Bruno Apitz (28 April 1900 – 7 April 1979) was a German writer and a survivor of the
Buchenwald concentration camp.
Life and career
Apitz was born in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
, as the twelfth child of a washer woman. He attended school until he was fourteen, then started apprenticeship as a die cutter. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he was a passionate supporter of German Communist Party leader
Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag fro ...
. At 17, he made a speech in front of striking factory workers that resulted in his being sentenced to nineteen months in prison. In 1919, he joined the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and in 1927, the more radical
Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He took active part in the
German November Revolution of 1918 and in opposition to the
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
of 1920. During the latter he published his first poems and short stories in Communist newspapers. He wrote his first play in 1924 and was later repeatedly imprisoned under Nazi rule in various
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...
s for spreading socialistic anti-war propaganda and being an active member of the Communist Party. From 1937 to 1945 he was an inmate of the
Buchenwald concentration camp near
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
. It was this imprisonment that would later become the basis for his most famous novel, ''
Nackt unter Wölfen'' (Naked among Wolves).
After 1945, he worked for the East German state film company
DEFA
DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence.
Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...
and as a radio play author. He was one of the founding members of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED), which became the dominant party in the
German Democratic Republic (East Germany). In the early 1950s, Apitz worked as a guide to the former camp, Buchenwald, and was "actively involved in the plan for the earliest expedition to be shown there in 1952."
[Nevin, Bill. The Genesis and Impact of ''Naked among Wolves''. 2007. Note 30, p. 117.] He was a member of the Academy of Arts and the PEN-Clubs of the GDR.
Apitz's best selling novel ''Nackt unter Wölfen'' was first published in 1958 and then translated into over thirty languages, winning him worldwide recognition. The English translation, the only Apitz novel to have been translated into English, was by Edith Anderson and published by Seven Seas Books in 1967. The
logline
A log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, short film, or book that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stim ...
for this edition reads as follows: "Armies drive before them the rags of Hitler's might and news trickles through to the concentration camp inmates and a child is saved."
Bruno Apitz's home town,
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
, named him a Citizen of Honour in 1976. He died on 17 April 1979 in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
.
Books
* ''Der Mensch im Nacken'', 1924
* ''
Nackt unter Wölfen'', 1958; English translation, ''Naked among Wolves'', 1967
* ''Esther'', 1959
* ''Der Regenbogen'', 1976
* ''Schwelbrand. Autobiografischer Roman'', Berlin 1984
References
1900 births
1979 deaths
People from the Kingdom of Saxony
Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
Communist Party of Germany members
Socialist Unity Party of Germany members
German male short story writers
German short story writers
German radio writers
East German writers
20th-century German novelists
20th-century German dramatists and playwrights
German male novelists
German male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century German short story writers
Communists in the German Resistance
Buchenwald concentration camp survivors
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit (honor clasp)
Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany
Writers from Leipzig
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