Werner Mittenzwei

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Werner Mittenzwei (born August 7, 1927 in Limbach ; † February 14, 2014 in Berlin ) was a German theater and literary scholar .

Life

After studying pedagogy, German and social sciences , Mittenzwei became an assistant at the German University of Music in Berlin in 1953 . Mittenzwei was a member of the SED and made a career in it as a literary scholar. From 1956 to 1966 he was a member of the SED at the party's own institute for social sciences on the SED's central committee. He started as an aspirant and worked as a lecturer after completing his doctorate in 1960. After his habilitation, he was appointed professor of literary theory at the same institute in 1964. When the IFG was converted into the Academy for Social Sciences in 1976, Mittenzwei held the post of director of the Central Institute for the History of Literature of the Academy for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED , which was finally incorporated into the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Like the academy, the institute was the responsibility of the Secretariat for Science and Culture at the Central Committee of the SED. The institute, like the academy, was also accountable to the Politburo of the SED. The academy and the institute for social sciences also served to train SED cadres. In the 1970s and 1980s he was a board member and dramaturgist at the Berliner Ensemble (Theater am Schiffbauerdamm), and in 1992 he was a research assistant in the research focus on literary studies.

In 1969 he was appointed a correspondent and in 1972 a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. From 1983 he was a member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR and from 1978 a member of the PEN Center GDR . In 1970 Mittenzwei was awarded the Lessing Prize of the GDR and in 1987 he received the Friedrich Engels Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR .

Werner Mittenzwei was responsible for the multi-volume presentation of the German exile, art and literature in anti-fascist exile 1933–1945 , which appeared from 1978 on behalf of the Central Institute for the History of Literature of the GDR Academy of Sciences and the GDR Academy of Arts. The first volume in this series, The Exile in the Soviet Union , which also includes a foreword by Werner Mittenzweis, was heavily criticized in the Federal Republic, for example in 1996 by the historian Carola Tischler. She accused the presentation of “being unrealistic” because “the presentation, however meritorious the compilation of the individual facts was,” suffered “from a party-bound perspective”. "By leaving out fundamental events, such as the terror for exile in the Soviet Union", the "judgments and evaluations are in many cases doubtful".

Mittenzwei presented numerous studies on aesthetics and the history of drama . As a Brecht researcher, he gained international renown. He was co-editor of the Great Commentated Berlin and Frankfurt Edition and author of an extensive biography of Brecht. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht considers Mittenzwei's 1986 biography of Brecht to be his most important book. In the middle of 2001 published representation Die intellectuals. Literature and politics in East Germany from 1945–2000 met with some positive feedback.

Werner Mittenzwei was married to the historian Ingrid Mittenzwei , who died in 2012, and lived in Bernau near Berlin .

Works (selection)

  • Bertolt Brecht. From the "Measure" to "The Life of Galileo" , Berlin 1962
  • Design and creation in modern drama , Berlin and Weimar 1965
  • Viewpoints. on the development of Georg Lukács' position on literary theory . in: Dialogue and controversy with Georg Lukács : the methodological dispute of German socialist writers. Edited on behalf of the Research Group 3 Academy of Sciences of the GDR and the Central Institute for the History of Literature by Werner Mittenzwei, Leipzig 1975
  • Brecht and the fates of material aesthetics , in: Brecht's Tui Criticism, Argument-Sonderband 11, Karlsruhe 1976, pp. 175–212
  • As co-editor: Art and literature in anti-fascist exile 1933–1945: Volume 1-VII . Edited on behalf of the Central Institute for the History of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Ludwig Hoffmanns for the Academy of Arts of the GDR and Wolfgang Kießling and Eike Middell . Reclam, Berlin from 1978. Published by Röderberg Verlag in the Federal Republic of Germany.
    • As author: Werner Mittenzwei, exile in Switzerland . Series Art and Literature in Anti-Fascist Exile 1933–1945, Volume 2 . Leipzig 1978, in the FRG Röderberg Verlag, Frankfurt 1979, ISBN 3-87682-469-9 .
  • The fate of the German theater in exile 1933–1945 , Berlin 1978.
  • The life of Bertolt Brecht or dealing with the world riddles , 2 volumes, Berlin and Weimar (Aufbau Verlag) 1986; Frankfurt / M. (Suhrkamp Verlag) 1987
  • Brecht as the subject of the biography , Berlin 1988
  • Bertolt Brecht: Large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt editions . (edited by Werner Mittenzwei and others), Berlin a. Frankfurt / M. 1988-2000
  • The fall of an academy or the mentality of the Eternal German. The Influence of the National Conservative Poets at the Prussian Academy of the Arts 1918 to 1947 Berlin and Weimar 1992, 2nd edition Leipzig: Faber & Faber, 2003 (slightly changed title). ISBN 3-936618-17-8
  • The intellectuals. Literature and Politics in East Germany from 1945–2000 . Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2001. ISBN 3-932545-74-5
  • Twilight. In search of the meaning of a bygone era. A culture-critical autobiography. With a chapter by Ingrid Mittenzwei . Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2004. ISBN 3-936618-41-0
  • Edited with Christine Moser: The Brocken legend: A German mentality mirror . Christine Moser comments on the papers left by the Swiss scholar Tobias Bitterli. Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2007. ISBN 3-936618-41-0

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death report
  2. ↑ Ulrich Schacht : A Case by Murti-Bing - On Werner Mittenzwei's attempt to reconstruct a GDR that never existed . In The Political Opinion , 1/2005, No. 422, pp. 69–75; accessed on February 15, 2014 (pdf; 157 kB).
  3. ↑ Lothar Mertens : Rote Denkfabrik - the academy for social sciences at the Central Committee of the SED. Münster 2004, ISBN 9783825880347 , p. 53.
  4. ↑ Carola Tischler: Escape into Persecution - German Emigrants in Soviet Exile: 1933 to 1945 . Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-3034-9 , page 9.
  5. ↑ Carola Tischler: Escape into Persecution - German Emigrants in Soviet Exile: 1933 to 1945 . Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-3034-9 , page 9.
  6. ↑ Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht: Review of: Mittenzwei, Werner: Die intellektuellen. Literature and Politics in East Germany 1945 - 2000. Leipzig 2001, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 6, 2001, No. 258 / page L14
  7. ↑ Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht: Review of: Mittenzwei, Werner: Die intellektuellen. Literature and Politics in East Germany 1945 - 2000. Leipzig 2001, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 6, 2001, No. 258 / page L14
  8. ↑ Gerd Dietrich: Review of: Mittenzwei, Werner: Die intellektuellen. Literature and Politics in East Germany 1945 - 2000. Leipzig 2001, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, April 17, 2002
personal data
SURNAME Middle two, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Limbach (Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 2014
Place of death Berlin