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HEINRICH BÖLL |
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THE AUTHOR
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Heinrich Böll (1917-1985), who was one of the most famous writers of post-war Germany was awarded the Nobel Price for literature in 1972. For several years he was the president of the PEN (the worldwide association of writers). Heinrich Böll however was not just a very important novelist. He was one of the most politically involved public figures in post-war Western Germany. Heinrich Böll was a passionate advocate for peace, democracy and human as well as civil rights. He campaigned time and again for persecuted fellow writers and for political prisoners.
Heinrich Böll is an outstanding example of a citizen committed to vivid democracy and active political participation. Though a man of literature, he never lived in an ivory tower. “Meddling is the only way to stay relevant”, he once said. And he did meddle, criticising German society, which for many years was not willing to deal with the crimes against humanity, the Nazis, the Germans had perpetrated. He meddled against the remilitarisation of Germany in the fifties and against the stationing of new nuclear missiles in the 80s. He was sympathetic to the student movement in the 60s and 70s, rejecting however anti-Israeli attitudes very common in the student movement after 1967. Moreover, he never became uncritical of the communist regimes in the East and in China. He was a believing catholic, but at the same time he had harsh criticism for the Catholic Church. In the 1980s Böll felt closer and closer to the newly established Green party, especially on the issues of environment and peace.
The Heinrich-Böll-Foundation attempts to work in the spirit of Heinrich Böll’s commitment to democracy and active political participation based on values like solidarity, non-violence and ecology.
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Heinrich Böll, 1968 (picture J.H. Darchinger)
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Biography
1917 - 1985
Shalom
An Essay, 1978
I am a German
Speech at the International PEN Congress in Jerusalem, 1974
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