Ludwig Turek

Ludwig Turek (born August 28, 1898 in Stendal ; † November 9, 1975 in East Berlin ) was a German writer .

Ludwig Turek in conversation with the illustrator Elizabeth Shaw in 1952

Life

Turek was born into a poor family as the son of a locksmith. After attending school, he carried out various activities (small farmhand, book printer, typesetter). During the First World War he was called up for military service, but deserted. Thereupon he was sentenced to imprisonment and was taken to the fortress Spandau . The upheavals of the November Revolution brought Turek freedom prematurely in 1918. Through his experiences he came to the communist movement; first he was active in the Spartakusbund , then he joined the KPD and was politically active. In 1920 he fought in the Red Ruhr Army .

Following an invitation, he lived in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1932. The development in Germany towards National Socialism led him to emigrate to France in 1933. Here he also worked as a captain on a sailing ship. Turek returned to Germany in 1940 and lived and worked illegally. He processed his life experiences and adventures in various novels, the first of which (A Prolet tells, Malik Verlag Berlin, still called "Ludwig Tureck") was published in 1929.

After the end of the Second World War, Turek worked as a freelance writer in East Berlin, wrote numerous novels and screenplays for films. In the GDR, Turek was considered a working-class writer , he also wrote books for young people. The East German television turned 1973 a documentary about him and his life, Turek says (directed by Richard Cohn-Vossen ). In 1977 the radio of the GDR produced Wolfgang Kohlhaase's radio play The Grünstein Variation - A story in memory of stories told by Ludwig Turek , director: Günther Rücker and Barbara Plensat , music: Tilo Medek , dramaturgy: Wolfgang Beck with Kurt Böwe , Rolf Ludwig u. v. a., which was awarded the “ Prix ​​Italia for drama” in Venice that same year . Turek was buried in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery.

Works: novels, short stories, scripts

Ludwig Turek signs books, Berlin 1968

• A Prolet tells 1929: autobiographical novel, filmed in the GDR in 1957 under the title Chased until tomorrow (director: Joachim Hasler )
• The Friends 1947
• Ready for the turn of 1949: Travel report about Turek's adventures in France
• The golden ball 1949: novel about extraterrestrials from Venus who are involved in class struggles on earth; is considered the first science fiction novel of the GDR
• The last wages in 1950: a novel about the struggle of seafarers against National Socialism in Germany, made into a film by Ernst Wilhelm Fiedler in 1951
• Our daily bread 1949, filmed by Slatan Dudow
• Anna Lubitzke 1952: novel about the self-sacrificing work of the Berlin rubble women , filmed by DEFA in 1961 under the title Stone Age Ballad (director: Ralf Kirsten , with Gisela Rimpler , Elsa Grube-Deister , Friedel Nowack )
• Herbert Bachmann's great journey in 1952
• Center forward Werner Schwing 1954
• Palermo on the right course 1955
• The firewood 1959
• Nagelschwert family, 1961
• I wasn't a duck in 1967
• Die Liebesfalle , 1970, individual episodes from DEFA 1976 filmed as love traps (director: Werner W. Wallroth , with Marianne Wünscher , Fred Delmare , Eva-Maria Hagen )
• Ahoy, nice tub , 1974
• My friend Bruno , 1975

Honors

• In the Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick, district of Köpenick, a library bears the name Ludwig Turek
• in Berlin a school was named Ludwig Turek
• In Berlin-Kaulsdorf (part of the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district ) there has been a Ludwig-Turek-Platz since January 2004 , renamed Ludwig-Turek-Straße in March 2005

literature

• Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 416.
• Hans Joachim Alpers, Werner Fuchs, Ronald M. Hahn, Wolfgang Jeschke : Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-02453-2 , p. 981.
• Ekkehard Redlin: Ludwig Turek. In: Erik Simon , Olaf R. Spittel (ed.): The science fiction of the GDR. Authors and works. A lexicon. Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-360-00185-0 , pp. 261-263.
• Maren Horn:  Turek, Ludwig (Andreas) . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Turek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ludwig Turek in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ludwig Turek in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Works by and about Ludwig Turek at Open Library
• Ludwig Turek: A proletarian tells
• Ludwig Turek Archive in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin