Siegfried Lenz

Lenz, Siegfried (Lyck, East Prussia, now Ełk, Poland, 1926- ), was drafted into the German navy at the age of 17, witnessed the horrors of naval battles in the Baltic Sea, and towards the end of the war, while stationed in Denmark, succeeded in deserting. After an agonizing period spent in hiding and a short spell as a British prisoner of war he made his way to Hamburg, initially subsisting by being active in the black market (reflected in the satirical stories Lehmanns Erzählungen, 1964) and by becoming a blood donor. Hoping for an academic career, he studied philosophy, English philology, and history of literature. In 1948 he joined the staff of Die Welt and became literary editor in 1950, but in 1951 turned to full-time writing. He settled in Hamburg and (later) the Danish island Als. Now in his mid-twenties, he joined Gruppe 47 and published his first novel, Es waren Habichte in der Luft (1951), the hawks of the title representing the persecutors of a Finnish village teacher, Stenka, during his unsuccessful flight from his Soviet (Stalinist) oppressors. In his next novel, Duell mit dem Schatten (1953), the conflict between the generations is linked with the vain attempt of an aged German colonel to come to terms with past guilt by going back, accompanied by his daughter, to the scene of his action in Africa. It took Lenz another 15 years before he published a novel dealing directly and extensively with conditions during and after the Third Reich: Deutschstunde (1968) became for years the best-selling novel of German post-war literature. By then he was already firmly established as an author, skilled in creating tension and atmosphere and intent to engage the reader in moral issues; foremost among these are individual responsibility, guilt, and power, demonstrated in a diversity of contexts of parabolic significance. By basing his didactic purpose on ethics valid for all humanity he sought to contribute to a free, socially aware democratic society while distancing himself from ideologically committed political education. In his autobiographical sketch (Autobiographische Skizze, 1962) he acknowledged the influence of Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Camus, and Hemingway, on whose effect on his first collection of short stories, Der Jäger des Spotts (1958), he commented in the volume Beziehungen. Ansichten und Bekenntnisse zur Literatur (1970).

Other works published before the 1980s include the collections of stories Das Feuerschiff (1960), Stimmungen der See (1962), Der Spielverderber (1965), and Einstein überquert die Elbe bei Hamburg (1975). Of the two novels of the late 1950s, Der Mann im Strom (1957) proceeds from the problem of unemployment, Brot und Spiele (1959) from the moral corruption to which top performers in the world of sport and, by implication, in a society bent on high performance are exposed. Among the stories, the masterly Novelle Das Feuerschiff warns of the ever present threat of evil powers. After the unarmed lightship has been taken over by escaping gangsters, the safety of the seafaring community depending on the ship's position is at stake. The plot develops into a test case in the responsible and rational exercise of authority, in which the captain succeeds at the cost of his life. Even more harrowing are the moral issues raised in the novel Stadtgespräch (1963), in which a leader of the resistance movement in a Scandinavian country is faced with the choice of surrendering to the occupying forces and death in order to save the lives of 44 hostages. Convinced that he must safeguard the movement's fight for freedom, he reluctantly decides against surrender. By highlighting the more difficult choice, Lenz shows a close affinity to what Karl Jaspers has termed a ‘border-situation’: pragmatic considerations prevail in an agonizing dilemma. By then exposing the short-lived memory of the inhabitants who later ostracize their one-time hero, Lenz turns to the mentality of people in the post-war world, the subject of the satire Der Spielverderber, which is a prelude to his major work, Deutschstunde, and its sequel, the novel Das Vorbild (1973). Its three principle characters, the retired schoolmaster Valentin Pundt, the young teacher Janpeter Heller, and Rita Süssfeldt, all with a record of personal failure, are set the task of composing an educational reader; a special feature is the integration of the stories suggested by each of them, though they find none on which they can agree. Lenz's plays and radio plays (see Hörspiel), variations on the themes of his fiction, include Die Zeit der Schuldlosen (1961), the comedy Das Gesicht (1964), the collection Haussuchung (1967), and Augenbinde (1970). In the stories of Der Geist der Mirabella. Geschichten aus Bollerup (1975), all set in North Germany, Lenz seeks to recapture the humorous stance of his engaging tales from his native Masuria; published as So zärtlich war Suleyken (1955), they established his fame as a story-teller. His homeland is also central to the expansive novel Heimatmuseum (1978), expressing his commitment to cultural preservation and territorial renunciation that made him a strong supporter of the Ostpolitik of Chancellor Willy Brandt and of his successor Helmut Schmidt (see Bundesrepublik Deutschland).

Known as his country's chronicler, Lenz's works published from the 1980s include the novel Der Verlust (1981), followed by Ein Kriegsende (1984, TV film 1984), a terse scenario recalling the moral issues involving captain and crew in Das Feuerschiff, though in a radically different situation. Set in May 1945 after Germany's partial surrender, it describes the mutiny on a minesweeper and ends with the court martial and execution of two crew members to whom the ship owes its safe return without loss of life. After the novel Exerzierplatz (1985) and the stories contained in Das serbische Mädchen (1987) appeared the novel Die Klangprobe (1990) which explores the theme of transitoriness, symbolically represented by a larger-than-life sculpture, ‘The Guardian’ (Der Wächter). Placed opposite Hamburg's largest department store by the Alster, it is a masterpiece of the sculptor Hans Bode, whose world of stones and legend signifying permanence is projected against the consumer society. The various strands of the plot, narrated by the sculptor's son Ian, characterize basic traits of Lenz's philosophy of life and his endeavour to uphold lasting human values in a changing world. Further works include the novel Die Auflehnung (1994) and the collection of stories, Ludmilla (1996). Lenz combines his expertise in the creation of thought-provoking crises with his predilection for minutely detailed descriptive passages showing the relationship between environment, occupation, and character, often in a direct or implicit father/son relationship and usually with figures who live on the fringe of society, with Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg his preferred locations.

Several of Lenz's works have been adapted as TV films. The stories and plays have appeared in several editions, including Sämtliche Erzählungen 1949-1984 (3 vols. with postscr. by M. Reich-Ranicki, 1986). Collections of essays and discussions include Gespräche mit Manès Sperber und Leszek Kolakowski (1980), Über Phantasie: Gespräche mit H. Böll, G. Grass, W. Kempowski, P. Kohout (1982), Elfenbeinturm und Barrikade. Erfahrungen am Schreibtisch (1983), Dostojewski (1988), and Über das Gedächtnis. Reden und Aufsätze (1992). Lenz has received a number of prizes, including the prize of the Free Hanse City of Bremen (1961), the Andreas Gryphius Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels (1988).

Siegfried Lenz
Born	17 March 1926 (1926-03-17) (age 83) Lyck (Ełk), East Prussia
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Hamburg
Writing period	1956–present
Notable work(s)	Deutschstunde Heimatmuseum
Notable award(s)	Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 1988 Goethe Prize 2000 Honorary citizen of Schleswig Holstein 2004
Official website

Siegfried Lenz (born 17 March 1926) is a German writer, who has written novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth. Lenz and his wife, Liselotte, also exchanged over 100 letters with Paul Celan and his wife, Gisèle Lestrange between 1952 and 1961.

Contents 1 Life 2 Writing 2.1 Awards 3 Selected bibliography 3.1 Novels 3.2 Novellas and narratives 3.3 Essays, children's books, speeches 4 References 5 External links

Life

Siegfried Lenz born in Lyck, East Prussia, was a son of a customs officer. After his graduation exam in 1943, he was drafted into the navy.

According to documents released in June 2007, he may have joined the Nazi party on the 12th of July 1943. This was released with the names of several other well known German authors and persons, like Dieter Hildebrandt and Martin Walser.^[1] Shortly before the end of World War II, he defected to Denmark, but became a prisoner of war in Schleswig-Holstein.

After his release, he attended the University of Hamburg, where he studied philosophy, English, and Literary history. His studies were cut off early, however, as he became an intern for the daily paper Die Welt, and served as its editor from 1950 to 1951. It was there he met his future wife, Liselotte (d. 5 February 2006). They were married in 1949.

In 1951, Lenz took the money he had earned from his first novel, Habichte in der Luft, and financed a trip to Kenya. During his time there, he wrote about the Mau Mau Uprising in his history Lukas, sanftmüdiger Knecht. Since 1951, Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg and was a member of the literature forum "Group 47." Together with Günter Grass, he became engaged with the Social Democratic Party and aided the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt. A champion of the movement, he was invited in 1970 to the signing of the German-Polish Treaty.

Since 2003, Lenz has been a visiting professor at the Düsseldorf Heinrich Heine University and a member of the organization for German orthography and proper speech.

Writing

Critic Gerhardt Csejka described Lenz as one of the German authors who saw it as his duty to help the German people "to pay off the enormous debts", which "the Germans together with their honoured Führer had burdened themselves." Lenz saw it as his obligation to "take preventive actions against any danger of a reoccurrence."^[2]

Awards

In 1988 Lenz was awarded with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a prize given annually at the Frankfurt Book Fair.^[3] The Goethe Prize of Frankfurt am Main (Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt) was given to Lenz in 2000. A year later, Lenz was honored with the highest decoration of Hamburg, the honorary citizenship.^[4] Since 2004 Lenz is also honorary citizen of Schleswig Holstein.

Selected bibliography

Novels

Siegfried Lenz in 1969

Title	Year	Publisher	Notes
Es waren Habichte in der Luft	1951	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 4181946
Duell mit dem Schatten	1953	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 9783455042559, 1995
Der Mann im Strom	1957	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 5955470, 1969
Brot und Spiele	1959	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 4181935
Stadtgespräch	1963	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 360361
Deutschstunde The German lesson, translated E. Kaiser and E. Wilkins	1968	Hoffmann und Campe New Directions Publishing	OCLC 17466388 ISBN 9780811209823 1986. Translated to (Chinese), (Croatian), (Czech), (Danish), (Finnish), (French), (Korean), (Portuguese), (Polish), (Russian), (Slovak), (Spanish)
Das Vorbild An Exemplary Life, translated by Douglas Parmée	1973	Hoffmann und Campe Hill and Wang	ISBN 9783455042382 ISBN 9780809043224, 1976
Heimatmuseum The heritage, translated K. Winston	1978	Hoffmann und Campe Secker & Warburg	ISBN 9783455042221 OCLC 59188447, 1981
Der Verlust	1981	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 8066291
Exerzierplatz Training ground, translated G. Skelton	1981	Hoffmann und Campe Methuen	ISBN 9783455042139 ISBN 9780413181206, 1991
Die Klangprobe	1990	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 9783455042481
Die Auflehnung	1994	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 9783455042528
Arnes Nachlass	1999	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 9783455042894
Fundbüro	2003	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 9783455042801

Novellas and narratives

Title	Year	Publisher	Notes
So zärtlich war Suleyken; masurische Geschichten	1955	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. OCLC 3570259
Das schönste Fest der Welt	1961	Hans-Bredow-Institut	OCLC 215017008. First broadcasting of the radio drama Das schönste Fest der Welt was in 1956 by Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk.
Das Kabinett der Konterbande	1956	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 8465256
Jaeger des Spotts. Geschichten aus dieser Zeit	1979	Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag	Narratives. ISBN 9783423025300 First published 1958 by Hoffmann und Campe
Lukas, sanftmütiger Knecht	1958	Klett	OCLC 221865117
Das Feuerschiff The Lightship, translated by M. Bullock	1960	Hoffmann und Campe Hill and Wang	Narratives. OCLC 231754572 OCLC 1028271, 1962
Zeit der Schuldlosen. Zeit der Schuldigen.	1961	Hans Bredow-Institut	Play. OCLC 8651536
Stimmungen der See	1962	Reclam	Narratives. OCLC 950463
Das Gesicht	1964	Hoffmann und Campe	Play. OCLC 1250172
Lehmanns Erzählungen, oder So schön war mein Markt: aus den Bekenntnissen eines Schwarzhändlers.	1964	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 60240089
Der Spielverderber	1965	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. OCLC 263613364 Translated to (Dutch)
Haussuchung	1967	Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag	Play. OCLC 59690579
Leute von Hamburg	1968	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. OCLC 257975222
Die Augenbinde	1970	Rowohlt	Play. OCLC 256912361
Wie bei Gogol	1973	Reclam	Narrative. Published in Erzählte Zeit : 50 deutsche Kurzgeschichten der Gegenwart ISBN 9783150099964
Der Geist der Mirabelle : Geschichten aus Bollerup	1975	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 9783455042061 Translated to (Dutch), (Low Saxon), (Polish), (Russian)
Einstein überquert die Elbe bei Hamburg	1975	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. ISBN 9783455042276
Drei Stücke	1980	Hoffmann und Campe	Plays. ISBN 9783455042429
Ein Kriegsende	1984	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 9783455042122 Translated to (Dutch)
Das serbische Mädchen	1987	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. ISBN 9783455042450 Translated to (Dutch)
The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz Translation of selections from: Die Erzählungen	1995	Northwestern University Press	ISBN 0-8101-1314-7
Ludmilla	1996	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 9783455042566
Zaungast	2004	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 9783455042788
Die Erzählungen	2006	Hoffmann und Campe	Short stories. ISBN 3-455-04285-6 First published Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag: Vol. 1: 1949-1958. Vol 2: 1959-1964. Vol. 3: 1965-1984.
Ein Freund der Regierung	1983	Denmarks Skoleradio	Short story. OCLC 60882341
Schweigeminute	2008	Hoffmann und Campe	Novella. ISBN 9783455042849

Essays, children's books, speeches

• 1970 Jadon Whitted Essay
• 1971 "Im a Weener, Speech
• 1971 Verlorenes Land - Gewonnene Nachbarschaft, Speech
• 1971 So war das mit dem Zirkus, Children's book
• 1980 Gespraeche mit Manès Sperber und Leszek Kołakowski
• 1982 Über Phantasie: Gespraeche mit Heinrich Boell, Guenter Grass, Walter Kempowski, Pavel Kohout
• 1983 Elfenbeinturm und Barrikade. Erfahrungen am Schreibtisch, Essay
• 1986 Geschichte erzaehlen - Geschichten erzaehlen, Essay
• 1992 Über das Gedaechtnis. Reden und Aufsätze
• 1998 Über den Schmerz, Essay
• 2001 Mutmassungen über die Zukunft der Literatur, Essay
• 2006 Selbstversetzung, Über Schreiben und Leben, ISBN 3-455-04286-4

References

1. ^ "Dieter Hildebrandt soll in NSDAP gewesen sein" (in German). Die Welt. 2007-06-30. http://www.welt.de/politik/article987203/Dieter_Hildebrandt_soll_in_NSDAP_gewesen_sein.html. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
2. ^ "Siegfried Lenz (1926), Deutschstunde". Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. http://www.goethe.de/kue/lit/prj/was/len/enindex.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
3. ^ "All prize winners and speakers". Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. http://www.boersenverein.de/de/112226. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 
4. ^ "Hamburgische Ehrenbürger" (in German). Chancellery of the Senate. http://www.hamburg.de/ehrenbuerger/229440/start.html. Retrieved 2009-10-06. "Hat mit seinem literarischen Werk zur Erneuerung und Anerkennung Deutschlands im Geiste des Humanismus beigetragen (Has contributed with his literary work for the renewal and recognition of Germany in the spirit of humanism)" 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Siegfried Lenz

Hamburg portal

• Works by or about Siegfried Lenz in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Siegfried Lenz in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Website (in German) published by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Retrieved 2009-10-04

Persondata
NAME	Lenz, Siegfried
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German writer
DATE OF BIRTH	17 March 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lyck, East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

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