Inge Diersen

Inge Diersen (born December 7, 1927 in Hamburg ; † November 17, 1993 in Berlin ) was a German literary scholar and university lecturer in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). From 1969 to 1988 she was a full professor at the Humboldt University (HU) Berlin and stood out primarily with her work on the work of Thomas Mann .

Life

Diersen, daughter of a commercial employee , moved to Berlin in 1939 after graduating from elementary school . In the same year she became a member of the National Socialist Association of German Girls (BDM). After the end of World War II put Diersen 1947, the High School and began a study of German and history at the Humboldt University Berlin. Here she was a student of Wilhelm Heise .

From 1949 to 1953 she was a research assistant at the Philosophical Faculty of the HU. In 1950/51 she took part in a course for Germanists in Weimar led by Gerhard Scholz and graduated in 1952 . In 1953 she became an aspirant , then a research assistant at the German Institute of HU Berlin. 1954 Diersen was with the thesis "Studies on the question of realism in the work of Thomas Mann with special reference to the representation of the relationship between artist and society" at Alfred Kantorowicz and Leopold Magon doctorate .

From 1954 to 1959 Diersen was a habilitation aspirant and lecturer. In March 1956 she joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). From 1959 to 1964 Diersen was a lecturer for the latest German literature at the HU Berlin . In 1963 she completed her habilitation with the thesis "Socialist Epic and National Content - Monograph of the Development of Creativity by Anna Seghers 1928-1935" and from 1965 to 1969 she was a professor with a teaching position in the field of Latest German Literature. From October 1965 to March 1968 she was acting director of the German Institute of the HU. In September 1969 she was appointed full professor “for socialist German literature” at the HU Berlin.

At the end of the 1960s, Diersen came increasingly into conflict with the party and state leadership in the GDR because they advocated critical authors. There were ideological disputes about works by Volker Braun , Werner Bräunig , Günter de Bruyn and, in particular, about Christa Wolf's story “ Thinking about Christa T. ”. In 1970, after party proceedings, Diersen was forcibly “delegated” to the Bitterfeld Chemical Combine for a year on “study leave ”, where she worked as a research assistant in the cultural field. Diersen extended this activity for another two years at his own request. During this time she worked on a second book on Thomas Mann.

In 1973 Diersen returned to the HU Berlin and became a professor again. In 1976 she gave a guest lecture at the University of Paris VIII . In 1988 she finished her university career.

Diersen was not married and had no children.

Works (selection)

• Inge Diersen: Investigations on Thomas Mann: The meaning of the artist's representation for the development of realism in his narrative work. Berlin 1959.
• Inge Diersen: Seghers studies: interpretations of works from the years 1926 - 1935. A contribution to development problems of the modern German epic. Berlin 1965.
• Inge Diersen: Thomas Mann: Epic work, worldview, life. Berlin and Weimar 1975.

literature

• Christiane Baumann:  Diersen, Inge . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Inge Diersen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inge Diersen on: www.hu-berlin.de , 2014.
2. ↑ Dorit Müller, The Narrative Researcher Inge Diersen (1927-1993). A contribution to the history of the conflict in GDR German studies  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   , In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik , Peter Lang Verlag, 2010.