Writers – Hermann Kant – an activist of the GDR is dead – Süddeutsche.de

Hermann Kant, the most successful East German authors, has died. The official was reviled as a state artist. An obituary.

struggle Funny he was until the end , In early June he reported in Mirror with a short statement to word. In a letter he has in a portrait on his 90th birthday allegations that harshly back. “After Alfred Kantorowicz had left the GDR, I wrote no letter to him. No letter, no line, no word.”

Even in these dry lines on a complicated case flashing his characteristic style, his penmanship on , Hermann Kant was a success writer, a major East German writers. Abruptly known and popular of the studied Germanist 1965 with his novel “The Great Hall”. 650,000 books were sold from the plant according to the Berlin Aufbau Verlag far. Successful was his novel “The Imprint” of 1972. But his fans praising especially his guilt-and-atonement book “Staying” of 1977 as Jahrhundertroman.Hier he sat autobiographical with the experiences of a young Wehrmacht soldiers in Polish captivity apart were then filmed from a screenplay of the great Wolfgang Kohlhaase.

Even in the west Schullektüre

Kant books were translated into 20 languages. Also because of its language and its tendency to joke satire was “The Hall” as “DDR novel par excellence” and was even in the West Schullektüre. His latest release, the story “A strict match”, appeared in 2015. Hardly anyone, it is said, have the apparatus, which the GDR society has developed, so ably described Kant. He sat down often (self-) ironic with the inherent conflicts and contradictions in the construction of socialism in the GDR apart.

friends he had many, now writes the New Germany , the first reported his death and in the he repeatedly wrote itself: an in-million readership, especially but not only in the GDR. Quite a few remained loyal to him even after the collapse of the GDR and accompanied his literary examination, even with his life in the East German state and its failure.

So the seats were in the hall for the celebration of his 90th birthday celebration in Landestheater Neustrelitz sold out in mid-July long ago, wrote the Berliner Zeitung a month ago. Among the guests of the very elderly audience: Egon Krenz and deputy GDR Culture Minister Klaus Höpcke. The list of well-wishers says quite a lot about this man who was active as a member of the Central Committee of the SED as Chairman of the GDR Writers ‘Association, deputy of the People’s Chamber and 1986-1990.’ / P>

For others, it was just a cold guy who died Sunday in a hospital in the town of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which had recently even given him the beautiful reception. To his enemies in his lifetime included authors who felt patronized by him as a functionary and saw him as an extension of the SED system. Kant had to allegations of being partly responsible for has been handled in the GDR with certain authors who are not “tracks” wanted. But West German critics, who saw little more than an adjusted state artist in him. And people who contacts him to the State Security accused. On the occasion of his 80th birthday wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung 2006, Kant was the “widely read and most hated writer in the GDR”.

Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass praised Kant once as a writer, but practiced hard criticism of its role in the GDR. “I have always considered a gifted author and if you are attacked lump sum, I will always as the author of books such as” defend Staying “. But I’ll throw your behavior as association president before, you are on the crackdown of writers been involved. “

also the Lüneburg literary scholar Hans-Wolfgang Lesch says that one must distinguish clearly in Kant between author and functionary. “Kant is – for all reservations – one of the main authors of the communist era.” And also in the evaluation of its association activity there are authors like Werner Heiduczek who declared that Kant had many writers also helped

One he was certain. Controversial. And extremely difficult to classify in categories of black and white.

Kant was born on June 14, 1926 in Hamburg, his parents took him in 1940 to Parchim in Mecklenburg. In 1944 he rendered military service, was from 1945 to 1949 in Polish captivity, came as a convinced anti-fascists to Berlin and entered immediately in the SED.

Neither “Jester” nor “Grand Inquisitor”

He was also a member of the PEN center, he was accused colleagues spied on and the Stasi to have supplied, Stefan Heym and others have sidelined and qualified for expatriation of Wolf Biermann in 1976 for higher ordination in the GDR.

However, he also continued bravely for his fellow writer Erich Loest. But, his irony and satire about the GDR life “does not change the fact that I am absolutely intertwined with what we understand as DDR,” he confessed self-critical after the turn. Kant himself does not deny that he had served a regime as “Vorzeigepoet”. “That did not bother me. I found this regime in order, with all its gaps and errors.” He stressed at the same time: “. Overall, I have been taking care that I behave decently”

The Mirror he said in 1990 clearly: “I was an activist of the GDR.” However, he justified in a year later published autobiography “credits” its policy in the Union of Writers: he is neither “Jester” yet been “Grand Inquisitor”. Kant himself has always stressed that he “want to help build new, better Germany honest heart” at one. And yet a few months ago he told news magazine on the phone: “I was a convinced builder of the GDR, I wanted to I would not though as it has then become, but I wanted to win the old Germany I did not.. . more “

Among the critics who endeavored to use a differentiated picture of him, writes the New Germany , was the columnist Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who once wrote about Kant: “This writer has always been a tough and intelligent opponents of our Western world. for warmth we truly little reason. But still a scarce, respectful bow.” Once he said tersely: “Maybe he is a scoundrel, but he can write.”