Siegfried Lenz | |
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 Lenz in 1969 | |
| Born | (1926-03-17)17 March 1926 Lyck,Germany (nowEłk,Poland) |
| Died | 7 October 2014(2014-10-07) (aged 88) Hamburg, Germany |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of Hamburg |
| Period | 1956–2014 |
| Notable works | The German Lesson |
| Notable awards | |
| Website | |
| www | |
Siegfried Lenz (German:[ˈziːkfʁiːtˈlɛnts]ⓘ; 17 March 1926 – 7 October 2014) was a German writer ofnovels,short stories andessays, as well asdramas forradio and thetheatre. In 2000 he received theGoethe Prize on the 250th Anniversary ofJohann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth. He won the 2010International Nonino Prize in Italy.
Siegfried Lenz was born inLyck,East Prussia (nowEłk, Poland), the son of a customs officer. After graduating in 1943 he was drafted into theKriegsmarine.
According to documents released in June 2007, he joined theNazi Party at the age of 18 on 20 April 1944 along with several other German authors and personalities such asDieter Hildebrandt andMartin Walser.[1] However Lenz subsequently said he had been included in a collective ‘joining’ of the Party without his knowledge. InWorld War II he was a soldier in the GermanKriegsmarine and served as aFähnrich zur See (officer cadet) on theAdmiral Scheer, theGerman auxiliary cruiser Hansa, and for a short period inNaestved inDenmark. Shortly after theGerman surrender at Lüneburg Heath he deserted and was held briefly as aprisoner of war inSchleswig-Holstein. He then worked as an interpreter for the British army.[2][3]
At theUniversity of Hamburg, he studiedphilosophy,English andliterary history. His studies were cut off early when he became an intern for the daily newspaperDie Welt, where he served as an editor from 1950 to 1951. It was there he met his future wife, Liselotte, whom he married in 1949.
In 1951, Lenz used the money he had earned from his first novel,Habichte in der Luft ("Hawks in the air"), to finance a trip toKenya. During his time there he wrote about theMau Mau Uprising in his short story "Lukas, sanftmütiger Knecht" ("Luke, gentle servant"). After 1951, Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg, where he joined theGroup 47 group of writers. Together withGünter Grass he became engaged with theSocial Democratic Party and championed theOstpolitik ofWilly Brandt. As a supporter of rapprochement with Eastern Europe, he was a member of the German delegation at the signing of theTreaty of Warsaw (1970). In October 2011, he was made an honorary citizen of his home townEłk, which had become Polish as a result of the border changes promulgated at the 1945Potsdam Conference.
In 2003, Lenz joined the Verein für deutsche Rechtschreibung und Sprachpflege (Society for German Spelling and Language Cultivation) to protest against theGerman orthography reform of 1996.[4]
His wife, Liselotte, died in 2006 after 57 years of marriage. Four years later he married his 74-year-old neighbour, Ulla, who had helped him after the death of his wife.[5] Siegfried Lenz died at the age of 88 on 7 October 2014 inHamburg.[6][7]
After his death, a previously unpublished novel,Der Überläufer ("The Turncoat"), which Lenz had written in 1951, was published. Found among his effects, it is a novel about a German soldier who defects to Soviet forces.[8]
In 1988 Lenz was awarded thePeace Prize of the German Book Trade, a prize given annually at theFrankfurt Book Fair.[9] TheGoethe Prize ofFrankfurt am Main (Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt) was given to Lenz in 2000.[10] A year later Lenz was honoured with the highest decoration of Hamburg,honorary citizenship.[11] In 2004 Lenz was named anhonorary citizen of Schleswig Holstein and in October 2011 an honorary citizen of his hometown Ełk (Lyck).[12] In 2010 he won the ItalianInternational Nonino Prize.
TheSiegfried Lenz Prize is a literary prize awarded every two years in Hamburg by the Siegfried Lenz Foundation. The prize is awarded to "international writers who have gained recognition with their narrative work and whose creative work is close to the spirit of Siegfried Lenz." A five-member jury appointed by the Foundation selects winners. The prize includes an award of 50,000 euros, ranking among the highest-endowed literature awards in Germany. The prize was initiated by Siegfried Lenz in 2014 before his death in October of that year.
Hat mit seinem literarischen Werk zur Erneuerung und Anerkennung Deutschlands im Geiste des Humanismus beigetragen (Has contributed with his literary work to the renewal and recognition of Germany in the spirit of humanism)
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