Heinrich Theodor Böll (; ; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the

Nobel Prize for Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in t ...

(1972).

Biography

Böll was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany, to a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

family that later opposed the rise of

Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...

. Böll refused to join the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

during the 1930s. He was apprenticed to a bookseller before studying

German studies German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on German culture, German h ...

and

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

. Conscripted into the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

, he served in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1942, Böll married Annemarie Cech, with whom he had three sons; she later collaborated with him on a number of different translations into German of English-language literature. During his war service, Böll was wounded four times and contracted

typhoid Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often ther ...

. He was captured by

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

soldiers in April 1945 and sent to a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

. After the war, he returned to Cologne and began working in his family's cabinet shop and, for one year, worked in a municipal statistical bureau, a job he did not enjoy and which he left in order to take the risk of becoming a writer instead. Böll became a full-time writer at the age of 30. His

first novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, ''Der Zug war pünktlich'' ('' The Train Was on Time''), was published in 1949. He was invited to the 1949 meeting of the

Group 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 ...

circle of German authors and his work was deemed to be the best presented in 1951. Many other novels, short stories, radio plays, and essay collections followed.

Awards, honours and appointments

Böll was extremely successful and was lauded on a number of occasions. In 1953 he was awarded the Culture Prize of German Industry, the Southern German Radio Prize and the German Critics' Prize. In 1954 he received the prize of the Tribune de Paris. In 1955 he was given the French prize for the best foreign novel. In 1958 he won the Eduard von der Heydt prize of the city of Wuppertal and the prize of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts). In 1959 he was given the Great Art Prize of the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia and the Literature Prize of the city of Cologne, and was elected to the Academy of Science and the Arts in Mainz. In 1960 he became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and gained the Charles Veillon Prize. In 1967 he was given the Georg Büchner Prize. In 1972 he received the

"for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature". He was given a number of honorary awards up to his death, such as the membership of the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

in 1974, and the Ossietzky Medal of 1974 (the latter for his defence of and contribution to global human rights). Böll was President of

PEN International PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide professional association, association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association ...

, the worldwide association of writers, from 1971 to 1973. Böll was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1983 and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1984.

Works

His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he remains one of Germany's most widely read authors. His best-known works are '' Billiards at Half-past Nine'' (1959), '' And Never Said a Word'' (1953), '' The Bread of Those Early Years'' (1955), '' The Clown'' (1963), '' Group Portrait with Lady'' (1971), '' The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum'' (1974), and '' The Safety Net'' (1979). Despite his work's variety of themes and content, certain patterns recur: much of his work describes intimate and personal life struggling to sustain itself against the wider background of war, terrorism, political divisions, and profound economic and social transition. Many of his books have stubborn and eccentrically individualistic protagonists who oppose the mechanisms of the state or of public institutions. Böll was a devoted pacifist because of his war experiences. All of his writing and novels during the postwar years had to do with the war and making sure it never happened again. He encapsulated it in the phrase "never war again". In his autobiography, Böll wrote that at the high school he attended when growing up under Nazi rule, an anti-Nazi teacher paid special attention to the Roman satirist Juvenal: "Mr. Bauer realized how topical Juvenal was, how he dealt at length with such phenomena as arbitrary government, tyranny, corruption, the degradation of public morals, the decline of the Republican ideal and the terrorizing acts of the Praetorian Guards. ..In a secondhand bookshop I found an 1838 translation of Juvenal with an extensive commentary, twice the length of the translated text itself, written at the height of the Romantic period. Though its price was more than I could really afford, I bought it. I read all of it very intensely, as if it was a detective novel. It was one of the few books to which I persistently held on throughout the war WIIand beyond, even when most of my other books were lost or sold on the black market".

Media scandals

The 1963 publication of '' The Clown'' was met with polemics in the press for its negative portrayal of the Catholic Church and the CDU party.Frank N. Magill (2013) The 20th Century A-GI: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 7
p.350
/ref> Böll was devoted to Catholicism but also deeply critical of aspects of it, especially in its most conservative incarnations. In particular, he was unable to forget the

Concordat A concordat () is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both,René Metz, ''What is Canon Law?'' (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960 ...

of July 1933 between the Vatican and the Nazis, signed by the future Pope Pius XII, which helped confer international legitimacy on the regime early in its development. Böll's liberal views on religion and social issues elicited German conservatives' wrath.Frank Finlay (1996) ''On the Rationality of Poetry: Heinrich Böll's Aesthetic Thinking''
p.8
/ref> When constitutional reforms were passed in 1968 that cracked down on freedom, Böll spoke out against them. His 1972 article ''Soviel Liebe auf einmal'' (''So much love at once''), which accused the tabloid ''Bild'' of falsified journalism, was in turn retitled, at the time of publishing and against Böll's wishes, by ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'', and the new title was used as a pretext to accuse Böll of sympathy with terrorism.Heinrich Böll
''Werke ''
Volume 18: 1971–1974. Köln : Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 2003, , pp.454-ff. This particular criticism was driven in large part by his repeated insistence on the importance of due process and the correct and fair application of the law in the case of the Baader-Meinhof Group. In his article for

titled ''Sixty Million against Six'', he asked for a safeguard for Ulrike Meinhof in order to open a dialogue and prevent a major press campaign and police campaign. Böll was heavily criticized for this and dubbed "the spiritual father of the violence" by one journalist in the '' Springer press''. The conservative press even attacked Böll's 1972 Nobel Prize, arguing that it was awarded only to "liberals and left-wing radicals". On 7 February 1974, the '' BZ'', Berlin's most widely read newspaper at the time, reported that Böll's home had been searched. In fact, his home was searched only later that day, after the newspaper had already been circulated. In 1977, after the abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer, 40 police searched Böll's house based on an anonymous tip they received that named Böll's son as an accomplice to the kidnappers. This claim turned out to be unfounded. The Christian Democrats placed Böll on a blacklist after this incident.

Influences

Böll was deeply rooted in his hometown of Cologne, with its strong

ism and rather rough and drastic sense of humour. In the immediate postwar period, he was preoccupied with memories of the war and its effect—materially and psychologically—on ordinary people's lives. They are the heroes of his writing. His Catholicism was important to his work in ways that can be compared to writers such as

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

and Georges Bernanos, though, as noted earlier, his perspective on Catholicism was critical and challenging, not passive. Böll was deeply affected by the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

takeover of Cologne, as the Nazis essentially exiled him in his own town. Additionally, Cologne's destruction in the Allied bombing during World War II scarred him for life; he described the bombing's aftermath in '' The Silent Angel''. Architecturally, the rebuilt Cologne, prosperous once more, left him indifferent. (Böll seems to have been an admirer of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

; he let it be known that he would have preferred that

Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (, , officially , English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia belonging to the Catholic Church. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archd ...

be left unfinished, with the 14th-century wooden crane at the top, as it had stood in 1848). Throughout his life, he remained in close contact with Cologne's citizens, rich and poor. When he was in hospital, the nurses often complained about the "low-life" people who came to see their friend Böll. Böll had a great fondness for Ireland, holidaying with his wife at their second home there, on the west coast. Their home in Ireland later became an artist's retreat.

Analysis

Böll's work has been dubbed '' Trümmerliteratur'' (the literature of the rubble). He was a leader of the German writers who tried to come to grips with the memory of

, the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

, the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, and the guilt that came with them. Because of his refusal to avoid writing about the complexities and problems of the past, some called him the ''Gewissen der Nation'' ("conscience of the nation"), a catalyst and conduit for memorialization and discussion in opposition to the tendency toward silence and taboo. This was a label Böll was keen to jettison, because he felt that it occluded a fair audit of the institutions truly responsible for what had happened. Böll lived with his wife in Cologne and in the Eifel region. He also spent time on Achill Island, off Ireland's west coast. His cottage there is now used as a guesthouse for international and Irish artists. He recorded some of his experiences in Ireland in his book '' Irish Journal''; later, the people of Achill curated a festival in his honour. The Irish connection also influenced the translations into German by his wife Annemarie, which included works by

Brendan Behan Brendan Francis Aidan Behan (christened Francis Behan) ( ; ; 9 February 1923 – 20 March 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican, an activist who wrote in both English and Irish. His widely ackno ...

, J. M. Synge, G. B. Shaw,

Flann O'Brien Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth- ...

, and Tomás Ó Criomhthain. Böll was president of the then West German P.E.N. and subsequently of the International P.E.N. organizations. He often traveled as a representative of the new, democratic Germany. His appearance and attitude completely contrasted with the boastful, aggressive type of German who had become infamous during

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

's rule. Böll was particularly successful in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

, as he seemed to portray the dark side of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

in his books, which sold by the millions in the

alone. When

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

was expelled from the Soviet Union, he first took refuge in Böll's Eifel cottage. This was in part the result of Böll's visit to the Soviet Union in 1962 with a cultural delegation, the first of several trips he made there, during which he made friendships with writers and connections with producers of dissident literature. With Solzhenitsyn's meeting, Böll responded to the criticism from both sides that branded him an instrument of anti-socialist propaganda or a stooge for the East Germans with the following statement: "perhaps many Germans do not read ''The Gulag Archipelago'' to experience the suffering of those to whom this monument is dedicated, but rather to forget the horror of their own history." As president of the West German P.E.N., Böll had recommended Solzhenitsyn for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When Solzhenitsyn received the prize in 1970, he quoted Böll's works to the reception committee. In 1976, Böll publicly left the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, "without falling away from the faith". He died in 1985 at the age of 67.

Legacy and influence

Böll's memory lives on, among other places, at the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The Cologne Library set up the Heinrich Böll Archive to house his personal papers, bought from his family, but much of the material was damaged, possibly irreparably, when the building collapsed in 2009. His cottage in Ireland has been used as a residency for writers since 1992. Eric Anderson wrote a set of musical compositions based on Böll's books: ''Silent Angel: Fire and Ashes of Heinrich Böll'' (2017, Meyer Records).

Selected bibliography

* (1949) ''Der Zug war pünktlich'' ('' The Train Was on Time'') – novel * (1950) '' Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…'' – short story * (1951) ''Die schwarzen Schafe'' (''Black Sheep'') – short story * (1951) ''Wo warst du, Adam?'' (''And where were you, Adam?'') – novel * (1952) ''Nicht nur zur Weihnachtszeit'' (''Christmas Not Just Once a Year'') – short story * (1952) ''Die Waage der Baleks'' (''The Balek Scales'') – short story * (1953) ''Und sagte kein einziges Wort'' ('' And Never Said a Word'') – novel * (1954) ''Haus ohne Hüter'' (''The Unguarded House''; ''Tomorrow and Yesterday'') – novel * (1955) ''Das Brot der frühen Jahre'' ('' The Bread of Those Early Years'') – novel * (1957) ''Irisches Tagebuch'' (''Irish Journal'') – travel writing * (1957) ''Die Spurlosen'' (''Missing Persons'') – essays * (1958) ''Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen'' ('' Murke's Collected Silences'', 1963) – short story * (1959) ''Billard um halb zehn'' ('' Billiards at Half-past Nine'') – novel * (1962) ''Ein Schluck Erde'' ('' A Mouthful of Earth'') – play * (1963) ''Ansichten eines Clowns'' ('' The Clown'') – novel * (1963) '' Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral'' (''Anecdote Concerning the Lowering of Productivity'') – short story * (1964) ''Entfernung von der Truppe'' (''Absent Without Leave'') – two novellas * (1966) ''Ende einer Dienstfahrt'' (''The End of a Mission'') – novel * (1971) ''Gruppenbild mit Dame'' ('' Group Portrait with Lady'') – novel * (1974) ''Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum'' ('' The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum'') – novel * (1979) ''Du fährst zu oft nach Heidelberg und andere Erzählungen'' (''You Go to Heidelberg Too Often'') – short stories * (1979) ''Fürsorgliche Belagerung'' ('' The Safety Net'') – novel * (1981) ''Was soll aus dem Jungen bloß werden? Oder: Irgendwas mit Büchern'' (''What's to Become of the Boy?'') – autobiography of Böll's school years 1933–1937 * (1982) ''Vermintes Gelände'' * (1982, written 1948) ''Das Vermächtnis'' ('' A Soldier's Legacy'') – novel * (1983) ''Die Verwundung und andere frühe Erzählungen'' (''The Casualty'') – unpublished stories from 1947–1952

Posthumous

* (1985) ''Frauen vor Flusslandschaft'' (''Women in a River Landscape'') * (1986) ''The Stories of Heinrich Böll'' – U.S. release * (1992, written 1949/50) ''Der Engel schwieg'' ('' The Silent Angel'') – novel * (1995) ''Der blasse Hund'' – unpublished stories from 1937 & 1946–1952 * (2002, written 1946–1947) ''Kreuz ohne Liebe'' * (2004, written 1938) ''Am Rande der Kirche'' * (2011) ''The Collected Stories'' – reissues of translations, U.S. release

Translations

More than 70 translations of Annemarie and Heinrich Böll are in the bibliography published in 1995 by Werner Bellmann: works of

, Eilis Dillon, O. Henry, Paul Horgan,

Bernard Malamud Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish ...

J. D. Salinger Jerome David Salinger ( ; January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel '' The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger published several short stories in '' Story'' magazine in 1940, before serving in World Wa ...

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

et al. * ''Das harte Leben'' ( The Hard Life, Brian O'Nolan), translated by Heinrich Böll, Hamburg, Nannen, 1966, 79. Illustrations by

Patrick Swift Patrick Swift (1927–1983) was an Irish painter who worked in Dublin, London and the Algarve, Portugal. Overview In Dublin he formed part of the Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, Envoy arts review / McDaid's pub circle of artistic and l ...

References

External links

Heinrich Böll official website

The Heinrich Böll Page
* * * *
''Lost Honor of Heinrich Böll'' documentary with Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boll, Heinrich 1917 births 1985 deaths 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German novelists 20th-century German short story writers 20th-century Roman Catholics Critics of work and the work ethic Georg Büchner Prize winners German Army personnel of World War II German male novelists German male short story writers German Nobel laureates German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States German Roman Catholic writers Nobel laureates in Literature Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the German Academy for Language and Literature PEN International Trümmerliteratur University of Cologne alumni Writers from Bydgoszcz Writers from Cologne Writers from North Rhine-Westphalia Writers from the Rhine Province