Uwe Greßmann

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Uwe Greßmann (born May 1, 1933 in Berlin ; † October 30, 1969 in Berlin) was a German poet . It is considered the poète maudit of the GDR .

life and work

Uwe Greßmann spent his childhood in various orphanages and with changing foster parents. After completing elementary school, he began an apprenticeship as an electrician, but had to break it off after a short time due to severe tuberculosis . He spent the years from 1949 to 1954 in clinics and sanatoriums and was therefore unable to continue teaching or start studying at the ABF . From 1954 he worked as a fitter in a private company in Berlin, from 1958 at the HO-Gaststätten Berlin Mitte, first as a messenger, later as a mail handler. At the end of the 1960s he was suspended from work and lived as a freelance writer and translator in Berlin.

Greßmann was a literary autodidact, there are reports of his excessive reading work. In 1961 the first poems appeared in the literary magazine NDL , followed by further publications in magazines and anthologies. He was particularly supported by Adolf Endler , who campaigned for him at institutions, newspapers and publishers. 1966 His poetry collection was published as the only independent publication during his lifetime Greßmanns The bird spring , which by Elke Erb in meaning and form was discussed very positive and the author finally become one of the most important voices of the poetry of his time became. Greßmann was still able to prepare his second volume of poetry, Das Sonnenauto , which was published posthumously in 1972. Holger J. Schubert put together a third volume of poetry, Legendary Creatures , from the estate. Richard Pietraß obtained further editions from the extensive estate that is in the literary archive of the Akademie der Künste zu Berlin in 1978 in the series Poesiealbum (issue 126) he oversees and in 1982 with Lebenskünstler , an extensive selection of works and materials on the author at Reclam Leipzig (one second, expanded edition appeared in 1992). Under the title Schilda complex published Andreas Koziol 1998 printing house Galrev one handed down in the archive probate compilation of texts that the East German state in adaptation of known Schilda satirical seriously hold -Anekdoten the mirror. As Koziol notes in his editorial afterword, this bundle was stolen from the archive by an unknown hand at the beginning of the 1970s, shortly after the estate was secured, and returned there under circumstances that could not be verified.

Although he remained an outsider in the literary business of his time and only published a single volume of poetry during his lifetime, Greßmann's work was of great importance for his contemporaries and also for the following generation of East German poets in particular. His way of writing is still unique today. A complete edition of his - many of which have remained fragments - works is still pending.

In 2012 a memorial stele for Uwe Greßmann was erected in the Pankow III cemetery.

Works

  • The spring bird. Poems, Mitteldeutscher Verlag , Halle (Saale) 1966 (2nd edition 1967).
  • The sun car. Poems. With an essay by Uwe Greßmann. Edited and with an afterword by Holger J. Schubert, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 1972.

Works from the estate

Grave of Uwe Greßmann in a cemetery in Berlin-Pankow

Secondary literature

  • Adolf Endler: The world of Uwe Greßmann , in: ders., Nebbich. A German career , Göttingen 2005.
  • Elke Erb: This and that naivety , in: Sinn und Form, Issue 2/1968, pp. 516-520. (A comparison of the poetry debuts by Uwe Greßmann and Reinhard Weisbach).
  • Wolfgang Ertl: Nature and landscape in the poetry of the GDR: Walter Werner, Wulf Kirsten and Uwe Gressmann. Stuttgart Theses on German Studies Vol. 109, Stuttgart 1982.
  • Peter Geist: The poet Uwe Greßmann. For profiling the artistic subjectivity and guidelines for his work. Diploma thesis 1979 (unpubl.).
  • Peter Geist: Uwe Greßmann , in: Ursula Heukenkamp / Peter Geist (eds.), German-language poets of the 20th century , Berlin 2006.
  • Thomas Markwart: Art. Greßmann, Uwe , in: Michael Opitz (ed.), Metzler Lexikon der DDR-Literatur , 2009, pp. 112–113.
  • Steffen Popp : Thinking about Uwe Greßmann With information from Adolf Endler and a selection of poems, in: Schreibheft 83, Cologne 09/2014.
  • Kristin Schulz : Uwe Greßmann: the "secret" king of Berlin , in: Roland Berbig (ed.): The Pankow poetry club : literary circles in the GDR , Berlin 2000, pp. 129–149.
  • Jürgen Serke : At home in exile. Poets who remained in the GDR without authorization , Munich 1998, pp. 109–129.
  • Short biography for:  Gressmann, Uwe . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marion Titze : The retouched reality. in: From politics and contemporary history : Reading country GDR. Issue 11/2009, pp. 3–8, here p. 4.
personal data
SURNAME Greßmann, Uwe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1969
Place of death Berlin