Rudolf G. Binding

Rudolf G. Binding

Rudolf Georg Binding (August 13, 1867 – August 4, 1938) was a German writer.

He was born in Basel, Switzerland and died in Starnberg. He studied medicine and law before joining the Hussars. On the outbreak of the First World War, Binding, who was forty-six years old, became commander of a squadron of dragoons. Except for a four-month period in Galicia in 1916, Binding spent the whole of the war on the Western Front.

Binding's diary and letters, A Fatalist at War, was published in 1927. His collected war poems, stories and recollections were not published until after his death in 1938.

Binding was never a member of the National Socialist Party and publicly dissociated himself from one of its actions; but his relationship to it was not unambiguous, for he saw it at times as an aspect of national revival.

In 1928 he won a silver medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "Reitvorschrift für eine Geliebte" ("Rider's Instructions to his Lover").

From 1933 his private secretary and English interpreter was German Jew Elisabeth Jungmann. Binding had hoped to marry Jungmann but was prevented from doing so by the Nuremberg Laws. She became the second wife of Sir Max Beerbohm in 1956.

In October 1933 Binding signed the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft.