Walter Jens
Walter Jens | |
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File:WalterJens1.jpg
Jens addressing the Academy of Arts, Berlin (2005)
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Born | Hamburg, Germany |
8 March 1923
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. |
Occupation | Professor, philologist, writer |
Walter Jens (8 March 1923 – 9 June 2013) was a German philologist, literature historian, critic, university professor and writer.[1]
He was born in Hamburg, and attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums from 1933 to 1941, when he gained his Abitur,[2] before studying at the University of Hamburg.[3]
In the early 1940s, Jens joined the NSDAP.[4][5] He denied having applied for membership actively and claimed that he had become a member automatically because he was a member of the Hitler Youth and that he never received a membership card.
During World War II, he earned a doctorate in Freiburg with a work about Sophocles' tragedy and habilitated at age 26 with the work Tacitus und die Freiheit (Tacitus and Freedom) at the University of Tübingen.[6]
From 1950 onward, he was a member of the Group 47.[7] That year, he had his breakthrough with the novel Nein. Die Welt der Angeklagten.[8][9]
From 1965 to 1988, Jens held the chair for General Rhetoric at the University of Tübingen,[10] which was created in order to keep him at the university. Under the pseudonym Momos, he wrote television reviews for Die Zeit.[11] From 1976 to 1982, he was president of the International PEN center in Germany.[10] From 1989 to 1997, he was president of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and afterwards he was the honorary president.[12] From 1990 to 1995, he was chairman of the Martin-Niemöller-Foundation.[13]
Personal life
In 1951, Jens married Inge Puttfarcken.[14][10] They had two sons, Tillmann und Christoph.[14] Jens suffered from dementia, which began to manifest in 2004. He died in 2013 in Tübingen, aged 90.[15]
Honours and awards
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- 1951: Prize of Amis de la Liberté
- 1959: German Youth Literature Prize
- 1968: Lessing Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
- 1981: Heinrich Heine Prize of the city of Düsseldorf
- 1982: Honorary President of the PEN Centre of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1983: Austrian Merit
- 1984: Adolf Grimme Award
- 1988: Alternative Büchner Prize
- 1988: Theodor Heuss Prize (with his wife Inge Jens)
- 1989: Hermann Sinsheimer Award
- 1990: Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism
- 1992: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
- 1992: Poetry Foundation Visiting Professor at the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
- 1997: Bruno Snell sticker for outstanding work in science and society at the University of Hamburg
- 1997: Honorary President of the Berlin University of the Arts
- 1998: Ernst Reuter Medal
- 2002: Ecumenical Sermon Prize (Predigtpreis) awarded by German publisher Verlags für die Deutsche Wirtschaft
- 2003: Grand Merit Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 2003: Corine Literature Prize (with Inge Jens)
References
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External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Walter Jens. |
Walter Jens in the German National Library catalogue
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- Articles with hCards
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- 1923 births
- 2013 deaths
- Writers from Hamburg
- German philologists
- German literary historians
- German literary critics
- Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
- Recipients of the Austrian State Prize
- Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
- German male non-fiction writers
- University of Hamburg alumni
- University of Tübingen alumni
- People educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums
- Nazi Party members
- Hitler Youth members
- Deaths from dementia in Germany