Hans Hellmut Kirst
Hans Hellmut Kirst was a German writer and film critic, born on December 5, 1914, in Osterode, which is now part of Poland. Raised in a region known for its natural beauty and farming, Kirst's early life and surroundings heavily influenced his literary works. He had a varied career, initially working as an accountant before serving as a professional soldier in the German army during the Nazi regime, although he never joined the Nazi party. After World War II, he settled in Munich, transitioning to writing and film criticism. Kirst gained prominence with his "Null-acht fünfzehn" trilogy, published in the mid-1950s, which depicts the experiences of a soldier during the tumultuous periods surrounding World War II. His works often explore themes such as the consequences of blind obedience and the struggles of individual conscience amid the impacts of the Nazi regime. Kirst was also known for his commitment to remembering the victims of wartime atrocities, directing royalties from his work to support Warsaw war orphans. He passed away on February 23, 1989, in Bremen, West Germany, leaving behind a legacy that engages with Germany's historical memory and moral reflection.
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Subject Terms
Hans Hellmut Kirst
Author
- Born: December 5, 1914
- Birthplace: Osterode, Germany (now Ostróda, Poland)
- Died: February 23, 1989
- Place of death: Bremen, Germany
Biography
Hans Hellmut Kirst was born on December 5, 1914, in Osterode, then a city in Germany and now part of Poland. His father, Johannes Kirst, was a policeman who was transferred frequently within Masuria, a picturesque section of the Osterode province known for its three thousand lakes, abundant forests, wild animals, and rich agriculture. This countryside and its people appear in several of Kirst’s books. Kirst attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Osterode but was not, by his own admission, a particularly good student except in German, geography, and history. He worked for a short time as an accountant on a large agricultural estate and then joined the German army in 1933. Although Kirst never became a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, he was a professional soldier under the Nazi regime. In 1945, at the end of World War II, he was a first lieutenant serving as an instructor in the history of war at an air force war school. He married Ruth Mueller in 1962, and the couple adopted a daughter named Beatrice.
After the war Kirst settled in Munich, where he worked as a laborer before becoming a film critic for the Münchner Mittag, now the Münchner Merkur. He achieved his first great literary success with the Null-acht fünfzehn trilogy, with his three novels published in 1954 and 1955, and shortly thereafter translated into English as Zero Eight Fifteen. The trilogy concerns the adventures of Gunner Asch, a soldier in the German army just prior to and during World War II. Much of Kirst’s fiction is set against backdrops of the Nazi period, World War II, or the immediate postwar years. He is known as a chronicler of German military life and a critic of blind obedience, Nazi excesses, and megalomania. Some of his central themes concern the struggle to accept and understand the seductiveness of the Nazi regime and to keep the German consciousness of that past alive. Kirst’s novels promote the concepts of individual conscience, tolerance, and compromise. To honor the memories of some of the victims of Nazi aggression, he earmarked all Polish royalties from sales of the Null-acht fünfzehn trilogy for Warsaw war orphans,and decided to forego all proceeds from Israeli editions.
Kirst died in Bremen, West Germany on Feb. 23, 1989. The Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, maintains a collection of Kirst manuscripts.