Wolfgang Graetz

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Wolfgang Graetz (born January 7, 1926 in Berlin ; † March 11, 1999 in Berlin) was a German writer, radio play and television author. Graetz was repeatedly imprisoned as criminals and began his strongly autobiographical embossed literary work in the JVA Butzbach that even in his periods of detention prison was. Initially, he wrote several radio plays that were broadcast in the early 1960s and all of which were about outsiders in society.

"The Conspirators"

In his 1965 play The Conspirators , he dealt extremely critically with the Stauffenberg conspiracy against Hitler and explained its failure by stating that “you cannot rebel against something you are identical to” . When his theater project became known, various directors showed interest in the performance, including Erwin Piscator , who had already caused so-called theater scandals several times with politically explosive plays such as Der Stellvertreter . There were numerous, mostly extremely negative press reports in advance. As a result, scientific expertise was obtained that was controversial, but mostly critical. Historians such as Golo Mann and Hermann Graml questioned the historical background and classifications by Graetz, so he revised the piece.

In search of support, Graetz turned to Hannah Arendt , who read the manuscript, found it good and conducted a brief, sometimes critical, correspondence with him. She declined public support "because this whole July 20 question is so much an internal German matter that it is difficult for a foreigner to have a say." A short time later, she also praised Karl Jaspers for the work, limited by the comment that she could not check that all the details were correct. She put Graetz in line with Hochhuth , Gaus and Augstein . Both expressed themselves on the subject in several letters. Jaspers wrote when he initially only had the Spiegel article and afterwards Graetz was rather negative after reading the manuscript: “I agree with you. He understood the essential point. The main reason for the confusion and failure of these conspirators is the untruthfulness of their will. Graetz obviously senses that the clarification of how it all was is of crucial importance today if the Federal Republic is to have a future. "Graetz read Arendt's" Eichmann "and" found the decisive points there. "He sums up:" I respect his writing, but have no sympathy. "

In 1965 the drama was published as a book, but largely without the explanatory preface written by Graetz. After the Münchner Kammerspiele had canceled a premiere planned for the autumn of the same year, the play was only staged in Ludwigshafen in November 1968 without a great response. Graetz continued to write radio and television plays until his death in 1999.

Works (selection)

  • The Conspirators , Munich: Rütten & Loening, 1965 (drama)
  • The world from below: A report , Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1966
  • A thousand years nothing like Ärjer: Notes of a notorious troublemaker , new edition, Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1986, ISBN 3-499-15793-4 .

Radio plays

literature

  • Sascha Feuchert , Andreas Pfeifer: Resistant memory. Wolfgang Graetz, Hannah Arendt and the conspirators, in: Dituria: Journal for Germanistic Linguistics and Literature Studies, Vol. 1, 2006, pp. 75–87, ISSN  2191-2440

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Feuchert / Pfeifer 2006, p. 76
  2. ↑ quoted from: Graetz. Butzbach bomb, DER SPIEGEL, 18/1965
  3. ^ Arendt to Graetz, April 9, 1965, last letter from Arendt to Graetz, quoted in according to: Feuchert / Pfeifer 2006, p. 86
  4. ^ Arendt to Jaspers, April 13, 1965, in: Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers. Correspondence 1926–1969. New edition Munich 1993, p. 629
  5. ↑ Graetz. Butzbach bomb, DER SPIEGEL, 18/1965
  6. ↑ Jaspers to Arendt, May 19, 1965, in: Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers. Correspondence 1926–1969. New edition Munich 1993, p. 634f
  7. ↑ Jaspers to Arendt, June 16, 1965, in: Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers. Correspondence 1926–1969. New edition Munich 1993, p. 638f
  8. ^ Note from Feuchert / Peifer 2006, p. 80
  9. ↑ for the entire section The Conspirators see: Feuchert / Peifer 2006, pp. 78–86
personal data
SURNAME Graetz, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 1999
Place of death Berlin