Erich Fried

Fried, Erich (Vienna, 1921-88, Baden-Baden), emigrated to London in 1938, and settled there permanently. Anti-Semitism and the suppression of the Left, first experienced during his schooldays in Vienna, nurtured his resolve to engage in the cause of justice and humanity which informs his prose and his lyric poetry; he emerged as an uncompromising critic of his time. His terse style, initially influenced mainly by Brecht, aims at stimulating an intellectual response in the reader and has been characterized as ‘denkende Dichtung’, a particularly apt term in view of Fried's independence from any rigid ideological persuasion. He favoured aphoristic and epigrammatic forms and a technique of language games, notably masterly wordplay (Wortspiel) exposing fallacy; he himself summed up this calculated strategy in the term ‘Sprüche und Widersprüche’.

Fried's urge to penetrate generalizations and to probe for individual human dignity as a basis for mutual understanding finds expression in a deliberately radical example: in his early prose composition, Ein Soldat und ein Mädchen (1960), described as a novel, an emigrant soldier tells of his love for a woman sentenced to death for crimes committed as a concentration camp guard. Other prose volumes are Kinder und Narren (1965 and 1981), Fast alles Mögliche. Wahre Geschichten und gültige Lügen (1975), Das Mißverständnis (1982), Das Unmaß der Dinge (35 stories, 1982), and the autobiographical Mitunter sogar Lachen (1986). However, Fried is chiefly known as the author of political poetry. His early volumes appeared in the collection Bis nach Seit. Gedichte aus den Jahren 1945-1958 (1985). From the 1960s until 1988 he published at least 30 volumes, notably the cycle Reich der Steine (1963), Warngedichte (1964), und Vietnam und (1966), a stirring protest against the indiscriminate destruction of modern warfare, Höre, Israel! (1974), directed against official Israeli policy against the Palestinians, and So kam ich unter die Deutschen (1977), against the German legal system in the context of terrorism and political prisoners; the title, a quotation from Hölderlin's Hyperion, added to the volume's controversial reception. Other titles are Die bunten Getüme (70 poems, 1977), 100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland (1978), the love poetry of Liebesgedichte (1979), Lebensschatten (1981), Zur Zeit und Unzeit (1981), and Das Nahe suchen (1982). Befreiung von der Flucht. Gedichte und Gegengedichte (1968, ext. 1983), a volume composed of the collection Gedichte of 1958 and the new ‘Gegengedichte’, was designed to illustrate Fried's most decisive phase of development; the last phase, from Es ist was es ist (1983) to Unverwundenes (1988), includes poetry of contemplation written during illness.

The collection Angst und Trost. Erzählungen und Gedichte über Juden und Nazis appeared in 1983, Und nicht taub und stumpf werden. Reden, Polemiken, Gedichte in 1984, Nicht verdrängen—nicht gewöhnen. Texte zum Thema Österreich in 1987, Gedanken in und an Deutschland. Reden und Essays in 1988. From 1964 Fried produced distinguished translations of 22 plays by Shakespeare (3 vols., 1989), and of works by Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath (Ariel, 1974), among others. Fried was awarded the Prize of the Free Hanse City of Bremen in 1983, the Österreichischer Staatspreis in 1986, and the Büchner Prize in 1987. Gesammelte Werke in vier Bänden, ed. V. Kaukoreit and K. Wagenbach, appeared 1993 ff.

Fried in 1981

Erich Fried (6 May 1921 – November 22, 1988) was an Austrian poet who settled in England, known for his political-minded poetry. He was also a broadcaster, translator and essayist.

Born to Jewish parents Nelly and Hugo Fried in Vienna, he was a child actor and from an early age wrote strongly political essays and poetry. He fled with his mother to London after his father was murdered by the Gestapo after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany. During the war, he did casual work as a librarian and a factory hand. He joined Young Austria, a left-wing emigrant youth movement, but left in 1943 in protest at its rechthaberei. In 1944 he married Maria Marburg, shortly before the birth of his son Hans. In the same year his first volume of poetry was published. He separated from Maria in 1946, and they divorced in 1952. In the same year he married Nan Spence Eichner, with whom he had two children; David (1958) and Katherine (1961). Erich and Nan divorced in 1965. In 1965 he got married for a third time to Catherine Boswell with whom he had three children; Petra (1965), Klaus and Tom (1969).

From 1952 to 1968 he worked as a political commentator for the BBC German Service. He translated works by Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas. In 1962 he returned to Vienna for the first time.

He published several volumes of poetry as well as radio plays and a novel. His work was sometimes controversial, including attacks on the Zionist movement and support for left-wing causes. His work was mainly published in the West, but in 1969, a selection of his poetry was published in the GDR poetry series Poesiealbum, and his Dylan Thomas translations were published in that same series in 1974. The composer Hans Werner Henze set two of Fried's poems for his song-cycle Voices (1973).

In 1982 he regained his Austrian nationality, though he also retained the British nationality he had adopted in 1949. He died of intestinal cancer in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1988 and is buried in Kensal Green cemetery, London.

An Austrian literary prize is named after him - the Erich Fried Prize.

Works

• Drei Gebete aus London (Three Prayers from London), 1945
• Ein Soldat und ein Mädchen (A Soldier and a Girl), 1960
• Reich der Steine, 1963
• Warngedichte (Warning Poems), 1964
• Überlegungen, 1964
• Kinder und Narren, 1965
• und Vietnam und (and Vietnam and), 1966
• Anfechtungen, 1967
• Die Beine der größeren Lügen, 1969
• Poesiealbum, 1969
• Unter Nebenfeinden, 1970
• Die Freiheit den Mund aufzumachen, 1972
• Höre Israel, 1974
• So kam ich unter die Deutschen, 1977
• 100 Gedichte ohne Vaterland, 1978
• Liebesgedichte, 1979
• Es ist was es ist (It is what it is), 1983
• Um Klarheit, 1985
• Mitunter sogar Lachen, 1986

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