Martin Johannes Walser (German:[ˈmaʁ.tiːnˈvalˌzɐ]ⓘ; 24 March 1927 – 26 July 2023) was a German writer, known especially as a novelist. He began his career as journalist forSüddeutscher Rundfunk, where he wrote and directedaudio plays. He was a member ofGroup 47 from 1953 on.
His first novel,Marriage in Philippsburg, a satirical portrait of postwar society, became a success in 1957. Walser then turned to freelance writing. He published atrilogy of novels about the character Anselm Kristlein, beginning withHalbzeit in 1960,Das Einhorn (The Unicorn) in 1966 and ending withDer Sturz (The Fall) in 1973. Most of his major works have been translated into English, including the 1978 novellaRunaway Horse, which was successful with both readers and critics. He also wrote plays (Die Zimmerschlacht), screenplays, story collections and essays. Several of his books have been adapted to the screen, includingRunaway Horse in 1986 and again in 2007.
Walser received many awards, including theGeorg Büchner Prize in 1981 and thePeace Prize of the German Publishers' Association in 1998. His acceptance speech for the Peace Prize caused controversy with Walser's remarks on German commemoration of the Holocaust. The "monumentalization of shame", he said, risks turning remembrance of the Holocaust into a "lip service" ritual. In 2002, Walser's portrayal of the literary criticMarcel Reich-Ranicki in his novelTod eines Kritikers [de] ("Death of a Critic") was regarded as anti-Semitic.
Walser was born on 24 March 1927 inWasserburg, onLake Constance. His parents werecoal merchants who also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg.[1] The second of three children, Walser lost his father at age ten.[3] He described the environment in which he grew up in his novelA Gushing Fountain.[4] From 1938 to 1943 he attended the secondary school inLindau, until his induction to the armed forces, initially as ananti-aircraft auxiliary.[4][5] According to documents released in June 2007, he became a member of theNazi Party on 20 April 1944 at age 17.[6] Walser denied that he knowingly entered the party, and assumed that he was enrolled by a garrison commander as part of a larger group without his knowledge.[6] The claim was disputed by Hans-Dieter Kreikamp from theGerman Federal Archives, who said that a personal signature was formally required, even in times of war.[6] By the end of the Second World War, Walser was a soldier in theWehrmacht.[1]
While studying, Walser worked as a reporter for theSüddeutscher Rundfunk broadcasting company, and wrote and directed his firstaudio plays.[1][7][8] He travelled to Czechoslovakia, England, France, Italy, and Poland as part of his job.[3] In 1950 Walser married Katharina "Käthe" Neuner-Jehle; the couple had four daughters.[3]
Beginning in 1953, Walser was regularly invited to conferences of theGroup 47, which was focused on literature for a new democratic Germany.[8] The group awarded him a prize for his storyTemplones Ende in 1955.[3] His first novel,Marriage in Philippsburg, was published in 1957. Like his later books, it was set in Southern Germany in a postwar society, and satirically portrayed the "conservative middle class" during the "so-calledeconomic miracle".[1] The novel first appeared in English three years later asThe Gadarene Club.[1]
Title page ofEin fliehendes Pferd
The book became a huge success,[9] which enabled Walser to work as a freelance author and reside inFriedrichshafen.[3] In 1958 Walser lived in the U.S. for three months and participated in the Harvard International Seminary.[3] He returned to the U.S. several times, invited by American universities to observe political conditions there.[8]
Walser's most famous and best-selling work was the novellaRunaway Horse, published in 1978. It was both a commercial and a critical success, and was described as "Walser's most beautiful and mature book and a masterful, searing critique of society".[8]
In 2004 Walser left his long-time publisherSuhrkamp Verlag forRowohlt Verlag after the death of the Suhrkamp directorSiegfried Unseld [de].[3] An unusual clause in his contract with Suhrkamp allowed him to take the publishing rights to all his works with him. According to Walser, a key reason for the switch was the lack of active support by Suhrkamp during the controversy over his novelTod eines Kritikers [de] (Death of a Critic).[10]
In 2007 the German political magazineCicero placed Walser second on its list of the 500 most important German intellectuals, behindPope Benedict XVI and ahead of Nobel Prize winnerGünter Grass.[12]
Walser's subjects were often broken heroes who found it difficult to live up to the requirements of society or their own expectations. Walser said: "I think that world literature is about losers. That's just the way it is. From Antigone to Josef K. — there are no winners, no champions. And furthermore, anyone can confirm that in their circle of acquaintances: People are always more interesting when they are losing than when they are winning."[1]
He wrote his most successful book, the novellaRunaway Horse, in just two weeks. Its protagonists are two very different men, former school friends who experience a mid-life crisis.[8]
Walser's books have been translated into many languages.[8] In 2007 he gave many of his manuscripts to theDeutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach for preservation.[13] Some of them feature in a permanent exhibition at theLiteraturmuseum der Moderne in Marbach, includingEin springender Brunnen.[14]
In his 2002roman-à-clefDeath of a Critic, Walser, who disliked literary critics in general, denounced one of the most prominent in Germany,Marcel Reich-Ranicki of theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).[1] Critics characterized his portrayal as "playing on numerous anti-Semitic cliches".[8] The novel caused a scandal, especially in view of Reich-Ranicki's Jewish heritage and Walser's former membership in the Nazi Party.[8] The novel was hotly debated even before it was released.Frank Schirrmacher, editor of theFAZ, refused to print an advance excerpt in the paper, as had traditionally been done for Walser's books.[3]
In May 2010, Reich-Ranicki commented in an interview withDer Spiegel: "I don't think he is an anti-Semite. But it is important to him to demonstrate that the critic who allegedly tortured him most is also a Jew. He expects his public to follow him in this. You see, there never was an anti-Semitic line or remark from Grass, not one. And I certainly haven't written only positively about his books."[15] After the scandal, Walser was not welcome in the U.S. for a long time.[8]
Walser was known for his political activity.[5] In 1961, he was the first literary writer to support theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in an election campaign.[3]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Walser moved further to the left and was considered a sympathizer of the DKP, the newly formedWest German Communist Party. He was friends with leading German Marxists such asRobert Steigerwald [de] and even visited Moscow during this time. By the 1980s, Walser began shifting back to the political right. In 1988 he gave a series of lectures titled "Speeches about One's Own Country" in which he made clear that he considered the division of Germany a painful and intolerable gulf.[3] This was also the topic of his story"Dorle und Wolf".[16]
In 1998 Walser was awarded thePeace Prize of the German Book Trade. His acceptance speech, given atSt. Paul's Church in Frankfurt, invoked issues of historical memory and political engagement in contemporary German politics and unleashed a controversy that roiled German intellectual circles. Walser's acceptance speech was titled: "Erfahrungen beim Verfassen einer Sonntagsrede" (Experiences while drafting a soap box speech):[25][a]
Everybody knows our historical burden, the never ending shame, not a day on which the shame is not presented to us. [...] But when every day in the media this past is presented to me, I notice that something inside me is opposing this permanent show of our shame. Instead of being grateful for the continuous show of our shame — I start looking away. I would like to understand why in this decade the past is shown like never before. When I notice that something within me is opposing it, I try to hear the motives of this reproach of our shame, and I am almost glad when I think I can discover that more often not the remembrance, the not-allowed-to-forget is the motive, but the exploitation / utilization [Instrumentalisierung] of our shame for current goals. Always for the right purpose, for sure. But yet the exploitation. [...] Auschwitz is not suitable for becoming a routine-of-threat, an always available intimidation or a moral club [Moralkeule] or also just an obligation. What is produced by ritualisation has the quality of a lip service [...]. The debate about the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin will show, in posterity, what people do who feel responsible for the conscience of others. Turning the centre of the capital into concrete with a nightmare [Alptraum], the size of a football pitch. Turning shame into monument.[25]
At first the speech caused no great stir; the audience received the speech with applause, thoughIgnatz Bubis, president of theCentral Council of Jews in Germany, did not applaud, as confirmed by television footage of the event.[26] Some days after the event, and again on 9November, the 60th anniversary of theKristallnacht pogrom against German Jews, Bubis accused Walser of "intellectual arson" (geistige Brandstiftung)[1] and claimed that Walser's speech was both "trying to block out history or, respectively, to eliminate the remembrance" and pleading "for a culture of looking away and thinking away".[27] Then the controversy started. As described by Karsten Luttmer:[28] Walser replied by accusing Bubis to have steppedout of dialogue between people. Walser and Bubis met on 12 December[3] to discuss the heated controversy and settle the dispute.[1] Bubis withdrew his claim that Walser had been intentionally incendiary, and Walser maintained that his speech was unambiguous. They agreed that no appropriate language had yet been found to deal with Germany's past.[3]
Walser (l.) and Grass it a meeting of members ofGroup 47, 2007Walser in 2008Walser in 2010Walser in 2012Portrait sculpture, 2006
Walser's books were published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, until 2003. The publisher printed an edition of his works in 12 volumes in 1997.[17] Beginning in 2004, Walser's works were published by Rowohlt, Reinbek. His works include:[29]
Beschreibung einer Form: Versuch über die epische Dichtung Franz Kafkas, dissertation (1951)
^Jeder kennt unsere geschichtliche Last, die unvergängliche Schande, kein Tag, an dem sie uns nicht vorgehalten wird. [...] wenn mir aber jeden Tag in den Medien diese Vergangenheit vorgehalten wird, merke ich, daß sich in mir etwas gegen diese Dauerpräsentation unserer Schande wehrt. Anstatt dankbar zu sein für die unaufhörliche Präsentation unserer Schande, fange ich an wegzuschauen. Wenn ich merke, daß sich in mir etwas dagegen wehrt, versuche ich, die Vorhaltung unserer Schande auf Motive hin abzuhören und bin fast froh, wenn ich glaube, entdecken zu können, daß öfter nicht mehr das Gedenken, das Nichtvergessendürfen das Motiv ist, sondern die Instrumentalisierung unserer Schande zu gegenwärtigen Zwecken. Immer guten Zwecken, ehrenwerten. Aber doch Instrumentalisierung. [...] Auschwitz eignet sich nicht, dafür Drohroutine zu werden, jederzeit einsetzbares Einschüchterungsmittel oder Moralkeule oder auch nur Pflichtübung. Was durch Ritualisierung zustande kommt, ist von der Qualität des Lippengebets. [...] In der Diskussion um das Holocaustdenkmal in Berlin kann die Nachwelt einmal nachlesen, was Leute anrichteten, die sich für das Gewissen von anderen verantwortlich fühlten. Die Betonierung des Zentrums der Hauptstadt mit einem fußballfeldgroßen Alptraum. Die Monumentalisierung der Schande.[25]
^Lersch, Edgar; Viehoff, Reinhold (2002).Rundfunk, Politik, Literatur. Martin Walsers früher Erfahrungen bei Süddeutschen Rundfunk zwischen 1949 und 1957.Jahrbuch Medien und Geschichte (in German). Vol. 2. pp. 213–257.
^abAgazzi, Elena (2013). "Martin Walser: Ehen in Phillipsburg (1957)". In Agazzi, Elena; Schütz, Erhard (eds.).Handbuch Nachkriegskultur. Literatur, Sachbuch und Film in Deutschland (1945–1962) (in German). Berlin, Boston:De Gruyter. pp. 494–496.doi:10.1515/9783110221404.494.ISBN978-3-11-022139-8.
^Kaiser, Daniel (20 December 2019)."Georg Büchner Preis: Martin Walser".deutscheakademie.de. Darmstadt: Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Retrieved5 April 2020.
