Werner Steinberg

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Udo Werner Steinberg (born April 18, 1913 in Neurode , Silesia , † April 25, 1992 in Dessau ) was a German writer who also published under the pseudonyms Udo Grebniets and Udo Grebnitz .

Life

Werner Steinberg was the son of a freight forwarder. Steinberg spent his childhood in Verden / Aller , in Ohlau ( Silesia ) and finally, since his father's death in 1921, in Breslau . From 1929 he attended the upper level of a secondary school . In 1932 he became a member of the Communist Party and the Socialist Student Union and published his first literary works in left-wing magazines. After he graduated from high school in 1933 , he studied pedagogy at the College for Teacher Training in Elbing . While on vacation in Riga, he and a group of friends tried to emigrate to the Soviet Union , but this failed and ended with his expulsion from Latvia . In 1934 Steinberg moved to the college for teacher training in Hirschberg . He founded an illegal group especially with the help of leaflets resistance tried to make against the Nazi regime. In November 1934 Steinberg was arrested by the Gestapo and in August 1935 sentenced to three years in youth prison for preparation for high treason . He served this sentence in Breslau.

After his release from prison in November 1937, he found a job as clerk at the Schlesische Zeitung . In 1938 he married his first wife Gerda Ruth Hoffmann. In February 1939 he switched to the printing company of the Gau-Verlag Lower Silesia , initially as an editor , from 1942 also as a lecturer . In the following years Steinberg was able to publish a number of books in East German publishers , although he was not a member of the Reichsschrifttumskammer . Since he had been retired from the Wehrmacht in 1944 , he managed to flee from Breslau to the West in January 1945, where he and his family initially settled in Reutlingen .

In the first post-war years, Steinberg worked for the Tübinger Schwäbischer Tagblatt and the socialist youth magazine Zukunft . In 1945 he had rejoined the southwest German Communist Party. In 1948 he moved to Stuttgart and married Christa Kunert.

In 1949 he became editor-in-chief of the Schlesische Rundschau , which he left again in 1950. He carried out various activities (including for the school radio and as an external lecturer) and was an employee of the Deutsche Woche and the Franco-German magazine Documents . His friendship with Arno Schmidt also fell in the 1950s . Having since 1953 contributions to the in Dusseldorf appearing German People's Daily had delivered, he moved in 1955 with his third wife Erna to Dusseldorf. In addition to his journalistic work, Steinberg wrote novels , the publication of which in the Federal Republic often turned out to be problematic or was rejected. In the spring of 1956 the author suffered a nervous breakdown . After the KPD was banned in August 1956, Steinberg decided to move to the GDR . In December 1956 he arrived in Leipzig .

In the GDR, Steinberg received such favorable conditions from his publishers that he could concentrate on working on his novels. Despite occasional criticism on the part of the SED of his creative means and his “pessimistic” attitude, his books achieved high editions in the GDR. In 1958 Steinberg was elected to the German Peace Council, which enabled him to travel to Japan and the Soviet Union as a delegate. In 1959 he moved to Dessau , where he headed the newly founded “ Circle of Writing Workers ” until 1970 . In 1967 he got his fourth marriage to Barbara Poppe. From the mid-1960s, Steinberg wrote a number of detective and utopian novels .

After Wolf Biermann's expatriation in November 1976, Steinberg distanced himself from the politics of the GDR Writers' Association without participating in the open protests of GDR writers . His socially critical novel Die Mördergrube could only appear as a "fragment" in the GDR, the first complete edition appeared in 1986 in the Federal Republic of Germany. After the fall of the Wall , Steinberg, whose books were now neither in demand in the GDR nor in the Federal Republic of Germany, got into economic difficulties. In 1992 he suffered a stroke that resulted in his death.

Werner Steinberg received the Peace Medal of the German Peace Council in 1959 , the GDR Medal of Merit in 1963, the Handel Prize of the Halle District in 1964 and the FDGB Art Prize in 1966 .

bibliography

  • Hussar coup in world history. Karlsbad [among other things] 1940.
  • Heart under day. Karlsbad [among others] 1941.
  • Titian in purgatory. Wroclaw 1941.
  • The face of Daniel. Wroclaw 1942.
  • Completion. Wroclaw 1942.
  • Music in the night. Breslau 1943.
  • Give us one more drunkenness! Wroclaw 1944.
  • The coral cord. Wroclaw 1944.
  • Marion Meinard. Wroclaw 1944.
  • A light shines. Reutlingen 1947.
  • The mask dance. Berlin 1948.
  • Black leaves. Heidenheim ad Brenz, 1953.
  • The day is in love with the night. Stuttgart 1955.
  • When the clocks stopped. Halle (Saale) 1957.
  • Entry of the Gladiators. Halle (Saale) 1958.
  • Change to the future. Halle (Saale) 1958.
  • The Jutta Münch trial. Berlin 1960.
  • Behind the end of the world. Berlin 1961.
  • Water from dry wells. Halle / Saale 1962.
  • Without kettledrums and trumpets. Halle (Saale) 1965.
  • The commissioner's hat. Berlin 1966, yellow series .
  • And a murder by the way. Berlin 1968.
  • Protocol of immortality. Halle (Saale) 1969.
  • The white horse with the blue eyes. Berlin 1969.
  • Ikebana or flowers for the stranger. Berlin 1971.
  • A man named Nottrodt. Berlin 1972.
  • The eyes of the blind. Berlin 1973.
  • The donkey driver. Halle (Saale) 1973.
  • Horse change. Halle (Saale) 1974.
  • Between the coffin and Ararat. Rudolstadt 1978.
  • The Commissioner's last case. Halle [et al.] 1982.
  • Fragment. Halle [et al.] 1983.
  • Search for the monster. Berlin 1983.
  • The killer pit. Hamburg 1986.
  • Two shots under the new moon. Halle [et al.] 1988.

as editor:

  • Poetic workshop. Berlin 1968.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Steinberg, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steinberg, Udo Werner (full name); Grebniets, Udo; Grebnitz, Udo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Neurode , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1992
Place of death Dessau