Adolf Endler (20 September 1930 – 2 August 2009) was a lyric
poet, essayist and
prose author who played a central role in
subcultural
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
activities that attacked and challenged an outdated model of
socialist realism in the
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
up until the collapse of
communism in the early 1990s. Endler drew attention to himself as the "father of the oppositional literary scene" at
Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg () is a locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban district of the borough of Pankow. From its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right. However, that year it was incorp ...
in the eastern part of Berlin. In 2005 he was made a member of the
Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in
Darmstadt.
Early life and career
A
communist as a young man, Endler moved to East Germany in 1955 and studied at the
Johannes R. Becher Institute of Literature in
Leipzig from 1955–57. An acclaimed
poet, he was well respected in the East and West, but at the same time was marginalized and degraded by party
functionaries who controlled the fields of cultural practice, conspired to guard their concepts of aesthetics, and went as far as to extend their influence into the writer's private life.
Even though
socialist realism had spread over most of
Eastern European
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
cultural life, it was successfully undermined by writers and artists like Endler. His defiance involved ignoring orders from cultural politicians and finding alternative ways of communicating with peers. In 1978 he coined the term
Sächsische Dichterschule to describe the group of German writers who were born in the 1930s and were influential in the areas of poetry, such as,
Karl Mickel
Karl Mickel (12 August 1935 – 20 June 2000) was a German writer.
Life
Mickel was born in Dresden into a working-class family. There, he attended primary school from 1941 to 1949 and experienced together with his mother the bombing of Dresde ...
,
Heinz Czechowski
Heinz Czechowski (7 February 1935 – 21 October 2009) was a German poet and dramatist.
At the age of ten, Czechowski survived the highly destructive bombing of his birthplace of Dresden. After training in surveying and graphic design, he studied ...
,
Sarah Kirsch
Sarah Kirsch (; 16 April 1935 – 5 May 2013) was a German poet.
Biography
Sarah Kirsch was originally born Ingrid Bernstein in Limlingerode, Prussian Saxony but had changed her first name to Sarah in order to protest against her father's a ...
and
Volker Braun
Volker Braun (born 7 May 1939 in Dresden) is a German writer. His works include ''Provokation für mich'' (''Provocation for me'') – a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, ''Die Kipper'' (''The Dumpers ...
. This sentiment is shared by
Michael Hamburger, who, before the group had been named, applauded those that they had been creative in an artistically hostile environment. Hamburger recorded the traffic of correspondence between individual poets -a secret project that held the young writers together in a state that promoted the exact opposite, i.e. the isolation of individual
deviants. His colleague in exile, the
Austrian
Austrian may refer to:
* Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent
** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law
* Austrian German dialect
* Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
Erich Fried
Erich Fried (6 May 1921 – 22 November 1988) was an Austrian-born poet, writer, and translator. He initially became known to a broader public in both Germany and Austria for his political poetry, and later for his love poems. As a writer, he mo ...
(Fried and Hamburger went into exile in
Great Britain during
Hitler's
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
), documented some of this writing for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
in his review of the
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically catego ...
In diesem besseren Land (1966).
Into the seventies, Endler remained steadfastly confrontational. Following the
expatriation
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
from the GDR of songwriter
Wolf Biermann in 1976, Endler was expelled from the Writers’ Association of the
GDR in 1979, having declared his solidarity with his previously reprimanded colleague
Stefan Heym. Throughout the 1980s he contributed to various Berlin and
Leipzig underground magazines.
In the 1990s, Adolf Endler became known to a wider public through a volume of memoirs entitled
Tarzan am Prenzlauer Berg (i.e.
Tarzan at Prenzlauer Berg) and from 1991 to 1998, with Brigitte Schreier-Endler, he organised the legendary “Orplid&Co.“ readings in Café Clara in
Berlin-Mitte. Mr. Endler died after a long illness.
Quotations
A lot of people connect liberalization with the fact that the GDR for international reason didn't want to have any trouble. The GDR wanted to be thought of in the international community as something very decent and without blemish. That was something we went along with. Our only means of power was to threaten to make an international fuss. If a book had been published in the west, and then the author had been sent to jail, there would have been a fuss. There must have been five hundred of us who had written letters or who had collected signatures. There weren't three hundred thousand people, but there were always ten or twenty thousand refractory people who as a rule wanted to stay in the GDR, but who, out of some sort of defiance or whatever, weren't ready to put up with it. They weren't the people who had left because they were fed up to the teeth." -March 15th, 1992.
Quotes about
“He admired those who play with language like
Kurt Schwitters and
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry (; 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play '' Ubu Roi'' (1896). He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics.
Jarry was born in Laval, Mayenne, Franc ...
, astute minds like
Karl Kraus and
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and great epic writers like
François Rabelais and
Hans Henny Jahnn. It was only after the political turnaround of 1989 that people noticed that he does not compare at all unfavourably with them – but not too late, thank goodness.”
[-Gregor Dotzauer, The ]Tagesspiegel
''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, ...
(Berlin daily newspaper)
Works
*''Erwacht ohne Furcht, Gedichte 1960''
*''Weg in die Wische, Reportagen und Gedichte 1960''
*''Das Sandkorn, Gedichte, Mitteldeutscher Verlag 1974/1976''
*''Die Kinder der Nibelungen, Gedichte 1964''
*''In diesem besseren Land, Lyrik-Anthologie gemeinsam mit Karl Mickel 1966''
*''Nackt mit Brille, Gedichte 1975''
*''Zwei Versuche, über Georgien zu erzählen, Reisebericht 1976''
*''Verwirrte klare Botschaften, Gedichte 1979''
*''Nadelkissen, Prosa 1980''
*''Akte Endler, Gedichte aus 30 Jahren 1981/1988''
*''Tarzan am Prenzlauer Berg, Tagebuch 1984''
*''Ohne Nennung von Gründen, Prosa 1985''
*''Schichtenflotz, Prosa 1987''
*''Nächtlicher Besucher, in seine Schranken gewiesen. Eine Fortsetzungszüchtigung, Berliner Handpresse, Berlin 1989. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ''
*''Vorbildlich schleimlösend, Prosa 1990''
*''Den Tiger reiten, Essays 1990''
*''Die Antwort des Poeten, Roman 1992''
*''Tarzan am Prenzlauer Berg. Sudelblätter 1981–1993, Reclam Leipzig, Leipzig 1994, ''
*''Warnung vor Utah, Reisebuch 1996''
*''Der Pudding der Apokalypse. Gedichte 1963–1998, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1999, ''
*''Trotzes halber, Gedichte 1999''
*''Das Greisenalter, voilà 2001''
*''Schweigen Schreiben Reden Schweigen. Reden 1995–2001, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 2003, ''
*''Uns überholte der Zugvögelzug. Alte und neue Gedichte, UN ART IG, Aschersleben 2004, ''
*''Nebbich. Eine deutsche Karriere, Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ''
*''Krähenüberkrächzte Rolltreppe. Neunundsiebzig kurze Gedichte aus einem halben Jahrhundert, Wallstein, Göttingen 2007 ''
*''Nächtlicher Besucher, in seine Schranken gewiesen. Eine Fortsetzungs-Züchtigung, Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, (editierte Neuauflage)''
Literary awards
*1978: Literatur-Förderpreis zum
Kunstpreis der Akademie der Künste West-Berlin (Academy of the Arts, West Berlin)
*1990:
Heinrich-Mann-Preis der Akademie der Künste Ost-Berlin (Academy of the Arts East Berlin) – together with Elke Erb
*1994: Brandenburgischer Literaturpreis
*1995: Kritikerpreis der SWF-Bestenliste (Critics Award of the SWF Leaderboard)
*1995:
Brothers Grimm Prize of the City of Hanau
*1996: Rahel Varnhagen von Ense-Medaille – together with Brigitte Schreier-Endler
*1998: Ehrengabe der Deutschen Schillerstiftung (German Schiller Foundation)
*2000:
Peter-Huchel Prize
*2000:
Literature Prize of the City of Bremen
*2001:
Bundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellec ...
1st Class
*2003:
Hans-Erich Nossack Prize
*2008:
Rainer Malkowski Prize jointly with
Kurt Drawert
References
External links
Texte und Hörtexte von Adolf Endlerbei
lyrikline.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Endler, Adolf
1930 births
2009 deaths
Writers from Düsseldorf
People from the Rhine Province
East German writers
Writers from North Rhine-Westphalia
Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
German male poets
20th-century German poets
German-language poets
Members of the German Academy for Language and Literature
20th-century German male writers