Horst Jäger (writer)

Horst Jäger (born March 24, 1928 in Eisenach ; † December 30, 2009 in Meiningen ) was a German writer .

Life

Horst Jäger is the son of a police officer and attended elementary school in his hometown from 1934 to 1938 and then a secondary school. During this time there were also first attempts at writing. In 1948 he passed his Abitur. In 1948/49 he began studying at the pedagogical college in Eisenach and was qualified to teach Russian . He was not allowed to study German studies because of his "middle-class background".

Jäger had numerous contacts with lecturers and students at the Free University of Berlin . In 1951 he was arrested by the Ministry of State Security and sentenced in 1952 to four years in prison and five years in atonement. He was accused of conspiring with the combat group against inhumanity . This was followed by imprisonment in various penal institutions and in Preschen prison labor camp. While in prison, writing and storytelling became a vital basic experience. In 1954 he was released from prison and was initially unemployed. In 1955 he worked as a metal worker, later as a commercial clerk.

In 1956 he was following the lifting of "sanctions" Teacher, external graduated in 1957 as a school teacher at the Institute of Teacher Education in Meiningen and took - in conjunction with the University of Jena - a distance learning course as a high school teacher of German language and literature at the Pedagogical District Cabinet Weimar on which he Graduated from the state examination in 1959 . He then worked as a teacher at the Central High School in Henneberg and was appointed as a district advisor for German language and literature in the popular education department of the Meiningen District Council. During this time he was also a member of the Working Group of Young Authors, since his first children's books were written between 1958 and 1964. In 1962 he was accepted into the Writers' Union. In 1969, after three years of training, he received the license to teach English . From 1970 to 1977 he taught German, language communication and aesthetics at the company school of the VEB Robotron Elektronik Zella-Mehlis in a branch of the Eisleben engineering school . The first historical novel was published in 1977 . He left school for good and worked as a freelance writer . Jäger, who - in his opinion - would hardly have become a writer without the experience of his imprisonment, wrote primarily historical novels that deal entirely with the history of Thuringia . The landscape and the mentality of the people of southern Thuringia are reflected in all of his literary works.

He died on December 30, 2009 in Meiningen.

Awards and honors

• Art Prize of the FDGB
• 1979: Max Reger Prize - Literature class - of the Suhl district

Works

• Traces in the heather. Almost a crime story. Children's book. Weimar 1959.
• The diary in the Red Tower. The story of a mysterious find. Children's book. Weimar 1961.
• Niko becomes a hero. Narration about a nocturnal holiday experience. Children's book. Weimar 1964.
• Shots in the mountains. Narrative. Narrator series 219. Berlin 1977.
• Arms in the Mühlwaldtal. Historical novel. Berlin 1977.
• One sheet was missing, crime story. Berlin 1977.
• The secret of the Hornschuhs. Meridian 77. Historical narrative. Berlin 1979.
• The wolfganger. Historical novel. Berlin 1980.
• The people in the Wildmoor Meridian 86. Historical narrative. Berlin 1980.
• Letters to Doctor Behrendt. Novel about a murder. Berlin 1982.
• Sawmill meeting point. Historical novel. Berlin 1984.
• The broken spear. Historical novel. Berlin 1984.
• The secret office. Historical novel. Berlin 1990.
• The broken spear. A novel from the time the Wartburg was founded. Hildburghausen 1990.
• Thuringia between Grabfeld and Rhön. Stories about history. Hildburghausen 1990.
• with Peter Ziegler and Bernhard Nieland: Away from the big cities. 10 days through the Thuringian Rhön and Grabfeld. Coburg and Hildburghausen 1991.
• From early times they say ... pictures from the history of a castle and a family. History game. First performance in 1996.

Web links

• Literature by and about Horst Jäger in the catalog of the German National Library