Peter Hirche

Peter Hirche (born June 2, 1923 in Görlitz ; † August 1, 2003 ) was a German writer and radio play author .

Life

Hirche was born the son of an insurance statistician in Görlitz. He grew up in Beethovenstraße on the right bank of the Neisse (in today's Polish Zgorzelec ) and graduated from the Augustum grammar school . He portrayed the biology teacher Paul Gatter , who was imprisoned in the concentration camp in 1933 and suspended from service (due to the law on the restoration of the professional civil service ) , as Dr. Theißen in his radio play Close to Death .

Hirche was a soldier from 1941 to 1945, was wounded several times and was eventually taken prisoner. After the war he managed to get by in various professions and settled in Berlin in 1949 as a freelance writer and translator.

In 1952 he married Ursula Haupt, with whom he had a daughter Gabriele.

Radio and television author

In 1953 he became known to a wider public through the radio play "The Strangest Love Story in the World" (produced by the NWDR and directed by Gustav Burmester ). He was particularly valued for his dialogues, constructed according to musical principles, in which he explores the problems of everyday people in the post-war period in a very reserved manner.

In a lecture on April 26, 1966 under the title Speech of the author on the radio play , he also dealt theoretically with the radio play.

He himself described the radio play Lehmann as his most successful work.

For television he wrote: The Dreamers (1961), A Failed Existence (1965) and Lost Life (1976).

In 1995, Vicinity of Death was performed as a staged reading in the Görlitz City Theater in the presence of the author .

Other works

Peter Hirche wrote the plays for the theater: Triumph in 1000 Jahre (1955) describes the psychology of a Nazi officer in World War II; he also wrote The Sons of Proteus (1960) and Zero (1963).

Hirche's lyrics and libretti were set to music by Joe Edwards ( Bim-Bam-Bus - the trees tick in the jungle , 1950), Franz Grothe ( Janos , 1950), Werner Eisbrenner ( The silver waltz - Die Sehnsucht plays me on silver strings , 1953) and by Charles Nowa ( Silver Horse - Dreams ride on little silver horses , 1953).

He also translated the hit Das Lied von Capri (1950) by Mischa Spoliansky , the musical Kipps by David Heneker based on the novel by HG Wells (original title of the adaptation: Half a Sixpence , 1963), by George Tabori Pinkville (1972) and Joseph Hellers Catch-22 (1973).

At an advanced age, Peter Hirche wrote political-satirical poems, some of which were published in magazines under the collective title Likketappe and Funkeldunc .

Awards

• In 1955 Hirche won the Prix ​​Italia for “Die Heimkehr” (director: Oskar Nitschke ) .
• In 1956 he received the Gerhart Hauptmann Prize of the Freie Volksbühne Berlin for “Triumph in a thousand years”.
• In 1966 he received the war blind radio play award for “Miserere” (director: Oswald Döpke ) .
• 1967 Czechoslovak Radio Prize for "Miserere"
• 1976 Eichendorff Prize

Works (selection)

• Sherlock Holmes is giving away a thousand pounds. Radio play, original broadcast 1950, directed by Paul Land
• The Westwick sisters. Radio play, original broadcast 1950, director: not known
• The smile of eternity. Radio play, first broadcast 1953, directed by Hanns Korngiebel
• The strangest love story in the world. Radio play, first broadcast 1953, directed by Gustav Burmester
• Praise for waste. Radio play, original broadcast 1954, directed by Ludwig Cremer
• Homecoming. Radio play, original broadcast 1955, director: Fritz Schröder-Jahn (that. On April 13, 1955 by SDR under the title Die Heimkehr , director: Oskar Nitschke)
• Triumph in a thousand years. Radio play, original broadcast 1956, directed by Curt Goetz-Pflug
• Near death, radio play. Original broadcast 1958, directed by Fritz Schröder-Jahn
• Have appeared to the reception. Radio play, original broadcast 1960, directed by Fritz Schröder-Jahn
• The unfinished. Radio play, original broadcast 1961, directed by Fritz Schröder-Jahn
• Lehmann. Radio play, original broadcast 1962, director: Friedhelm Ortmann (SDR); Fritz Schröder-Jahn (NDR) (Both versions were broadcast on October 24, 1962)
• The lost one. Radio play, first broadcast in 1963
• Miserere. Radio play, original broadcast 1965, directed by Oswald Döpke
• Mixed feelings. Radio play, original broadcast 1967, directed by Fritz Schröder-Jahn
• I don't want to be next. Radio play, first broadcast in 1967
• The disease and the medicine. Radio play, original broadcast 1967, directed by Raoul Wolfgang Schnell
• Magic and telephoned theater. Radio play, first broadcast in 1967
• Zero. Radio play, original broadcast 1969, directed by Hans Gerd Krogmann

Printed editions

• Near death . Afterword by Maria Sommer. Hans Bredow Institute , Hamburg 1958 (series of Hörwerke der Zeit 12/13); that. English edition: Near death. A radio play. Ed. Anna Otten; Odyssey Press, New York 1966
• The sons of Lord Proteus. In: Young German Theater of Today. Kipphardt, Hirche, Asmodi, Dorst, Hey, Ahlsen. Ed. V. Joachim Schondorff. With a foreword by Joachim Kaiser . Langen-Müller, Munich 1961
• The homecoming . Love story of the world . Two radio plays. Reclam, Stuttgart 1967
• The return home. Reclam, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-15-008782-1 .

literature

• Erich Worbs: Peter Hirche, a Silesian radio play author. In: Schlesien 10 (1965), volume 1., p. 62 f.
• Reinhard Döhl : To Peter Hirche's homecoming . (Broadcasting feature.) Web resource
• I only write bad, bad, bad poems. Peter Hirche. Interview in: Vole. School newspaper of the Joliot-Curie-Gymnasium in Görlitz No. 17 (June 1995), pp. 22-25.

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Hirche in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Hirche in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. I only write bad, bad, bad poems. Peter Hirche. Interview in: Vole. School newspaper of the Joliot-Curie-Gymnasium in Görlitz No. 17 (June 1995), p. 24.
2. ↑ See a selection ibid, p. 25.