Rainer Schedlinski

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Rainer Schedlinski (Berlin, 1989)

Rainer Schedlinski (born November 11, 1956 in Magdeburg ; † September 6, 2019 in Berlin ) was a German poet and essayist . In the GDR he was one of the leading authors of the opposition literary scene in the 1980s and was an unofficial employee in the Ministry for State Security during this time .

Life

Schedlinski grew up in Schleibnitz near Magdeburg as the son of an LPG chairman. His mother worked as a financial accountant. He completed an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk from 1974 to 1976 and began studying plant breeding at a technical college , which he broke off in 1977.

Schedlinski worked a. a. as a stoker, caretaker and finally at the end of the 1970s as an instructor and cultural-political employee of the district film directorate Magdeburg. At the same time he came into contact with the alternative literary scene in Magdeburg, particularly Dietrich Bahß , and began publishing poetry in illegal underground newspapers . In 1981/82 he completed his military service , but was released early for health reasons.

In April 1983 Schedlinski moved to Berlin, where there was a well-organized group within the alternative GDR artist scene in Prenzlauer Berg . After some of their protagonists had left the GDR, the “remaining” rallied more and more around the writer Sascha Anderson as their spiritus rector . This included authors and visual artists such as Stefan Döring , Egmont Hesse , Uwe Kolbe , Leonhard Lorek , Bert Papenfuß-Gorek , Michael Rom and Cornelia Schleime . Schedlinski rose to become one of the catalysts of this avant-garde group. “With their texts, they all wanted to break up forms, to write new and different. They reacted in a disorderly, sometimes chaotic manner to the strictly organized state. "

The strong theoretical interest in this group was noticeable. The French deconstructivists and post-structuralists , whose books were only accessible as illegal imports in the GDR , were particularly popular . From 1986, Schedlinski together with Andreas Koziol published the underground magazine Ariadnefabrik , which developed into the most important theoretical mouthpiece of the unofficial literary scene and until 1989 appeared about four times a year with an edition of about 60 copies each. “We took the title from a poem by Sascha Anderson… What we were looking for for our magazine were theoretical texts that, like poetry, generate their inner movement through the stubbornness of formal processes; who do not actually freeze in thoughts about things, but CONTINUE the facts in themselves in order to create facts themselves and to move language to act. ”The established writer Gerhard Wolf only succeeded in 1988 at the Aufbau-Verlag publishing platform out of series to establish and thus to give these unadapted young authors a public forum. The series was discontinued after the fall of the Wall.

In 1990 he and Sascha Anderson , Henryk Gericke , Egmont Hesse , Andreas Koziol , Klaus Michael and Joerg Waehner were among the founders of the lyric and author publishing house Druckhaus Galrev , which was supposed to serve as the center of the former East German literary avant-garde and which he held until the end of publishing Belonged to shareholders.

Schedlinski died on September 6, 2019 in Berlin after a serious illness.

Activity as IM

In early 1992, the ARD political magazine Kontraste published research results that showed that Schedlinski had been working as an IM for the State Security since 1979 at the latest . Up to this point he had claimed to have withstood all recruitment attempts and only signed "interrogation protocols". According to Der Spiegel, Schedlinski had “delivered denunciatory reports about people, and that in a language that came from the dictionary of the monster.” Schedlinski was - just like Anderson and Ibrahim Böhme  - an “IM new type” Established by the MfS in the 1980s: This was specifically “recruited, built up and smuggled in” and was no longer supposed to smash “anti-republic” groups, but rather dominate them, “re-profile” them and thus “paralyze” them from within. In his role, Schedlinski not only spied on fellow artists, but also wrote reports on organizations and employees of the Protestant and Catholic Churches. Financial interests also played a role in his work: from the winter of 1985/86 he received a fixed monthly agent's fee.

Schedlinski explained about his IM work that he had been undergoing psychiatric treatment for years and even attempted suicide in 1981 while serving in the NVA . “I couldn't withstand the pressure to say more and more”. According to a study by the linguist and literary scholar Alison Lewis, the fact that Schedlinski had already been deconspired in his military service unit and openly accused of being an IM in the Magdeburg literary circles, and that a few months later, he himself contacted the MfS again, speaks against this explanatory model. Schedlinski also justified himself in detail in June 1992 in a long essay in the magazine neue deutsche literature . In it he referred to the MfS as the “antechamber of power”, “with whom it was no longer dishonorable to hang around and for some it was even amusing”. On the other hand, Lutz Rathenow , whom he spied on, stated that authors like Schedlinski had "ultimately delayed the collapse of this ailing system through their disinformation".

Prices

Works

  • Ariadnefabrik (1986–1989) (Ed. And author, together with Andreas Koziol)
  • The rations of yes and no. Poems (1988)
  • Interior views of the GDR. Last pictures from a country as it was (1990)
  • Demolition of the Ariadne factory (1990) (together with Andreas Koziol)
  • The arrogance of powerlessness. Articles and newspaper articles 1989 and 1990 (1991)
  • The Men of Women (1991)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cornelia Geissler: A scene free of self-doubt . In: Berliner Zeitung , October 15, 1997, p. 22
  2. ^ Andreas Koziol, Rainer Schedlinski: Demolition of the Ariadne factory . 1990 (editorial)
  3. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , September 13, 2019, p. 21, available at yumpu.com
  4. ^ Mathias Schreiber: Poet as a Stasi servant . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1992, pp. 185 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Alison Lewis: The Art of Betrayal. Prenzlauer Berg and the State Security . Würzburg 2003, p. 50. Joachim Walther: Security area literature. Writer and State Security in the German Democratic Republic . Berlin 1999, p. 760ff.
  6. ↑ Joachim Walther: Security area literature. Writer and State Security in the German Democratic Republic . Berlin 1999, p. 600 A663, 766ff. Alison Lewis: The Art of Betrayal. Prenzlauer Berg and the State Security . Würzburg 2003, p. 85.
  7. ↑ Rainer Schedlinski: I couldn't withstand the pressure to say more and more . In: FAZ , January 14, 1992, p. 25
  8. ↑ Alison Lewis: The Art of Betrayal. Prenzlauer Berg and the State Security . Würzburg 2003, pp. 75ff., 93ff.
  9. ↑ Rainer Schedlinski: The incompetence of power . In: Neue Deutsche Literatur , 40, 1992, pp. 75-105
  10. ^ Lutz Rathenow : 'The friends as Stasi spies' - The opening of the Gauck authority . In: Contrasts , first broadcast: ARD January 6, 1992 (broadcast manuscript)
personal data
SURNAME Schedlinski, Rainer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 2019
Place of death Berlin