Christa Johannsen

Christa Johannsen at the annual conference of the German Writers' Association in East Berlin in 1967

Elsa-Christa Betti Luise Johannsen (born November 17, 1914 in Halberstadt , † April 9, 1981 in Magdeburg ) was a German writer.

Life

Johannsen was born the daughter of an architect. She attended school in her hometown and graduated from high school. She studied philosophy in Berlin . She joined the Association of German Authors during the Nazi era . After 1945 she worked as a lecturer at the technical college for construction in Blankenburg and joined the CDU . In 1947 she took part in the 1st German Writers' Congress.

From 1956 Johannsen worked as a freelance writer and translator in Magdeburg. At the same time she worked for the newspaper Neue Zeit, based in Magdeburg . From 1959 to 1962 she also contributed to the Christian magazine Harvest and Saat . Johannsen was one of the established writers in the GDR .

From 1963 to 1969 she was chairwoman of the writers' association in the Magdeburg district . Board colleagues were Walter Basan , Heinz Kruschel , Martin Selber and Klaus Wolf. She was very committed to promoting reading and promoting young talent. From 1973 she headed a circle of writing workers and the group of young prose writers belonging to the FDJ . she also repeatedly invited West German authors, such as Geno Hadlaub and Horst Krüger . She traveled abroad to Siberia and the USA . She wanted to dedicate her last, but unfinished work to Albert Einstein .

Awards

Johannsen received a number of awards in the GDR. In 1966 she received the Johannes R. Becher Medal in silver, in 1974 the Erich Weinert Prize of the City of Magdeburg, the Lion Feuchtwanger Prize of the Academy of Arts , the Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal and in 1979 the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze.

In 2006 the city of Magdeburg named a street in her honor as Christa-Johannsen-Straße .

Works

The most important work is likely to be the extensive historical novel Leibniz . Johannsen emphasized moral and social aspects in many works, especially in the volume of short stories The great wonderful fish and in the dream story Flight to Cyprus . Her versatile work also included detective novels. An important late work was her autobiographical novel Zeitverschiebungen .

• Farewell to summer . 1943
• The invisible crown . 1943
• The shepherd's flute . 1944
• To a youth in the field . 1944
• Requiem. Novella . 1948
• Asclepios and his disciples . 1960
• People and cities . 1962
• In the shadow of the Minotaur . 1965
• Lutherstadt Wittenberg between yesterday and tomorrow , report. 1967
• Flight to Cyprus . 1969
• Leibniz . Novel of his life . 6th edition, Berlin: Union-Verlag, 1976
• The big wonderful fish . 1973
• The wall of shadows . 1974
• Time shifts . 1979
• Search for Einstein or in the test of conscience . 2016 (from the estate edited by Albrecht Franke )

So far, only Asklepios and his disciples have been translated into one language (Czech).

literature

• Albrecht Franke : Christa Johannsen - an invented life. A writer's life in the 20th century. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2019, ISBN 978-3-96311-246-1 .
• Heinz Kruschel: Johannsen, Elsa-Christa Betti Luise. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 , pp. 332f.
• Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 , p. 153.
• Christa Johannsen: Today, yesterday - and before . In: wanted. 22 authors about themselves . With an afterword by Karl Bongardt. 1st edition. Union Verlag, Berlin 1975, p. 231-258 .

Web links

Commons : Christa Johannsen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Christa Johannsen in the catalog of the German National Library