Atlas compiled by German authors

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Atlas, compiled by German authors, is an anthology published by Klaus Wagenbach Verlag in 1965 with contributions by German-speaking authors with a focus on West and East Germany. All lyrics were written especially for this volume. A new edition published in 2004 is entitled Atlas. German authors about their place .

Content and structure

Atlas compiled by German authors (Europe)
Koenigsberg
Lycker lake area
Danzig
Auschwitz concentration camp
Glogau
Katowice
Lebus
Bansin
Arenzhain
Giant Mountains
Berlin
Potsdam
Kassberg / Chemnitz
Finneidfjord
Bay of Lübeck
Lockstedt
Rome
Warstade
Hanover
Warendorf
Krefeld
Raderberg / Cologne
Raderthal / Cologne
Butzbach
Bockenheimer Warte (Frankfurt am Main)
Mainz
Ludwigshafen
Sulzbach-Rosenberg
Stuttgart
Nürtingen
Littenweiler / Freiburg im Breisgau
Vienna
State of Upper Austria
Darmstadt
Geographical distribution

Note: Unless otherwise stated, the information follows the “Atlas. German authors about their place ”, Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 2004 ISBN 3-8031-3188-X

It is preceded by a foreword by Klaus Wagenbach (Why this book has no editor) and, in the newer edition from 2004, an additional comment after forty years . The volume brings together a total of 51 contributions by 43 authors in the form of autobiographies , poems , short stories and satires . The theme is places (including fictional ones) with which the authors associate special memories. These places are sorted geographically from east to west, even if this is not always strictly adhered to, for example Freiburg appears before Vienna . Some of the authors: Johannes Bobrowski , Siegfried Lenz , Günter Grass , Peter Weiss , Günter Eich , Marie Luise Kaschnitz , Wolfgang Koeppen , Wolf Biermann , Heinrich Böll , Carl Zuckmayer , Anna Seghers , Ernst Bloch , Christoph Meckel , Erich Fried , Ilse Aichinger , HC Artmann , Nelly Sachs .

Two notable contributions come from Wolfgang Koeppen and Peter Weiss: Koeppen's contribution A coffee house is a reminder of the Second Romanesque House in Berlin and the Romanesque Café located in it . Koeppen covers everything from Prussia to the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich to destruction in World War II. The text is just under four printed pages long and consists of a single sentence. Weiss' contribution Meine Ortschaft is about his visit to the former Auschwitz camp ... a place I was destined for and from which I escaped.

Table of contents with notes

Peter Weiss visited the Auschwitz camp, which was declared a museum
The second Romanesque house burned down in 1943 (picture postcard from around 1900)
The bombed Freiburg city center with the cathedral

background

Wagenbach had published the first so-called Quarthefte in his publishing house since March 1965 . Texts by contemporary German authors appeared here in first editions. The publisher granted its authors equal rights and influence over the equipment and information texts. This was also done in the case of the atlas published in October of the same year . The texts of the eastern authors were often considered politically incorrect in their homeland. One example is Hans Werner Richter's satirical view of the seaside resort of Bansin , which caused difficulties for the local party bureaucracy. The book is dedicated to Johannes Bobrowski, who died on September 2, 1965, and who advised and supported Wagenbach in East German affairs. With the atlas , Wagenbach's all-German efforts ended: The 11th plenum of the SED Central Committee met in December and prevented further cultural exchange.

According to Wagenbach in the foreword, the name Atlas should be understood in the sense of the Greek word geography (γεωγραφία geografia ): once descriptive geography, collections of materials on individual countries and the customs of their inhabitants and, on the other hand, speculative explanation of the world. […] This atlas […] returns to the concept of the ancients of geography as a mixture of description and explanation.

Reviews

  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki expressed himself in a 1965 review : A German writer, still young, but known and appreciated as a Kafka researcher for years, so Klaus Wagenbach was bold enough to get involved in a thing that made his head and Collar can cost. With the editor's resignation, the quality of the articles fluctuated, but at least half were worth reading. He highlights Wolfgang Koeppen's contribution to the Romanisches Café (Ein Kaffeehaus) and Peter Weiss ' text about the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial as particularly successful .
  • Harald Hartung wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the occasion of the new edition in 2004: Perhaps the most important and momentous text in it was “Meine Ortschaft” by Peter Weiss, a description of the Auschwitz camp. Strangely enough: it was precisely because of this contribution that Paul Celan withdrew his commitment to collaborate. Wagenbach mentions this in the epilogue to the new edition. One would like to know the reasons.

expenditure

  • Atlas compiled by German authors . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1965 (first edition)
  • Atlas, compiled by German authors , new edition 1979, Wagenbach's pocket library No. 64, Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin, ISBN 3-8031-2064-0
  • Atlas. German authors about their place . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach Berlin 2004 ISBN 3-8031-3188-X

References and footnotes

  1. ^ Atlas. German authors about their place . Pp. 91 to 95
  2. ↑ Matthias Kußmann : In search of the lost self: Wolfgang Koeppens late work. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2084-7 , p. 99ff.
  3. ^ Atlas. German authors about their place , Meine Ortschaft pp. 33 to 44
  4. ↑ a b c Marcel Reich-Ranicki: A poetic geography , in DIE ZEIT No. 42 - October 15, 1965 - page 56
  5. ↑ see also: Walter Jens: Mein Sanatorium from: DIE ZEIT, September 24, 1965, No. 39.
  6. ↑ wagenbach.de: A brief outline of the publishing history, accessed on April 14, 2013
  7. ^ Atlas. German authors about their place . Klaus-Wagenbach-Verlag Berlin 2004 (comment after forty years) p. 10f
  8. ↑ Julia Schröder: Commentary and Confession . Review of the new edition from 2004 (Deutschlandfunk Büchermarkt) accessed on April 19, 2013
  9. ^ Atlas. German authors about their place, 2004. Foreword p. 10
  10. ↑ Harald Hartung: Kafka's notorious aunt. Forty Years of Wagenbach: An Almanac and an Anthology . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 28, 2004, No. 147, page 30

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