60 years ago, Thomas Mann died 30 years ago – July 16, 1985 – Heinrich Böll. Both were German Literature, but while man is still in demand today, Böll is read rather little and plays in the media only a modest role.
The common explanation for this is that’s fabrics are timeless while Böll dealt with the young Federal Republic. This can be with some of his novels no longer do much – the time has passed over them. Heinrich Böll – man of yesterday
Publishers held a novel for unreasonable
Since contradiction excites. “There are works such as the” Katharina Blum “or” billiards at nine-thirty, “which are still relevant,” says the editor of the 27-volume work edition, Ralf Schnell. In the “Katharina Blum” is about a woman whose life is destroyed by the prejudice of a tabloid – perhaps more relevant in the age of social networks than ever before. The 1959 published novel “Billiards at nine-thirty,” deals with the Nazi past – Germany pursued until today
German literature now appreciate especially the early works.. The literary scholar and writer WG Sebald took Böll than only German writers of the accusation, to have failed before the horrors of aerial warfare. “Of all the late 40s created works there is really only of Heinrich Böll’s novel” The Silent Angel “, which gives an approximate idea of the depth of the horror that threatened at the time to capture anyone who really looked around in the ruins,” judged Sebald. The novel was not published until years after Böll’s death -. After the war kept him publishers for unreasonable
Abroad he was the “good German”
Even as a political personality remains Böll of interest. It is already largely forgotten that he was “the next Jean-Paul Sartre most powerful writers of Europe” has been for decades, as his latest biographer Christian Linder points out. In 1961 Böll was called in a “mirror” cover story “Germany’s most successful post-war author”. Mid-1970s chose him leading opinion makers in a survey on the most influential West German personality under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the SPD chairman Willy Brandt and CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss.
Boell was regarded as the conscience Federal Republic. Abroad – for example in the Soviet Union – he was the “good German” par excellence. The fascination that emanated from him, Willy Brandt describes in his memoirs: “Unforgettable: This soothing lack of demonic That voice, the opposite of a metallic body, softly, loudly insisting on humanity, the philistinism riding in the parade.”.
Surprising simplicity
Who Heinrich Boll wants to experience in a very immediate way today, has to visit the second floor of the Cologne Municipal Library. There is to be found – only noticed by a few – his study. It has been rebuilt in its original state – and it surprises with its simplicity: The cleaned off desk that even cobbled together side table, the bamboo bed with the Basque beret on one of the posts – no one would come up with the idea to take this as the place of work of a major author , Böll rejected the consumer society life from – money, possessions, all that meant little to him
At the height of the fun society before the financial crisis that may have been ridiculed.. But now a rediscovery seems quite conceivable. Perhaps Heinrich Böll is a man of the future.
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