Heinrich Böll
Writer from Cologne and winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature, whose work centres on ordinary lives shaped by war.
Heinrich Theodor Böll (21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer born in Cologne. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.
Source: Wikipedia
At a Glance
- Person
- German writer
- Born / died
- 21 December 1917 in Cologne – 16 July 1985
- Nobel Prize
- Literature, 1972
- Georg Büchner Prize
- 1967
- First novel
- Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), 1949
- Reach
- work translated into more than 30 languages
- Roles
- President of PEN International, 1971–1973
Things to do here
Early Life
Böll grew up in a Roman Catholic and pacifist family that later opposed the rise of Nazism, and he declined to join the Hitler Youth during the 1930s. He was apprenticed to a bookseller before studying German studies and classics at the University of Cologne. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht, he served in Poland, France, Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union, was wounded four times and fell ill with typhoid. US Army soldiers captured him in April 1945 and sent him to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Path to Writing
After the war he returned to Cologne, worked in his family's cabinet shop and spent a year in a municipal statistical bureau before leaving to write. He became a full-time writer at the age of 30 and published his first novel in 1949. He was invited to the 1949 meeting of the Group 47 circle of German authors, and his work was judged the best presented in 1951. Many novels, short stories, radio plays and essay collections followed.
Works and Themes
Among his widely read books are Billiards at Half-past Nine (1959), And Never Said a Word (1953), The Clown (1963), Group Portrait with Lady (1971) and The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974). His war experience made him a committed pacifist, a stance he summed up in the phrase „never war again“. His stories often follow individualistic protagonists who resist state and public institutions, portraying private life set against war, political division and social change.
Public Controversies
The 1963 publication of The Clown drew press criticism for its portrayal of the Catholic Church and the CDU. Böll insisted on due process in the case of the Baader-Meinhof Group, which led parts of the conservative press to accuse him of sympathy with terrorism. In 1977, after the abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer, police searched his house following an anonymous tip that named his son; the claim proved unfounded.
Ties to Cologne
Böll remained closely bound to his home city of Cologne, with its Roman Catholic character and its blunt sense of humour. He was affected by the Nazi takeover of the city, which he described as a form of exile in his own town.
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