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Hans Hellmut Kirst | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1914-12-05)5 December 1914 |
| Died | 23 February 1989(1989-02-23) (aged 74) |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation(s) | Novelist, war veteran |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Service | Heer |
| Years of service | 1933–1945 |
| Rank | First Lieutenant |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
Hans Hellmut Kirst (5 December 1914 – 23 February 1989) was a Germannovelist and the author of 46 books, many of which were translated into English. Kirst is best remembered as the creator of the "Gunner Asch" series which detailed the ongoing struggle of an honest individual to maintain his identity and humanity amidst the criminality and corruption ofNazi Germany.
Hans Hellmut Kirst was born inOsterode,East Prussia. Osterode is today Ostróda in Poland.
Kirst joined theGerman Army in 1933 and served as an officer duringWorld War II, ending the war as aFirst Lieutenant[1] andNationalsozialistischer Führungsoffizier.[2] Kirst was a member of theNazi Party, stating later that he had "confused National Socialism with Germany".[1]
Kirst later indicated that after the war he did not immediately believe accounts of Nazi atrocities. "One did not really know one was in a club of murderers," he recalled.[1]
Kirst's first novel was published in 1950, translated into English asThe Lieutenant Must Be Mad. The book told of a young German officer who sabotaged a Nazi garrison.[1]
Kirst won an international reputation with the seriesNull-acht, fünfzehn (Zero-Eight, Fifteen), a satire on army life centered on Gunner Asch, a private who manages to buck the system.[1] Initially conceived as a trilogy —08/15 in der Kaserne (1954),08/15 im Krieg (1954),08/15 bis zum Ende (1955) — the three-book narrative was expanded to five with the publication of08/15 Heute in 1963 and08/15 in der Partei in 1978. The series follows the career of Asch, a common man in an impossible situation, from the years before World War II, to the Eastern Front, and finally into the world of post-war Germany.
The Gunner Asch series was published in English as:The Revolt of Gunner Asch (1955),Forward, Gunner Asch! (1956),[3]The Return of Gunner Asch (1957),What Became of Gunner Asch (1964) andParty Games (1980). ("Party Games", NOT part of the Gunner Asch series)
Other major novels by Kirst set during theThird Reich and World War II includeOfficer Factory, about the investigation into the death of a training officer in an officer school near the end of World War II,Last Stop, Camp 7, the story of 48 hours in an internment camp for former Nazis,The Wolves,[4] a tale of crafty resistance in a German village, andThe Nights of the Long Knives, about a fictitious 6-man squad ofSS hit men. All of these novels featured humor and satire, with leading characters often shown positioning themselves as outspoken, ardent Nazis during the Third Reich era before effortlessly flipping to become equally ardent in their claims to have been anti-Nazi and 100% pro-democracy or pro-communist after the tide turned.[citation needed]
Kirst also wrote about the July 1944attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler inAufstand der Soldaten (1965), which was translated into English asSoldiers' Revolt.
Kirst's non-World-War-II-themed novels includedThe Seventh Day (1957), anuclear holocaust story that received worldwide acclaim and was dubbed "so convincing, that it doesn't seem like fiction at all". Using a wide array of viewpoint characters, most of them Germans, it describes – step by step and day by day – how in just a single week a chain of small incidents escalates into bigger incidents, small-scale fighting, all-out war, resort to nuclear arms and finally a worldwide nuclear exchange with Europe totally destroyed by the Seventh Day and "the Days of Humanity were numbered". Symbolic characters are a pair ofstar-crossed lovers, a West German boy and his East German girlfriend, who spend the entire book desperately searching for each other finally to find and run towards each other but before they can touch a nuclear explosion vaporizes both of them in a split second.
Die letzte Karte spielt der Tod (1955) is a fictional account of the life of Soviet spyRichard Sorge, published in the United States asThe Last Card and in the United Kingdom asDeath Plays the Last Card.
In 1965 Kirst was nominated for anEdgar Award of theMystery Writers of America for his 1962 bookDie Nacht der Generale, translated into English asThe Night of the Generals.[1] The book dealt with an investigation into a series of murders of prostitutes during and after World War II committed by one of three German generals. The book was made into a1967 film of the same name, which starredOmar Sharif andPeter O'Toole.
Kirst also wrote the Konstantin Keller series of detective novels set inMunich in the 1960s and published in English translations asDamned to Success (and also asA Time for Scandal),A Time for Truth andEverything has a Price.
In 1972 Kirst was a member of the jury at the22nd Berlin International Film Festival.[5] He was also a member ofInternational PEN andThe Authors Guild.[1]
At the time of his death, theNew York Times noted that "his novels, many of them replaying the events of the war, reflect his acceptance of his nation's guilt," but that some critics "charged him with trivializing the history of the Third Reich.[1]
Kirst died in Bremen in February 1989 aged 74 years and was survived by his wife, Ruth, and a daughter.[1]
Kirst's books were translated into 28 languages and sold a total of 12 million copies during his lifetime.[1]
Most of thesenovels are pure fiction. But not only is "The 20th of July"based on the assassination attempt against Hitler but Kirst followed the development of this event by using archive sources step by step. He filled in only small gaps of minor importance, where no sources were available.
