Wolfgang Koeppen

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Wolfgang Koeppen , actually: Wolfgang Arthur Reinhold Köppen (born June 23, 1906 in Greifswald ; † March 15, 1996 in Munich ), was a German writer . He was best known for his trilogy of failure , through which he earned the reputation of an important author of post-war literature. This trilogy was created in the early 1950s and consists of the novels Tauben im Gras , Das Treibhaus and Death in Rome . Subsequently, Koeppen published only sparsely and wrote mainly travel reports .

Life

Koeppen's birthplace in Greifswald, Bahnhofstr. 4th

Wolfgang Koeppen was born out of wedlock in Greifswald. His mother Marie Köppen was a seamstress and later worked as a prompter at the Greifswald City Theater . His son had no contact with his father Reinhold Halben, a private lecturer in ophthalmology at the University Hospital Greifswald and later an ophthalmologist. After the death of their grandmother, in whose household Marie Köppen lived with her child, they moved to her step-sister in Thorn in 1908 , and in 1912 to Ortelsburg , where Koeppen attended secondary school. After returning to Greifswald in 1919, Koeppen had to switch to middle school for financial reasons , from which he left early because of a planned apprenticeship as an errand boy at a Greifswald bookstore.

Koeppen became a volunteer at the Greifswald City Theater and attended lectures as a guest auditor, including German studies , at the University of Greifswald . In the following years he worked as an assistant cook at sea, factory worker, usher , ice maker and light bulb tester for Osram . Various engagements at theaters only lasted for a short time. At the Wismar Theater in 1924 he was supposed to take on acting roles instead of directing, as he had hoped, at the Würzburg Theater in 1926/27 he was a dramaturge and assistant director with a performance obligation, but was unable to enforce his ideas of contemporary theater. In Berlin in 1927 Koeppen came into contact with Erwin Piscator's “dramaturgical collective” and got to know the actress Sybille Schloß . His unrequited love for her later inspired his first novel. From 1931 onwards, Koeppen worked as a freelancer, later as a feature editor and department head at the Berlin stock exchange courier . The first literary works also appeared here until the newspaper was closed by the National Socialists on December 31, 1933.

In 1934 Koeppen traveled to Italy via Zurich, financed by Bruno Cassirer , who published Koeppen's first novel An unhappy love that same year . In the following year his second novel The Wall Stops appeared . Koeppen lived in The Hague from 1935 , but returned to Germany in 1938 because he could not find a steady livelihood in the Netherlands. In the following years he worked as a screenwriter for UFA and Bavaria Filmkunst . Because of his work he was postponed from military service, after a bomb attack he managed to go into hiding, and he lived in Feldafing near Munich , where he met the 16-year-old Marion Ulrich in early 1944. After both had lived in the postwar years from the sale of antiques, they married in 1948. In the same year appeared Jacob Litt former Erlebnisbericht records from a hole in the ground , the Koeppen had worked without his name was mentioned in the output.

In 1949 Koeppen met the publisher Henry Goverts , and as a result he wrote his three great novels in the Trilogy of Failure : Tauben im Gras (1951), Das Treibhaus (1953) and Death in Rome (1954), all of which were published by Scherz & Goverts published. On the mediation of Alfred Andersch , Koeppen toured Spain (1955), Rome (1956), the Soviet Union , Warsaw , The Hague and London (1957), the USA (1958) and France (1959) for Süddeutscher Rundfunk . He wrote travelogues for the radio, which were also published in print. In 1962 Koeppen signed a contract with Suhrkamp Verlag for future books, but these largely failed to materialize. In 1976 the prose piece Jugend was published , in 1992 Jakob Littner's notes from a hole in the ground were republished under Koeppen's name.

Wolfgang Koeppen died in 1996 in a nursing home in Munich. His wife Marion had died in 1984. In memory of the writer and to look after his estate, Günter Grass and Peter Rühmkorf founded the Wolfgang Koeppen Foundation based in Greifswald on July 10, 2000 .

plant

The greenhouse and death in Rome in editions of Suhrkamp Verlag The greenhouse and death in Rome in editions of Suhrkamp Verlag
The greenhouse and death in Rome in editions of Suhrkamp Verlag

The contemporary reaction to Koeppen's novels Tauben im Gras , Das Treibhaus and Death in Rome remained subdued in the early 1950s. From today's perspective, however, they are "among the most important of all post-war German literature". Marcel Reich-Ranicki , in particular , has always stood up for Koeppen. For him, Koeppen was - along with Arno Schmidt - one of the few German-speaking authors of his time who did not devote themselves to the typical clear-cut literature or who were influenced by Ernest Hemingway's laconic style . Instead, he tried to tie in with the literary modernism of James Joyce , John Dos Passos , William Faulkner , Marcel Proust and Alfred Döblin . However, his novel Tauben im Gras , in particular , which Reich-Ranicki included as one of twenty novels in his canon of German literature , appeared too early and met an audience that was not ready for this form of literary modernism that was still largely unknown in Germany be.

As early as 1961, Reich-Ranicki had described under the title Der Fall Koeppen that the repeated rejection of his novels Koeppen, whom he called a “loner in German post-war literature”, ended up on the side path of travel reports. This was contradicted by other critics such as Reinhard Döhl , who saw the travel descriptions as an equivalent counterbalance to the novels, which would have taken Koeppen to the “limits of the narrative”. In all of Koeppen's works he identified recurring motifs: "The futility of traveling, flight and homecoming, strangeness and self-alienation, self-deception and resignation". Already in his early novels he showed the style that remained characteristic of him: a rapid jump between location, time and figure, often reminiscent of film editing , the technique of montage , the stylistic change between parataxe and long, associative sentence structures, the suspension the boundary between narrator and character as well as between narration and reflection, reality and dream.

While for Döhl in the course of Koeppen's work there was an ever stronger tendency towards autobiography , for Helmut Heißenbüttel Koeppen was “on the trail of self-exposure”, from which he shrank back at the same time, and he commented: “The further in the projection onto fictional figures, including the ego of the travel reports, which has driven the tendency towards self-exposure, the private person Wolfgang Koeppen closes himself all the more. "

After Koeppen had received numerous honors since the 1960s, his later years were marked by great expectations of the public, for example his publisher Siegfried Unseld , who hoped that the author would produce the German Ulysses , and the simultaneous literary silence of Koeppen. In 1976, the prose piece Jugend was once again highly praised in literary criticism as the author's late work. His handling of the records from a hole in the ground , which Koeppen had published under his own name in 1992, remained controversial . Posthumously it turned out that he had merely taken over large parts of the original report by the Jewish contemporary witness Jakob Littner . Looking back on this appropriation of foreign experiences, Koeppen wrote: “I ate American canned food and wrote the story of suffering of a German Jew. Then it became my story. "

Awards

On the occasion of his 100th birthday on June 23, 2006, Munich organized a Koeppen exhibition in the Gasteig . Greifswald, the town of his birth, also showed the jubilee with a series of events, For example, on 23 June with a literature and book festival, a Koeppen reading in the cathedral - to which renowned representatives of the literary world traveled to Greifswald - and an exhibition in Koeppen's birthplace, the literary center of Western Pomerania, the Reverenz .

The city of Greifswald has been awarding the Wolfgang Koeppen Prize every two years since 1998 .

Works

Complete and work editions

Single issues

  • An unhappy love . Novel. Cassirer, Berlin 1934.
  • The wall sways . Novel. Cassirer, Berlin 1935.
  • The duty . Novel. New edition of Die Mauer wavers . Universitas, Berlin 1939.
  • Jakob Littner : Notes from a hole in the ground . Kluger, Munich 1948.
    • New edition: Jakob Littner's notes from a hole in the ground . Novel. Jüdischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-633-54050-4 .
  • Pigeons in the grass . Novel. Scherz & Goverts, Stuttgart 1951;
  • The greenhouse . Novel. Scherz & Goverts, Stuttgart 1953.
  • Death in Rome . Novel. Scherz & Goverts, Stuttgart 1954.
  • To Russia and elsewhere . Sensitive journeys . Goverts, Stuttgart 1958.
  • America trip . Goverts, Stuttgart 1959.
  • Travel to France . Goverts, Stuttgart 1961.
  • Youth . Narrative. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-518-01500-1 .
  • Once upon a time in Masuria . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-38894-0 .
  • I? With photographs by Nomi Baumgartl. Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra 1997, ISBN 978-3-85252-129-9 .
  • On the fantasy horse . Prose from the estate. Edited by Alfred Estermann. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-41153-5 .
  • Don't you have to love Munich? Collection of essays. Edited by Alfred Estermann. Photographs by Isolde Ohlbaum . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-458-34412-8 .
  • Maybe in Venice again for the year. Fantasies about a dream city . Edited by Alfred Estermann. With photographs by Wolfgang Koeppen. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-458-34876-X .
  • Wolfgang Koeppen: Youth . Text genetic edition. Edited by Katharina Krüger, Elisabetta Mengaldo and Eckhard Schumacher. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016 (URL: http://www.koeppen-jugend.de/ )

Conversations and interviews

Letters

  • "I would like a word ..." - Wolfgang Koeppen - Siegfried Unseld. The correspondence. Edited by Alfred Estermann and Wolfgang Schopf. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-518-41768-1 .
  • "... in spite of everything, just as you are" - Wolfgang and Marion Koeppen. Letters. Edited by Anja Ebner. With an afterword by Hans-Ulrich Treichel. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-41977-9 .

Film adaptations

  • The greenhouse . Fiction film, director: Peter Goedel , 1987.
  • Ortelsburg / Szczytno - Once upon a time in Masuria. Director: Peter Goedel, 1990.

Radio plays

  • 2009: Tauben im Gras , hr / WDR / SWR, editing and direction: Leonhard Koppelmann
  • 2009: Das Treibhaus , hr / WDR / SWR, adaptation and direction: Walter Adler
  • 2009: Death in Rome , hr / WDR / SWR, adaptation and direction: Leonhard Koppelmann

literature

  • Matthias Kußmann: In search of the lost self. Wolfgang Koeppen's late work. Dissertation. Karlsruhe 2000. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2084-7 . ( online ).
  • Jörg Döring: "I took shelter, I made myself small" - Wolfgang Koeppen 1933–1948. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 2003, ISBN 3-518-45528-1 .
  • Bernd E. Fischer: Wolfgang Koeppen in Greifswald. Fischer, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-937434-05-4 .
  • Christian Linder: In transition to downfall. About the silence of Wolfgang Koeppen. In: Akzente , 19 (1972), pp. 41-63.
  • Eckart Oehlenschläger (Ed.): Wolfgang Koeppen. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1987, ISBN 3-518-38579-8 .
  • Arno Schmidt Prize 1984 for Wolfgang Koeppen. Edited by the Arno Schmidt Foundation. Gätjens, Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-923460-01-5 . (With texts by Alice and Arno Schmidt , Jan Philipp Reemtsma , Wolfgang Koeppen.)
  • Reinhard Döhl : Wolfgang Koeppen. In: Dietrich Weber (ed.): German literature since 1945. Kröner, Stuttgart 1968; 3rd revised edition 1976, pp. 128–154.
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki : The Koeppen case. In: Die Zeit , February 16, 2006, reprint from 1961.
  • Walter Erhart: Wolfgang Koeppen in France . In: Berliner Hefte for the history of literary life , 8, 2008, pp. 237–244.
  • Walter Erhart: Wolfgang Koeppen. The failure of modern literature. Konstanz University Press, Konstanz 2012, ISBN 978-3-86253-027-4 .
  • Gerhard Müller: Wolfgang Koeppen in the Netherlands. In: Zeitschrift Exil 1933–1945. Research, findings, results. Edited by Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature at the University of Hamburg. Issue 22, 2002, p. 78 ff.
  • Karl-Heinz Götze: Wolfgang Koeppen. "The greenhouse". Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7705-2261-3 .
  • Ernestine Schlant: The language of silence. German literature and the Holocaust. Beck, Munich 2001 ISBN 3-406-47188-9 .
  • Thorsten Paprotny : Wolfgang Koeppen's sensitive journeys. In: Z. Journal for cultural and human sciences. Fosse, Hanover 1994, ISSN  0945-0580 .
  • Manfred Koch : [Article] Wolfgang Koeppen: "Pigeons in the grass". In: interpretations. Novels of the 20th Century , Volume 2. Reclam, Stuttgart 2005 [1. Edition 1993], ISBN 978-3-15-008809-8 , pp. 34-58.
  • Wolfgang Koeppen. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon . 3rd, completely revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , Vol. 9, pp. 214-219. (Biogram, work article by Jochen Vogt on An unhappy love , on pigeons in the grass , on Das Treibhaus , on Death in Rome and by Sven Hanuschek on youth .)
  • Eckhard Schumacher and Katharina Krüger (eds.): Wolfgang Koeppen. »Text + Criticism« 34 - Second edition: New version (2014).
  • Gunnar Müller-Waldeck: An expressionist poet named Wolfgang Koeppen. In: Sinn und Form , 3/2015, pp. 300–308.
  • Katharina Krüger, Elisabetta Mengaldo and Eckhard Schumacher (eds.): Text genesis and digital editing. Wolfgang Koeppen's “Youth” in the context of edition philology. Berlin u. a .: de Gruyter (supplements to »editio«) 2016.
  • Jürgen Klein: Marcel Reich-Ranickis Koeppen. About a friendship. In: literary criticism. de . June 29, 2016.
  • Jürgen Klein: Dialogue with Koeppen. Wilhelm Fink, Leiden / Boston / Singapore / Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-7705-6211-4 .
  • Benedikt Wintgens: Greenhouse Bonn. The political cultural history of a novel . Droste, Düsseldorf 2019, ISBN 978-3-7700-5342-1 .
Movie
  • The last magician: Wolfgang Koeppen. Documentation. Director: Eva Demski , Production: HR u. a., 1996.
Video
  • Koeppen - Greifswald - Youth. Draft for a film by Manfred Dietrich . 1995, with the Greifswald actor Hans Berger (1904–1998).
radio play
Literary magazine
  • Flandziu . Half-yearly papers for modern literature. In connection with the International Wolfgang Koeppen Society. Greifswald e. V. (2004 ff .; new series 2009 ff.).

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Koeppen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Timeline of life and work ( Memento of the original of February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the Wolfgang Koeppen archive of the University of Greifswald . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phil.uni-greifswald.de
  2. ↑ Matthias Kussmann : "Nevertheless: I love you" . In: Deutschlandfunk from August 28, 2008.
  3. ↑ Section after: Wolfgang Koeppen - His Life , page of the Wolfgang Koeppen Foundation , and time table on life and work ( memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the Wolfgang Koeppen archive of the University of Greifswald . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phil.uni-greifswald.de
  4. ^ Gunnar Müller-Waldeck: Wolfgang Koeppen - His life , page of the Wolfgang Koeppen Foundation .
  5. ↑ Uwe Wittstock : Interview with MRR: Wolfgang Koeppen “was the most modern” . In: Die Welt from June 17, 2006.
  6. ↑ Marcel Reich-Ranicki : The Koeppen case . In: The time of September 8, 1961.
  7. ↑ a b Reinhard Döhl : Wolfgang Köppen . In: Dietrich Weber (ed.): German literature since 1945 . Kröner, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 128-154; 3rd revised edition 1976.
  8. ↑ I risk the madness André Müller speaks to the writer Wolfgang Koeppen. In: Die Zeit of November 15, 1991.
  9. ↑ Irmgard Zündorf, Nadine Chmura: Wolfgang Koeppen. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG ).
  10. ↑ Meyer-Gosau, Frauke: No, Wolfgang Koeppen. My life. In: Literatures 4 (2006). P. 25 f.
  11. ↑ Stephan Braese : German Post-War Literature and the Holocaust . Campus Verlag, 1998, ISBN 978-3-593-36092-8 , pp. 175 ( google.com [accessed December 2, 2017]).
  12. ↑ In the opinion of the reviewer Paul Michael Lützeler in the NZZ , her interpretation of Koeppen's death in Rome contained here is one of the “most convincing works” that have been published on K. to date. Schlant attests to K. an objective view of the inhumanity of the time of National Socialism and of the escape from responsibility during the Adenauer era. She attributes his incorruptibility to the fact that the author experienced his literary socialization during the Weimar Republic. For them, K. is therefore a positive special case in the authoring scene in the early Federal Republic.
personal data
SURNAME Koeppen, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Köppen, Wolfgang Arthur Reinhold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifswald
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1996
Place of death Munich