First German Writers' Congress

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The First German Writers' Congress took place in Berlin from October 4 to 8, 1947 . It was the first writers' congress which, despite the division of Germany into four occupation zones after the Second World War , saw itself as all of Germany.

This also made it the last all-German writers 'congress, because seven months later in Frankfurt at the “Second German Writers' Congress”, the authors of the Soviet occupation zone were absent . The Frankfurt event was the nucleus of Group 47 , while the First Writers' Congress carried the nucleus of the GDR's cultural conception ; one of the co-organizers, Johannes R. Becher , later became the GDR's first minister for culture .

Venues and organizers

More than 280 writers took part in the event, which was held in the Hebbel Theater and in the Kammerspiele (today Deutsches Theater Berlin ), of which less than half came from Berlin. Three of the four occupying powers supported the congress; the Soviet military administration SMAD was particularly present with its cultural officers. The idea went back to the writer and resistance fighter against National Socialism Günther Weisenborn , who wanted a “congress of the brains, an orchestra of temperaments” in the destroyed Berlin. The congress was organized by the Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany (later the GDR Cultural Association ) and the Association of German Authors .

procedure

Ricarda Huch was the “grande dame” of the congress; she opened it and decided it.

The letter of invitation said that they wanted to “show Germany and the world that there are forces at work in our country who advocate the renewal of German literature in a cosmopolitan spirit.” After the welcoming ceremony on the evening of October 4th, October a public commemoration “Death and Hope”, followed by greetings by Ricarda Huch , Wilhelm Unger , the chairman of the International PEN in London, Hermon Ould and others. Then the Soviet delegation moved in. The following days brought working sessions on issues such as internal and external emigration, the lack of young talent, political poetry, "language wilderness", the difficult situation of the book trade and the publishing industry after the war. There was agreement that literature should be anti-fascist. A resolution against anti-Semitism was passed.

On the morning of October 7th, the event's only scandal occurred: The American journalist and writer Melvin Lasky gave a lecture on censorship and did not fail to mention the censorship of Soviet writers by her government. The chairman of the conference that morning, Günther Birkenfeld , had difficulties taming the protests of the audience, Lasky was only able to finish his speech with difficulty. While the congress organizers, as agreed, abstained from commenting on political statements by foreign colleagues, the SMAD insisted on a reply. That afternoon the Russian writer Valentin Katajew gave a polemical speech against Lasky, whom he accused of warmongering and inability to write.

Well-known writers and publishers included Ricarda Huch , Günther Weisenborn , Anna Seghers , Elisabeth Langgässer , Klaus Gysi , Wolfgang Harich , Alexander Abusch , Ernst Niekisch , Willi Bredel , Stephan Hermlin , Ernst Rowohlt and Bruno Kaiser .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Waltraud Wende-Hohenberger (Ed.): The Frankfurt Writers' Congress in 1948 , Peter Lang Verlag Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 978-3-631-40745-5
  2. ↑ Christine Malende: Berlin and the PEN-Club , in: Ursula Heukenkamp (Ed.): Unterm Notdach , Schmidt, Berlin 1996 p. 102f
  3. ↑ The article is largely based on two sources: Ursula Reinhold, Dieter Schlenstedt, Horst Tanneberger: First German Writers' Congress October 4-8, 1947. Protocol and documents , construction Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3-351-01883-2 . And: Focus on the First German Writers' Congress in 1947 in the original sound, SWR 2 archive radio , December 2012