Inge Jens

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Inge Jens and Walter Jens with Josef Tal at the Academy of Arts (2004)

Inge Jens (born February 11, 1927 in Hamburg as Inge Puttfarcken ; † December 23, 2021 in Tübingen ) was a German literary scholar and journalist .

Life

Inge Puttfarcken was born in 1927 as the oldest of four children of a chemist. Her father was a member of the SS . She studied German, English and pedagogy in Hamburg and Tübingen and did her doctorate with a thesis on the expressionist novella (1954). She worked as a freelancer for broadcasters and publishers and as a lecturer at the University of Tübingen . She gained recognition through her work as an editor. Among other things, she edited the letters from Thomas Mann to Ernst Bertram (1960), edited the letters and notes from the estate of Max Kommerell and the letters and notes from the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl. From 1986 to 1996 Inge Jens was in charge of the publication of Thomas Mann's diaries, succeeding Peter de Mendelssohn . Together with her husband Walter Jens , she wrote the bestsellers Frau Thomas Mann and Katia's mother . Her autobiography Incomplete Memories was published in 2009, and in 2016 she published a report on her husband's dementia under the title Slow Disappearance .

In addition to working with writers, Inge Jens also published the diaries of the chanson and operetta composer Ralph Benatzky in 2002 , which she discovered in the archive of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. She said of the diaries that they were “not inferior to those of Thomas Mann as a literary achievement (...)”. She is particularly interested in the project to look at the exile issue from a musical perspective. The volumes published under the title Triumph und Tristesse formed the basis for a four-part NDR broadcast. Excerpts from it have been published under the title The Diaries of Dr. Ralph Benatzky published as an audio book.

Inge Jens was a member of the PEN Center Germany .

Inge Jens was married to Walter Jens (1923–2013) from 1951 . The couple had two sons together, the journalist Tilman Jens (1954-2020) and the television editor Christoph Jens (* 1965). Inge Jens died in December 2021 at the age of 94 in Tübingen, where she had lived from the late 1940s.

Awards

Publications

conversations

  • Thomas Grimm , Manfred Mayer: Conversation with Inge Jens and Walter Jens. In: Sense and Form. Issue 3, 2007, pp. 370-377.
  • Moritz Aisslinger and Malte Henk: How did they get the idea to keep the women silent? Inge Jens, the 94-year-old author and widow of Walter Jens, looks back on her life in an interview. In: ZEIT DOSSIER, DIE ZEIT No. 44, October 28, 2021, pp. 15-17.

Movies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inge Jens has died , tagblatt.de, accessed on December 23, 2021
  2. ↑ Hubert Spiegel : A place in one's own life , in: FAZ, July 17, 2009
  3. ↑ A Kakanier in New York: Conversation with Inge Jens. In: Ulrich Tadday (Ed.): In the White Horse Inn. Between art and commerce. Music Concepts 133/134.
  4. ^ Thomas Mann Medal October 8, 1995, laudation by Herbert Lehnert
  5. ↑ Mrs. Walter Jens. In: Grimmchronik: Remembrance as responsibility. March 10, 2021, accessed on April 27, 2021 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Jens, Inge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Puttfarcken, Inge (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German literary scholar and journalist
BIRTH DATE February 11, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Tubingen