Luise Rinser
Luise Rinser was a prominent German author and political activist, born on April 30, 1911, in Pitzling, Upper Bavaria. As an only child of strict Catholic parents, Rinser faced pressures to conform to their expectations, which did not include a serious pursuit of writing. Initially trained as a teacher, she worked with challenging children while being influenced by psychological theories from Freud and Jung. Her career took a dramatic turn when her refusal to join the Nazi Party led to her dismissal in 1941 and subsequent imprisonment for speaking out against the war, during which she documented her experiences on makeshift writing materials. After the war, her prison diary, "Gefaangnis-Tagebuch," gained recognition for its candid portrayal of life in captivity.
Rinser's literary career flourished in the following decades, making her one of the most successful authors in West Germany. Her writings often addressed themes of violence, oppression, and women's rights, reflecting the cultural and political changes of her time. She engaged in significant relationships, including a brief marriage to composer Carl Orff, and maintained platonic friendships with influential men, allowing her to balance personal freedom and support for her creative endeavors. Throughout her life, Rinser was a dedicated peace advocate and even ran as a Green Party candidate. She received multiple accolades, including the Heinrich Mann Prize and the Premio Ignazio Silone, before her passing in 2002.
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Luise Rinser
Writer
- Born: April 30, 1911
- Birthplace: Pitzling, Upper Bavaria, Germany
- Died: March 17, 2002
Biography
Luise Rinser was born on April 30, 1911, in Pitzling, Upper Bavaria, Germany, the only child of a domineering father, Joseph, and an emotionally distant mother, Luise Sailer. Strict Catholics, her parents had attempted to prescribe her future, her father envisioning her as a school principal. Neither understood that writing could be a serious occupation. At the outset, Rinser attempted to be a model child, graduating from grammar school in Munich in 1930, going on to studies in psychology and pedagogy at the University, and receiving her teaching diploma in 1934.
For the next three years, Rinser worked with difficult children in an elementary school and studied the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, two of her biggest influences. She taught until 1941, when her refusal to join the Nazi Party caused her dismissal. In that same year, she published her first novel- length work, Die glaasernen Ringe (translated as Rings of Glass in 1958). In 1939, she married conductor Horst- Guunther Schnell, but he died three years later in Russia while serving a sentence in a punishment unit. That year the government proscribed further publication of her writings.
In 1944, an acquaintance reported her for speaking out against the war and she was charged with high treason for undermining military morale and was sentenced to death. While imprisoned in a women’s camp in Traunstein, Bavaria, she maintained her sanity by keeping a running account of her daily life, as well as of that of other inmates. She wrote on sequestered bits of toilet paper which she then hid in the straw of her mattress. The war ended seven months later, sparing her execution. She turned her notes into a remarkable book, published in 1946 as Gefaangnis- Tagebuch (prison diary). It remains one of the most telling of prison accounts.
Rinser had a three year marriage to composer and artist Carl Orff, from 1954 to 1959, divorcing him because she worried that he was stifling her creativity. Shortly after, Rinser began two safe relationships, safe in the sense that both men were committed to religion, one a priest, the other, Karl Rahmer, a Jesuit Innsbruck professor of dogmatics. It pleased her that Rahmer could stay celibate and still love a woman and, presumably, that she could be loved without being stifled. She could continue being a political activist, a prolific writer, and a feminist. Between 1962 and 1984, these platonic lovers exchanged more than two thousand letters.
Rinser was one of the most successful West German authors of her time. Her works span more than forty years and provide a record of worldwide cultural, political, and social developments in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, she made the best-seller list several times. Her eight volumes of diaries spoke out against violence, war, and oppression, and for the economically disadvantaged. She wrote of the plight of women with aspirations, those hoping to establish a sense of self, in a society in which religion does not respect them and patriarchal thinking holds them down.
Rinser was dedicated to the peace movement and once ran for office as a Green Party candidate. She won the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1987 and the Premio Ignazio Silone in 1991. She died in 2002.