Kurt Turk

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Kurt Türke (born December 19, 1920 in Tauscha , † January 22, 1984 in Radeberg ) was a German writer . He became known for his crime novels and popular books for young people .

Live and act

Kurt Türke was born in 1920 in Tauscha near Königsbrück in the then Grossenhain district . Nothing is known about the father of the child born out of wedlock. The mother served as a maid in mansions. Mother and son rarely saw each other, so he grew up with his grandparents under poor conditions. The grandfather was a forest worker, the grandmother had previously worked on the nearby manor . Kurt Türke attended the village school and, after being released from it, entered various lower employment relationships. At the age of 14 he went to a farmer as an “Easter boy”, as the boys who were employed as agricultural assistants immediately after the legally prescribed schooling period, which ended at Easter, was called. In protest against this "servitude" he intentionally injured himself with the knife of a mower and returned to his grandparents.

He then became an errand boy for a glassware dealer. During this time, the first poetic attempts with publication efforts fell, but none of them fit the profile of the village- agriculturally oriented small town newspaper. Next he earned a fair amount of money as a stone knocker for cobblestones on the local streets. The needy was also driven back into agriculture, where he harvested potatoes in the fields of the manor. He also helped his uncle, who was a roofer. After two months he gave up a "higher job" as a labor service leader in the totalitarianism of the National Socialists because he did not like wearing the uniform. After that he was still a magazine advertiser in the Ore Mountains and finally an office assistant. In between he continued to unsuccessfully write smaller works.

In August 1939 he had to start his military service in the Wehrmacht ; he was used as a driver. Wounded several times, he found time in the hospital to write short stories and mood descriptions and send them home. There was interest in these reports and royalties were paid. He suffered the most serious wound in the rank of non-commissioned officer in the Soviet Union in 1943 . When the German defeat became apparent, he decided to desert and flee home.

From 1945 Turk was a freelance writer and wrote short stories , short stories and poems . Before the end of the war he published mainly in the Neue Heide-Zeitung , after the war it was mainly the wider Sächsische Zeitung , Lausitzer Rundschau and Die Schatulle that accepted his offers. In 1949 his first major work was published, the contemporary novel Wolfszeit . It is about the quiet, restrained love story of a Wehrmacht deserter in the last years of the war in still undestroyed Dresden . Another contemporary novel , which appeared in the same year and is called Traces of Misery , is about war returnees , prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases . A medical epilogue closes the novel .

In 1950, the year his expulsion novel was published (or, as it was called in GDR jargon: “Resettler novel”), “ Tor der Hope” , Kurt Türke settled in Radebeul near Dresden. He lived and worked in the Niederlößnitz district in Jagdweg 1 in the immediate vicinity of the Lößnitzgrund . In April 1952 he was accepted into the GDR Writers' Association.

A description of the difficult country life between the world wars and the clashes between communists and fascists up to the building of socialism in the Soviet-occupied zone , largely based on personal experience, appeared in 1954 under the title Reflection of the Years . The development novel emerged from a short story that was expanded again and again, the first version of which was still called "Rotkopf" in 1944. In the detective novel Schweigegeld , published in 1957, he dealt with the rulership structures under which his family had to live and which persisted in the minds of the disenfranchised "master people" after the large estates were smashed. The plot is based on the real case of a big farmer's son who murdered a working-class girl who was pregnant by him. Despite the fact that the case was well known, in a preliminary remark, Turk rejected the identity with real events and people. Schweigegeld was published as a serial novel in the farmer's echo and achieved large editions as a book. In addition to the debut in the crime fiction genre , in the same year it also served for the first time the segments “ youth literature ” and “cheerful”. The youth novel dangerous friendship , in which a twelve-year-old boy decides against participating in the German young people during the Nazi era after his father had been treated roughly and brutally by fascists , was later continued under the title Herzklopfen in der Nacht . The narrative Der Kleinlaute Eroberer is a variant of the well-known subject "Old man makes a mockery of himself by falling in love with young stage artists".

The non-party Kurt Türke was delegated by the Writers' Association to the Riesa steel and rolling mill around 1960 . There he wrote the diary sheets Experienced sweat is different . He portrayed the workers' disinterest in culture, politics and Soviet achievements. What he should have seen was socialist community work and the new working class that had risen to become the ruling class . After a discussion in the Writers' Union "[Turk] overcame his wrong point of view".

Between 1965 and 1970 he wrote detective novels and books for young people, in 1973 the Nazi resistance novel Firestruck on a Skull - and with Raubgrund in 1974 the combination of young people's book and detective novel to a youth crime story.

The divorce in 1975 from his wife, with whom he had two children, hit him mentally. He withdrew from the public eye, received psychiatric treatment at the Arnsdorf Specialist Hospital , attempted suicide and died in 1984 in the Radeberg hospital.

reception

Wolf time

The overall assessment was rather negative: René Schwachhofer found that the novel was essentially "determined by a strongly naturalistic coloring". Georg Rahm said that the shaping of human destinies seems constructed.

Traces of misery

The Leipziger Börsenblatt for the German book trade discussed the book as follows: “The story is psychologically correct and humanly convincing in the form of a self-talk that begins after an examination in the venerological outpatient clinic that results in the diagnosis of syphilis . It is captivating and vividly written and accurately reflects the patient's state of mind before and after healing, without it becoming a mere report of the illness. "

The gate of hope

Schwachhofer and Rahm related their findings regarding Wolfszeit to this novel about the loss of the farm through the billeting of a displaced family in May 1945. The solutions offered are too smooth and pleasing, according to the review of the Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel .

Reflection of the years

There are positive and negative voices for this. Rahm wrote that Turk had mastered the development of his protagonist's path of fate this time and was thus able to “reveal the reflection of the years of this one person”, which makes the novel “significant”. Childhood and youth are told "epically broadly, with the help of characterizing and milieu-describing details". The reader experiences his “ fight before Moscow ” as if he were there himself. Only the time of the returnees, who, as a refined person, encounters firmly anchored old ideas and opinions, does not bind in the same way. The omission consists in the "secret" manner in which he became a communist in captivity . This creates the shortcoming of an "artistically insufficiently motivated assertion". At the end, Rahm criticized the reporting style , which draws the protagonist's attention too much on society. All in all, Rahm summarized , the book represents “a step forward in his work and in all of our contemporary literature”.

"The characters in his novel are as simple and uncomplicated as Kurt Türke's narrative, and the reader can easily understand their thoughts and actions," says Heinz Kormann's review. The plot is "built up logically" and "exciting, without the tension appearing constructed or artificial. However, the representation of the individual figures does not always go beyond the stencil-like and often lacks the necessary profiling. "Finally, he confirms the reporting style defined by Rahm:" The initially very broad, detailed description narrows more and more and is above all in the last part often only a sober factual report. "

In his detailed analysis, Schwachhofer first went into the structure. "[T] rotz considerable compositional deficiencies" the change in consciousness of the protagonist, who shows "strongly autobiographical traits" of the author, becomes visible. The first part, which takes place in the village, begins with an "epic breadth", depictions of the situation would slide by one after the other as in chronicles . The middle section is "self-contained and artistically powerfully executed", written down with fiery enthusiasm, yet factual, incorruptible and stirring. The third part, back in the village, “probably doesn't have the precision of the middle section”, appears “but compositionally more relaxed, clearer and clearer [...] than the first part”. Schwachhofer continued his criticism: “The author has undoubtedly taken over in a purely material sense, which has such an effect that some processes are only fixed without really gaining any vivid, vivid expression. In addition to the well-designed, there is also some unformed, just as roughly roughly hewn. ”Finally, he turned to the writing style and cited the“ wind-moving sheets ”on the November day described above as an example of discrepancies. In his opinion, such carelessness testified to the driven nature of the author and insufficient control over the text.

Günter Ebert ( Berliner Zeitung ) considered Reflection of the Years for a development novel “in the classical measure” to be deficient.

According to Meyers Taschenlexikon: Writers of the GDR, the book is one of the two most important publications by Turkey.

Hush money

Turkish crime novel Schweigegeld was well received in the press . The positive reviews slightly outweighed this.

For Karl-Heinz Hombach from Volksstimme Karl-Marx-Stadt , the book is “not a detective novel in the usual sense”, but rather presents “a piece of contemporary history of developments in the village in our republic”. The plot does not seem constructed at any point, no person is schematic. The language is authentic , the style solid, the descriptions of the landscape and places vivid.

The reviewer of the Free Press , who drew “GM”, found the novel clear and exciting . As a key point he emphasized: "The reader gets to know the morality of the former ruling class and despises them."

The unnamed author of the book review in the Norddeutsche Neuesten Nachrichten wrote: “So Turk shapes life, real life that surrounds us, and the value of his book can only be measured by the authenticity, not the photographic accuracy with which he succeeds . ”The fact that the perpetrator is never beyond doubt has an effect, he continued,“ neither on the pace of the plot nor on the interest that it arouses in the reader ”.

Gerhart Dittmann gave a partly positive, partly negative assessment in the Sächsische Zeitung . Style and narrative technique are in order, as are the milieu drawing, but there are deficiencies in the composition, because instead of showing the social conditions and psychological developments that lead to the crime, the Turk offers only the maternal upbringing and the perpetrator's own physiognomy as a background .

The “book recommendation” of the Lausitzer Rundschau is tantamount to advising against it: “An experienced detective writer would have got more out of the subject. A typical detective novel begins with the deed; the search for the perpetrator must keep the reader excited from the first to the last page. Kurt Türke goes the opposite way and thus foregoes the essential moments of tension from the start. "

Paul Bierenheid bothered more than the lack of a culprit. In the New Day he criticized the language that seemed "wooden and artificial" to him. The sometimes elaborate language does not fit the depicted milieu. In general, the farmers are drawn idealized. He also cited style blossoms as an example .

Dangerous friendship

The book, written for young people, was felt to be unsuitable from the point of view of socialism education.

In the literary magazine Neue Deutsche Literatur, Gerhard Holtz-Baumert chalked the book to be too psychological, too little combative for the concerns of the socialist cultural scene .

After words of praise for an action that managed "without cheap, sensational exaggerations" along with understandable, descriptive and beautiful expressions, Siegfried Stöbe complained in Neues Deutschland that the target group could only understand the depth of the conflict of those days if they "understand the exclusive truth of our Marxist view - and behavior clearly made clear ”. That was "not yet completely successful in this work".

The meek conqueror

Gerhart Dittmann complained that the Turk had "forfeited part of the effect and success in the structure of the fable" by "allowing his hero to become politically conscious of these little human follies quite violently". In addition, “the relevance to time for this entertaining narrative is too constructed in some places and inappropriately accumulated”. The already undemanding story is stylistically inconsistent. “In addition to delicious scenes and phrases” there are “places where the author seems to lack the light hand, where the word does not flow freely enough”.

Palpitations at night

In the youth narrative, a boy in the time of fascism decides to help an escaped concentration camp prisoner . The same conscientious decision to be for or against the National Socialists was what Türke later turned to with the adult novel Firebreak on a Skull . The Lexicon Writer of the GDR , which was published in the GDR , declared the book for young people to be one of the most important works by Turkey.

Later crime novels

The later crime novels such as Mr. R. 's hobby established Türkes reputation for being the author of “psychological detective novels”.

Works

Novels and short stories

  • Wolf time. Novel. Sachsenverlag, Dresden 1949.
  • Traces of misery. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1949.
  • The gate of hope. Novel. Sachsenverlag, Dresden 1950.
  • Reflection of the years. Novel. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1954.
  • Hush money. Detective novel. Publishing house culture and progress, Berlin 1957.
  • Dangerous friendship. Illustrations by Kurt Zimmermann . Children's book publisher, Berlin 1957.
  • The meek conqueror. Narrative. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1957.
  • Tents at the Wilder Adlersloch. The story of a class friendship. Illustrations by Hans Wiegandt. Knabe brothers, Weimar 1960.
  • Palpitations at night. Illustrated by Karl Fischer . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1961.
  • Safe homecoming. Stories from Kautz and elsewhere. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1962.
  • Church haunted. Union Verlag, Berlin 1964.
  • Up to the execution cell (= facts ; part 46). German military publisher, Berlin 1965.
  • The sheep innkeeper (= small storyteller series ; issue 67). German military publisher, Berlin 1965.
  • The hobby of Mr. R. Detective novel. Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1967. (Alternative title: Die Verschwundene )
  • Forays with a poacher (= boy’s youth library ). Illustrations by Hans Wiegandt. Knabe, Weimar 1968.
  • Decision before the end (= series of narrators ; issue 163). German military publisher, Berlin 1970.
  • The end of the poacher (= boy’s youth library ). Illustrations by Hans Wiegandt. Knabe, Weimar 1970.
  • Burst of fire on a skull (= the paperback ). Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1973.
  • Robbery. A crime story. (= Knabes youth library ; 13). Knabe, Weimar 1974.
  • Thief will. Criminal story (= blue light ; 188). Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1978.

Stories in newspapers (selection)

  • The scar over the artery. In: Sächsische Zeitung , Dresden, No. 92/1952 of April 19, 1952.
  • So the pleasure changes. In: Sächsische Zeitung , Dresden, No. 152/1953 of July 4, 1953.
  • Forest fire. Narrative. In: New German Literature. Journal of the German Writers' Association , Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin, No. 9/1954 of September 1954, pp. 41–84.
  • The forgetful. In: Freie Erde , Neubrandenburg, August 29, 1954 (also in: Schweriner Volkszeitung , No. 209/1954 of September 9, 1954).
  • Speculation with plates. In: Thuringian Latest News , No. 66/1955 from March 19, 1955.
  • The question of conscience. In: Bauernecho , No. 126/1956 of June 2, 1956 (also udT Die Cause of Desolation in: Neuer Tag , Frankfurt (Oder), No. 128/1956 of June 3, 1956, and in: Lausitzer Rundschau , Cottbus, No. 134/1956 of June 12, 1956).
  • Paraphrases around a sewing machine. In: Free Word , Suhl, No. 254/1956 of October 27, 1956 (also in: Freie Erde , Neubrandenburg, No. 273/1956 of November 21, 1956, p. 6).
  • Silent Night. In: freedom. Mitteldeutsche Tageszeitung , Halle, No. 300/1956 of December 24, 1956.
  • Two men kneel in front of the Christmas tree. In: Neues Deutschland , No. 302 of December 25, 1956, p. 11 (also in: Schweriner Volkszeitung , No. 299/1956 of December 24, 1956).
  • On the way to Koenigsbrück. Narrative. In: Sunday. Weekly newspaper for culture, politics and entertainment , No. 26/1957 of June 30, 1957, p. 10.
  • As an eavesdropper behind the window. In: Sunday. Weekly newspaper for cultural policy, art and science , No. 42/1961 of October 15, 1961, p. 11.
  • Fear in the Browitzawald. In: Tribune , May 5, 1962.
  • Burst of fire on a skull. In: Sächsische Zeitung , Dresden, October 10, 1973, p. 5 (extract from the novel).

Anecdotes and writing process insights

  • Adventure in one sentence. In: Neue Zeit , No. 161/1953 of July 14, 1953 (also in: Sächsische Zeitung , Dresden, No. 6/1956 of January 7, 1956).
  • My (R) idea. In: Sächsische Zeitung , Dresden, No. 241/1955 of October 15, 1955 (also udT When a writer seeks names in: BZ am Abend , No. 241 of October 15, 1955).
  • Consider the practice from all angles. Diary notes about my work on the story “Church Spook”. In: Neue Zeit , May 23, 1964.

literature

  • Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. City archive, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 .
  • Ulrike Götting: The German crime novel between 1945 and 1970. Forms and tendencies. Kletsmeier, Wetzlar 1998, ISBN 3-930494-38-8 (from 2nd edition: Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-8288-8127-0 ).

Individual evidence

  1. The information “Place of death: Radebeul” on p. 198 of the Radebeul city dictionary has meanwhile been corrected as a typographical error by the Radebeul city archive ; According to Radebeul's residence documents, the place of death is Radeberg.
  2. a b c d e f g h i j blurb on wolf time .
  3. a b c d e f g Vita. Kurt Turk. In: digital.slub-dresden.de. Retrieved March 8, 2020 .
  4. a b c d e f g h i j k l m Siegfried Stephan: Kurt Türke . In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade . No. 2/1955 , January 8, 1955, Our Writer's Portrait of the Week, p. 34 f .
  5. a b His home is the village. The writer Kurt Turk . In: Bauernecho . No. 12/1956 , January 14, 1956.
  6. a b blurb on Safe Homecoming .
  7. a b c d Kathrin Krüger-Mlaouhia: The writer who liked to come to the slaughter festival . Kurt Türke became known in the GDR with crime novels and books for young people. His birthplace is less known. His cousin still lives in Tauscha today. In: saechsische.de. September 23, 2013, accessed March 8, 2020 .
  8. a b Karl-Heinz Hombach: An impressive novel from our days . In: Volksstimme . Organ of the Karl-Marx-Stadt district leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. No. 41/1957 . Karl-Marx-Stadt February 18, 1957, The Book of the Month for February.
  9. a b Kurt Türke: "Schweigegeld" . In: Lausitzer Rundschau . Cottbus March 16, 1957, We recommend new books.
  10. a b H .: Kurt Türke: Schweigegeld . In: North German Latest News . October 18, 1958, Book Week 19–26. October.
  11. Kurt Turk: hush money. Detective novel by Kurt Türke . In: Bauernecho . No. 45/1957 , February 22, 1957 (1st continuation).
  12. ^ A b Siegfried Stöbe: Before the decision . In: New Germany . Organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany . No. 121/1958 , May 24, 1958, supplement: Art and Literature, p. 2 of the supplement .
  13. a b c Gerhart Dittmann: Kurt Turk cheerful and serious . In: Saxon newspaper . No. 27/1958 , February 1, 1958.
  14. ^ Horst Wagner: Conversations with a writer. About overcoming a wrong point of view in a friendly discussion . In: Saxon newspaper . Dresden April 15, 1961.
  15. ^ A b c René Schwachhofer: Kurt Türke: "Reflection of the Years" . In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade . No. 51-52 / 1954 , December 18, 1954.
  16. a b c Georg Rahm: The reflection of our life . In: Daily review . No. 65/1955 , March 18, 1955.
  17. Turk, Kurt: misery tracks . In: Börsenblatt book review [1950?] (Without giving the number).
  18. Turk, Kurt: The Gate of Hope. Novel . In: Börsenblatt book review 1951 . 4th episode - No. 91 .
  19. Heinz Kormann: Kurt Türke, reflection of the years . In: Book Review 1954 . No. 393/1954 .
  20. ^ Günter Ebert: Problem of the development novel. To a novel by Kurt Türke . In: Berliner Zeitung . No. 41/1955 , February 18, 1955, pp. 3 .
  21. ^ A b Günter Albrecht, Kurt Böttcher, Herbert Greiner-Mai , Paul Günter Krohn : Writers of the GDR . Fiction and non-fiction authors, translators, editors, literary scholars, critics. Ed .: Kurt Böttcher, Herbert Greiner-Mai (=  Meyers Taschenlexikon ). 1st edition. VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1974, Turk, p. 567 .
  22. GM: Hush money. Detective novel by Kurt Türke. Publishing house culture and progress Berlin . In: Free Press . Stollberg February 9, 1957, p. 7 .
  23. P [aul] Bierenheid: hush money . In: New day . Frankfurt (Oder) January 11, 1958.
  24. Gerhard Holtz-Baumert: The child reader and his hero . In: German Writer's Association (Hrsg.): New German Literature . Monthly for beautiful literature and criticism. No. 10/1958 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin October 1958, p. 155-157 .
  25. Ulrike Götting: The German crime novel between 1945 and 1970. Forms and tendencies . 1st edition. Kletsmeier, Wetzlar 1998, ISBN 3-930494-38-8 , II. The crime novel of the sixties. 6. Kurt Türke: The psychological detective novel, p. 334-345 ( books.google.com ).

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