Walter E. Richartz

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Walter Erich Richartz (born May 14, 1927 in Hamburg ; † February 3, 1980 in Klingenberg am Main ), officially Walter Erich Freiherr Karg von Bebenburg since adoption by his stepfather in 1942 , was a German chemist and writer .

Life

Walter Erich Richartz was the son of Corvette Captain Karl Richarz (1887–1966). Until 1944 he lived in Stuttgart , Vaihingen an der Enz and Weilheim . As a soldier in the Wehrmacht, he took part in the final phase of the Second World War and became a prisoner of war . From 1946 he studied chemistry at the Technical University of Munich and from 1952 at the University of Hamburg , where he received his doctorate in natural sciences in 1955 . He was then a research assistant and stayed from 1957 to 1960 in the USA at the Department of Chemistry at Ohio State University . After his return to the Federal Republic of Germany , he worked in a research laboratory in a chemical industry company .

As a chemist, Richartz has been working as a laboratory manager in the pharmaceuticals department of Degussa AG in Frankfurt (Chemiewerk Homburg) since 1961, with a focus on drug synthesis with the synthesis of trisubstituted pyridines . He succeeded in synthesizing flupirtine , an analgesic that was brought onto the market by the then Asta Medica AG (formerly Chemiewerk Homburg), a subsidiary of Degussa AG and marketed under the trade name Katadolon until 2018 . Richartz held several patents.

Walter E. Richartz had been a freelance writer since 1979. He committed suicide at the beginning of February 1980 in Klingenberg am Main. The dead person was found a month later.

plant

Walter E. Richartz emerged primarily with realistically narrated and satirical works, in which he describes the scientific business with which he is familiar and the everyday work of employees. He also worked as a translator from English . Richartz was a member of the German PEN center.

As a natural scientist, following Ernst Bloch's “Spirit of Utopia” in his scientific essay “Plea for the Utopian in Science” (1971) , the author criticized the “continued impoverishment of forms of perception” in all “positivist” sciences, “for the openness of Science and its intermediaries against all creative possibilities ”and the“ language technique of the ´tongue in cheek´ ”for the production of ambiguities and ambiguities for the production of texts in the“ floating state [...] between fiction and reality [...] in the ´utopian state ´ "remembers the" unimaginable [...] as a peculiarity of the true utopia "with the aim of the" full development of all possibilities of thinking and imagination "in science, literature and art (cf." Forward to Paradise. Essays on Literature and Science “, Zurich 1979: 128 ff., Here especially 166–187).

Books

  • The jazz discotheque (as "Walter von Bebenburg", with Gernot W. Elmenhorst). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1961
  • It works . Hermit Press, Stierstadt im Taunus 1964
  • Mother's womb, fatherlands (with Arno Waldschmidt ). Hermit Press, Stierstadt im Taunus, 1965
  • My promising prospects . Diogenes, Zurich 1966
  • Trials of a good son . Diogenes, Zurich 1966
  • Death to the doctors . Diogenes, Zurich 1969
  • Noface - take what you need . Diogenes, Zurich 1973
  • Office novel . Diogenes, Zurich 1976
  • Life as a detour and other stories . Diogenes, Zurich 1976
  • The dropout . Diogenes, Zurich 1979
  • Forward to paradise . Diogenes, Zurich 1979
  • Reiters western science. Zurich 1980
  • Tunnel texts . Patio, Frankfurt am Main 1981
  • ... also such a big block . Patio, Neu-Isenburg 1983
  • From the extreme . Diogenes, Zurich 1986
  • Brave new world of animals . Haffmans, Zurich 1987
  • Eterna . Patio, Dreieich 2005
  • It works . Patio, Dreieich 2007

Radio plays

Translations

Editing

  • Shakespeare's Stories, Volume 1 . Retold by Walter E. Richartz. Diogenes, Zurich 1978
  • Three-line . An anthology (with Karl Riha ). Patio, Frankfurt am Main 1978
  • The youth are beautiful when the times are good . Prose and poetry (with Heinrich Droege). Athenaeum, Königstein im Taunus 1980

literature

  • Gregor doctor: Walter E. Richartz. About literary and scientific knowledge . Igel, Paderborn 1995 (Diss. FU Berlin 1994), ISBN 3-927104-95-7 .
  • Uwe Herms : Nobody knows you anymore when you're done . In: die horen , 30. Jg., Vol. 3/1985, Edition 139, pp. 42–46.
  • Harald Wieser : Noface. The writer Walter E. Richartz. In (ders.): Of masks and people II. Essais and affairs . Haffmans, Zurich 1991, pp. 12-23, ISBN 3-251-01082-4 .
  • Double talents: Günter Grass & Walter E. Richartz / Homage and Memorial . In: die horen , Vol. 3/2007, issue 227 (texts by Walter E. Richartz and articles about him by Uwe Herms, Pitt von Bebenburg, Karl Riha, Tatjana Hauptmann, Wil Frenken , Urs Widmer, Gerd Haffmans, Sven Hanuschek, Heiko Postma / Dieter Fringeli / Gert Ueding, Robert Stauffer, Werner Klippert, Heribert Offermanns, Bernd Kebelmann , Wolfgang Frühwald, Michael Schulte and Gottfried Erb).
  • Heribert Offermanns: WERichartz, W. Von Bebenburg - writers and chemists . In: Chemistry in Our Time . tape 46 , no. 3 , 2012, p. 158–159 , doi : 10.1002 / ciuz.201200591 .
  • Sven Hanuschek: Walter E. Richartz . In: Chemistry in Our Time . tape 46 , no. 3 , 2012, p. 160–166 , doi : 10.1002 / ciuz.201200556 .
  • Grelczak, Gebhard: WHO? - narrative everyday surrealism in Walter E. Richartz '“Reiters Westliche Wissenschaft” (1980) and “Noface - Take what you need” (1973). In: Hanuschek, Sven, and Margit Dirscherl (eds.): Everyday surrealism: literature, theater, film. Edition text and criticism, München 2012. S. 93–119.
  • Grelczak, Gebhard: Texts are not linear: for the (electronic) edition of the America-Diaries 1957-60 by Walter E. Richartz. Munich 2017 (dissertation, LMU Munich 2013), available online at https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/20880/ .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Richartz, Walter E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richartz, Walter Erich (maiden name); Karg von Bebenburg, Walter Erich Freiherr; WHO
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1980
Place of death Klingenberg am Main