Armin Müller (writer)

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Armin Müller with notebook in November 1964 in the "Komma Club" in Munich

Armin Müller (born October 25, 1928 in Schweidnitz , Lower Silesia Province , † February 6, 2005 in Jena ) was a German writer and painter .

Live and act

Armin Müller, son of a worker, grew up in the town of Schweidnitz, not far from the Owl Mountains, in a simple family. As a boy he was forced into the so-called Volkssturm towards the end of the Second World War . He later processed his escape on the transport to a Soviet prisoner of war in the novel The Puppet King and I (1986), which, according to many and his own judgment, is considered to be Müller's main work. The vividly told book is also about the unusual friendship between a German and a Polish boy. It also makes a contribution to international understanding .

Ousted from his Silesian homeland himself, Müller was one of the first GDR authors to deal with the subject of “ displacement ”. In 1945 he came to Weimar as a resettler and was involved in founding the first anti-fascist youth committee in Thuringia. Then initially working as a journalist, Müller was soon active in the youth organization FDJ . From 1950 to 1952 he was a member of the Kulturbund, a member of the Thuringian state parliament. From 1953 to 1957 he was a member of the Council of the World Federation of Democratic Youth . From 1957 to 1962 he worked as an editor at the Weimar broadcaster .

He remained a supporter of the state socialism of the SED until death. He was hostile to the political changes of 1989 and the years after. He experienced it as the introduction of capitalism. In his diary from 1987 he repeatedly questioned bureaucratic and authoritarian tendencies as well as the harmlessness that prevailed in the GDR from an ecological point of view. This criticism can also be found in his successive novels My Different Lives , Der Magdalenenbaum and Taube aus Papier , which Müller interpreted as a trilogy. They are hardly inferior to the doll king in terms of style. He was u. a. friends with his fellow writer Hanns Cibulka in Gotha .

After working for the press and radio in 1961, Müller started his own business as a freelance writer. He was able to live on his literary products. Nonetheless, with increasing age he turned to painting. It offered him an additional complementary form of expression, which he made available to the public in more than 40 exhibitions. So he visualized the crackdown of the Prague Spring in 1968, as well as his cancer, the consequences of which he finally died. The predominant feature of his always small-format, usually colorful paintings, however, was the idyll.

Müller is described by friends as a always helpful person. He left his wife and two sons to manage his estate.

tomb

He is buried in the historical cemetery in Weimar .

Awards and honors

Müller received the Erich Weinert Medal in 1959 , the City of Weimar's Literature and Art Prize in 1960, the Heinrich Heine Prize in 1961 , the National Prize in 1969 , the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1974 , the Johannes R. Becher Medal in 1987 and the Eichendorff Literature Prize . In 2004 he was made an honorary citizen of his native town Świdnica ( Poland ).

Works

prose

  • Fair . Story, Thüringer Volksverlag, Erfurt 1952
  • Summer trip to the neighboring country . A young writer experiences the new Poland. Thüringer Volksverlag, Weimar 1953
  • In the huts of hope . Report, Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1955
  • The oriole and the girl . Story, Volksverlag, Weimar 1958
  • Armin Müller / Erich Hahn: Journey to the Rhön . Report, Volksverlag, Weimar 1958
  • You will break your neck . Roman, New Life, Berlin 1961
  • The painter and the girl . Story, New Life, Berlin 1966
  • Franziska Lesser . Drama, world premiere in 1971 at the German National Theater in Weimar
  • Seven wishes . Drama, world premiere in 1974 on Dts. Weimar National Theater
  • The golden bird . Drama, world premiere in 1975 at the Leipzig Theater
  • My different lives . Story, Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1978
  • The Magdalenenbaum . Roman, Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1979 (filmed in 1989)
  • Paper dove . Story, Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1981
  • The doll king and me . Roman, Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1986
  • I tell you summer in your ear . A diary (from 1987), Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1989
  • Tonewood . Calendar stories, Hain Verlag, Rudolstadt 1998

Armin Müller has also written numerous radio and television plays.

Radio plays

Poems

  • Hello brother from Krakow! Thüringer Volksverlag, Weimar 1949
  • Since that May . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1953
  • The white ship . New life, Berlin 1959
  • Poem fifty-nine . Volksverlag, Weimar 1959
  • Journey to S. New Life, Berlin 1965
  • Who wants the red fruits . Cantata. Music: Günter Fredrich and Friedrich Hofmeister. First performance at the German Gymnastics and Sports Festival in Leipzig in 1974
  • The Buchenwald bell . Cantata. Music: Fritz Geissler. First performance in 1975 at the German National Theater in Weimar
  • I ate the tuna . Poem, Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1982

Illustrated books

  • On white horses . Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1983
  • Golden fish flyby . Publishing house Thuringia, Erfurt 1993

literature

  • Leipzig playwright talks . Among others with A. Müller, Berlin 1977
  • Franziska Lesser tries life . On the new version and staging of Armin Müller's play Franziska Lesser . In: Forum 12/1973
  • Alternating duration . Essay about Armin Müller. Conversation with the author. In: WB 6/1975
  • The trumpeter's signal . To A. Müller's play The golden bird . In: Sunday 10/1975
  • Günter Gerstmann: Armin Müller. Farewell and Arrival , Jena and Quedlinburg 1999, anthology for the 70th Müller's, contains selected bibliography, ISBN 3-932906-02-0
  • Meyer's pocket dictionary. Writer of the GDR , publisher: VEB Bibliographisches Institut (1974), p. 388f

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Interview and biography: In Junge Welt , August 8, 1979.