Gert Ledig, full name Robert Gerhard Ledig (4 November 1921,
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 wel ...
– 1 June 1999 in
Landsberg am Lech
Landsberg am Lech (Landsberg at the Lech) is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech.
Overview
Landsberg is situated o ...
), was a German writer.
Biography
Gert Ledig, son of a merchant, spent his early childhood in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. From 1929 he lived 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 wel ...
. After finishing school, he held down a number of casual jobs from 1936 onwards. After this, he entered an apprenticeship to become an electrician and also studied at a private acting school to become a director. In 1939, he volunteered for the German army (Wehrmacht). As a pioneer, he took part in fighting at the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to:
Military frontiers
*Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...
, advanced to
NCO and was transferred to the
Eastern Front in 1941. Due to alleged
misconduct
Misconduct is wrongful, improper, or unlawful conduct motivated by premeditated or intentional purpose or by obstinate indifference to the consequences of one's acts. It is an act which is forbidden or a failure to do that which is required. Misc ...
he was transferred to a
penal battalion. In summer 1942, Ledig was wounded before
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
; he suffered, among other injuries, an injury to his jaw. After being released from the army, he trained to become a shipbuilding engineer. In the last year of the war he worked in the naval forces bureaucracy.
After the end of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Ledig joined Germany's
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
. He again worked several casual jobs, such as lumberjack and scaffolder. In 1948, he failed in his attempt to take over his father's company and also failed in setting up his own advertising agency. From 1951 to 1953, Ledig worked as a translator for the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
, then worked as an author from 1953 onwards.
His debut novel ''
The Stalin Organ'' (''Die Stalinorgel'') was relatively positively received both in Germany and abroad. Ledig was invited to meetings of Germany's literary author group
Gruppe 47
Gruppe 47 (Group 47) was a group of participants in German writers' meetings, invited by Hans Werner Richter between 1947 and 1967. The meetings served the dual goals of literary criticism as well as the promotion of young, unknown authors. In a de ...
. Because of his war injuries and doubts whether he could call himself an author at all, he declined the invitation, stating he'd find it impossible to stand next to authors such as
Ilse Aichinger, a member of the group, and ''Die Stalinorgel'' was "only a combat organ". In 1956, he was represented by
Günter Eich, who read from Ledig's second novel, ''
Vergeltung
' ("Retaliation" or "Payback") is the second novel of the writer Gert Ledig (1921-1999). It is an apocalyptic autobiographical anti-war novel. It mines the author's own experiences and is considered an important example of the literary realis ...
'' (''Payback''). Ledig's stark depiction of war events was increasingly met with revulsion in the climate of the 1950s, so Ledig eventually withdrew from writing altogether.
![Gert Ledig, Oktober 1963](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Gert_Ledig%2C_Oktober_1963.png)
From 1963 he ran an engineering firm and an agency for technology news.
Ledig, meanwhile living in isolation in
Utting
Utting am Ammersee (until 1953 just Utting) is a municipality in the district of Landsberg in Bavaria in Germany.
History
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world ...
near the Ammersee, was only rediscovered in 1998 - just before his death.
W. G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
had been pointed towards his work ''Vergeltung'' as one of the few examples of a literary treatment of
Allied air raids on Germany during the Second World War. Sebald published a chapter on the responses to his Zürcher Vorlesungen ("Zurich lectures") of 1997 and the resulting discussion in the Germany media in his book ''
On the Natural History of Destruction
''On the Natural History of Destruction'' is a 1999 book by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its original German title is ''Luftkrieg und Literatur'', which means "Air war and literature". It consists of essays about literature and writers, through ...
'' ("Luftkrieg und Literatur") in 1999.
In autumn 1999, German publisher
Suhrkamp
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag.
In January 2010 the ...
re-issued ''Vergeltung'', which met much more positive responses now than during its first publication in autumn 1956. In August 1999, the novel was discussed in the ''
Literarisches Quartett'', a TV-broadcast book discussion featuring prominent literature critics, discussed by
Marcel Reich-Ranicki and thus gained recognition again. On 26 August 2005, radio station
Radio Bremen broadcast a radio drama based on the novel with the same title. This version was written by Daniel Berger and directed by Klaus Prangenberg.
Since 2016 there is an official Facebook page on which is planned to publish yet unpublished or lost stories of the author. Current dates and events soon will be announced .
Works
*''Die Stalinorgel'', 1955, Hamburg, Claassen Verlag
** translated into English as ''The Naked Hill'' (1956, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) / ''The Tortured Earth'' (1956, Chicago, Henry Regnery)
** new English translation ''The Stalin Organ'' (2004, London, Granta) / ''The Stalin Front'' (2005, New York, New York Review of Books)
** also Dutch (publisher Arbeiderspers) and Portuguese (Ulissea) editions
*''
Vergeltung
' ("Retaliation" or "Payback") is the second novel of the writer Gert Ledig (1921-1999). It is an apocalyptic autobiographical anti-war novel. It mines the author's own experiences and is considered an important example of the literary realis ...
'', 1956, Frankfurt am Main, S.Fischer
** translated into English as ''Payback'' (2003, London, Granta)
![Gert Ledig, Korcula](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Gert_Ledig%2C_Korcula.png)
** also Dutch (publisher Arbeiderspers), French (Zulma), Spanish (Minuscula) and Croatian (Kruzak) editions
*''Faustrecht'', 1957, Munich, Kurt Desch
** translated into English as ''The Brutal Years'' (1959, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
** Kindle Edition Amazon "Faustrecht, Gert Ledig", Published 2015
*''Darling'', München
a(translated into English) 1957
*''Das Duell'' (''The Duel''), 1958, Berlin, Aufbau Verlag
*''Der Staatsanwalt'' (''The Prosecutor''), 1958, Fürstenfeldbruck, Steinklopfer
*''Die Kanonen von Korcula'' (''The Guns of Korcula'') (as yet unpublished novel manuscript, probably from the 1960s)
Theater adaptation
* ''Faustrecht'' based on the book by Gert Ledig, for the stage worked by Barbara Wendland. Premiere at February 2016 in
Theater im Pfalzbau, Ludwigshafen. Coproduction with the
Badischen Staatstheater Karlsruhe.
Regie:
Tilman Gersch
Tilman is both a masculine given name and a surname. The German version of the surname is Tillmann. Other variants include Tillman and Dillman.
Notable people with the name include:
People with the given name
* Tilman Fertitta (1957), America ...
.
References
External links
* Oliver Bentz: '. In: „
Wiener Zeitung“ vom 30. November 2001.
*
* Angelika Brauchle:
Gert Ledig und die Sprache der Gewalt'. Dissertation at the
Bonn University
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
(2008)(PDF-file; 1,5 MB)
* André Maertens:
Möglichkeiten kriegskritischen Schreibens in "Die Stalinorgel" von Gert Ledig'. Dissertation at the
Freiburg University (2014)(PDF-file; 1,46 MB)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ledig, Gert
20th-century German novelists
1921 births
1999 deaths
Writers from Leipzig
German male novelists
20th-century German male writers
German Army soldiers of World War II