Hermann Lenz
Hermann Karl Lenz[p] (26 February 1913 in Stuttgart – 12 May 1998 in Munich) was a German writer of poetry, fiction stories, and novels. A major part of his work includes 10 volumes in a semi-autobiographical novel cycle about the alter-ego figure "Eugen Rapp"[p]. In the 1970s he published the 7-volume Schwäbische Chronik ("Swabian Chronicle").
Lenz had been a German POW in U.S. custody during World War II. He received over 15 literary awards. Archives of his writings include some letters exchanged with his fellow writers Paul Celan and Peter Handke and others (see below: "Correspondence").
Lenz, son of art teacher Hermann Friedrich Lenz and his wife Elise, grew up until his eleventh year in Künzelsau and then in Stuttgart. After graduation and failed theology studies in Tübingen, he began, in 1933, to study Art history, philosophy, Archaeology and Germanic studies in Heidelberg and to study from 1937 in Munich. After early dramatic reading impressions (Mörike, Stifter, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal and others), Lenz first wrote poems and prose pieces. He first appeared in 1936, mediated by Georg von der Vring, with the poetry collection Gedichte, his first publication, which was followed before the war, with the repeatedly revised narrative Das stille Haus ("The Silent House").
From 1940, Lenz was a soldier in France and Russia, and in 1946 prisoner of war in the United States. Those experiences, that made the student and soldier, influenced his entire literary output. From the start in opposition to Nazism, Lenz moved back into inner worlds - the Biedermeier or the Vienna Fin de siècle - the scene of many narrative texts and the object of reflections in countless character monologues. After returning from captivity, Lenz was dedicated, except for secretary work in cultural institutions, just to write. In 1946 he married the art historian Hanne Trautwein, whom he had met in 1937. By 1975, both lived in Stuttgart, at Lenz' home, but inheritance disputes forced a move to Munich, home of his wife.
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