Einar Schleef

Einar Schleef (17 January 1944 in Sangerhausen – 21 July 2001 in Berlin) was a German dramatist, director, set designer, writer, painter, photographer, and actor.

Nobel Prize winning Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek wrote in his obituary,

As a poet and creator of theatre, Schleef was the most outstanding phenomenon that I have encountered. The postwar period in Germany has produced only two geniuses - Faßbinder in the West and Schleef in the East.

Schleef was born and raised in Sangerhausen, a small town in the South East of Germany. An industrial landscape shaped by mining and surrounded by the mythical landscapes of Harz and Kyffhäuser. His father Wilhelm Schleef was an architect, his mother Gertrud Schleef worked as a seamstress. He had one sibling, Hans Schleef.

Einar Schleef started to train as a painter while he was still in school. He attended a socialist painting circle led by from 1958 onwards. In 1964 he started a degree in fine arts at the arts academy in Berlin Weißensee. After being expelled in 1965 Schleef switched to set design two years later and finished with a bachelor's degree in 1973.

From 1972-1975 he worked mainly for the Berliner Ensemble with its artistic director Ruth Berghaus. He co-directed three productions with ("Katzgraben" in 1972, "Frühlings Erwachen" in 1974, "Fräulein Julie" in 1975). Even though artistically successful Schleef was put under more and more political pressure. In 1976 he left East Germany and via Vienna finally settled down in West Germany. From now on Schleef produced more and more text. Already from 1953 onwards he wrote journals and he continued this practice till his death. In the 1980s he wrote the critically acclaimed novel "Gertrud" portraying the life of his mother. He also wrote plays, radio plays and more fiction. From 1978 to 1982 he studied film making at the in West Berlin.

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