Hans Werner Richter
Hans Werner Richter was a significant figure in postwar German literature and political activism. Born into a struggling fishing family, he became politically engaged during his youth, joining the Communist Party while working as a bookseller in Berlin. After facing expulsion due to his Trotskyist beliefs, Richter fled to Paris but returned to Berlin to continue his activism amid rising National Socialist pressures. His military service began in 1940, and he was later captured during the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy, spending three years in American prisoner-of-war camps, where he worked as a journalist.
Upon returning to Germany in 1946, Richter became a prominent political journalist, often at odds with censors due to his socialist views. He co-founded Group 47 in 1947, a collective of writers who significantly influenced the cultural and political landscape of postwar Germany. While his own literary contributions were overshadowed by contemporaries like Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll, Richter’s role in promoting humanistic socialism was pivotal. Throughout his later life, he received numerous accolades, including an Honorary Professorship and several prestigious literature awards, underscoring his lasting impact on German literature and society.
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Hans Werner Richter
Author
- Born: November 12, 1908
- Birthplace: Bansin, Usedom, Germany
- Died: 1993
Biography
Hans Werner Richter was born into a family of impoverished fishermen who had been politicized by World War I. After working briefly as a seaman, in 1927 Richter began work as a bookseller in Berlin, where he joined the Communist Party. Expelled as a Trotskyist, Richter nonetheless continued his socialist activities, eventually attracting the attention of the dominant National Socialists. After fleeing to Paris for a year, Richter returned to Berlin and his political activism.
In 1940, he was drafted into the German Army. Two years later, he married Antonie Lesemann. In 1943, he was captured by the Allied Forces during the Battle of Monte Casino in Italy and transported to a prisoner-of-war camp in Illinois. For the next three years, Richter worked as a journalist in a number of American prisoner-of-war camps, and upon his release and return to Germany in 1946, he continued to work as a political journalist, frequently running afoul of censors at the American Information Control Division, who disapproved of his socialism.
In September, 1947, Richter was instrumental in founding the Group 47, a loosely connected band of writers whose shared commitment to humanistic socialism eventually transformed them into the highly influential “conscience” of their reborn country. Although Richter’s own realist fiction would be eclipsed by the works of other Group members such as Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll, he played an undeniably important role in both the artistic and the political lives of postwar Germany. In 1980, Richter received an Honorary Professorship from the Senate of Berlin, and in 1982, he was given the Cultural Award of the Federal Union of German Industry. In 1986, he was awarded the Grand Prize for Literature of the Bavarian Academy of the Free Arts and the Alexander Gryphius Prize.