Sigfrid Gauch (born 9 March 1945) is a German writer. He lives in Mainz. Gauch is the son of Hermann Gauch, a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

official and member of the SS. He was born in

Offenbach-Hundheim Offenbach-Hundheim is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wol ...

in the last few weeks 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 opposi ...

. His parents separated when he was a young boy.Copley, Antony, "Hitler's Children, A Preface to Sigfid Gauch's Vaterspuren", in Gauch, Sigfrid, ''Traces of My Father'', trans.

William Radice William Radice is a poet, writer and translator. He is the senior lecturer in Bengali in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research area is in Bengali language and literature. He has translated several Bengali ...

, Northwestern University Press, xi-xx. He studied at the Universities of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

and

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

. He worked as a school teacher, teaching German, philosophy and ethics at the ''Integrierte Gesamtschule'' in

. He was awarded a doctorate from the University of Mainz in 1985 for a dissertation on "Overt and covert spellings in literary

Jacobinism A Jacobin (; ) was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution (1789–1799). The club got its name from meeting at the Dominican rue Saint-Honoré M ...

". It was later published as ''Friedrich Joseph Emerich – ein deutscher Jakobiner. Studien zu Leben und Werk''. In the 1970s Gauch published essays and poetry. He made his name with his book ''Vaterspuren'' (Traces of My Father) in 1979, an influential memoir that began what later became a genre of literature about children of Nazi parents attempting to come to terms with their family's past.Figge, Susan, "Father books: Memoirs of the Children of Fascist Fathers", ''Revealing Lives'', Yallom and Bell, eds, pp 196-200. He later published ''Fundsachen. Die Quellen zum Roman Vaterspuren'', a collection of primary source material related to the book. His novels ''Winterhafen'' (2010) and ''Schattenbilder'' (2012) explore the same issues through fiction. In addition to his novels, short stories and poetry collections Gauch has co-edited numerous anthologies, especially with regard to literature from

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

, including, from 1994, the ''Rheinland-pfälzisches Jahrbuch für Literatur'' (Rhineland-Palatinate Yearbook of literature) published by Brandes & Apsel. Since 2002, this has come out under the title ''Jahrbuch für Literatur'' (Yearbook for Literature). Since 2004, he has edited the Edition Schrittmacher series of books, of which 30 volumes have been published.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gauch, Sigfrid 1945 births Writers from Mainz German ethicists German philosophers Living people German male writers