In love, he also dreamed of the life of a flaneur, who is happy just to look at it.
It is said that all writer’s life is paper. In this series, we present evidence to the contrary.