Martin Walser is dead. The writer died on Friday at the age of 96, as announced by Rowohlt Verlag in the evening. Walser was considered one of the most important contemporary writers in Germany. Walser’s death caused widespread dismay. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wrote on Twitter: “Martin
Walser was born on March 24, 1927 as the son of an innkeeper in Wasserburg on Lake Constance. Among his best-known works is the critically acclaimed 1978 novella A Fleeing Horse, which was made into a film. He has received numerous prizes for his work, including the Georg Büchner Prize in 1981 and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1998. In March 2022, “The Dream Book” was published by Rowohlt Verlag.
Federal President Steinmeier: “World-class writer”
In a letter of condolence, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier described Walser as “a great person and a world-class writer” whom Germany had lost. “If one were to cite an example of historically conscious, committed poetry in German post-war literature, who else would spring to mind than Martin Walser?”
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) wrote that Walser had created literature that was staying. “As a keen, profound, and always combative observer and commentator, Walser left his stamp on the history of the Federal Republic of Germany after the war. His novels are a mirror and place of reflection on contemporary German history and at the same time empathetic and detailed studies of the human species.”
The Upper Swabian Literary Forum, co-initiated by Walser, wrote: “As long as he could, Walser supported the promotion of art and culture in our region and promoted writers. With topics such as homeland, identity, remembrance and society, he also helped stimulated discussions and debates and enriched intellectual and cultural life.”
The Rowohlt publishing house paid tribute: With Martin Walser, one has lost one of its most important authors, who shaped German culture as a writer and homo politicus for decades. “His diverse and powerfully eloquent work, his appearance as a public intellectual will have an impact long after his death,” it said in a statement.
Controversial Peace Prize Speech 1998
Walser’s works often dealt with failing average citizens, whom the author scrutinized lovingly and ruthlessly. But the writer is not only remembered as a gifted storyteller and linguistic virtuoso. Walser often took a position on current debates – and repeatedly offended. In 1998, for example, Walser criticized the “instrumentalization of Auschwitz” in his speech at the award of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Violent and outraged reactions were the result.
Last year he appealed with other celebrities such as the feminist Alice Schwarzer in connection with Russia’s war against Ukraine in a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) that Germany should neither directly nor indirectly supply heavy weapons to Ukraine. Walser was one of the most controversial authors of post-war literature.
In the anthology “Unser Auschwitz”, published in 2015, Walser documented his lifelong engagement with the subject. The last entry in the anthology is an excerpt from the 2014 work “Shmekendike Blumen”, which pays tribute to the Yiddish writer Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh. After reading it, he could no longer hold his controversial speech at the awarding of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1998 in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche, Walser said at the time. Abramovitsh showed him: “I don’t care about this instrumentalization. What is it – in view of what happened. What are such ridiculous little back-and-forth talks about?”
“Death of a Critic” caused controversy
His novel Death of a Critic, published in 2002, also caused great controversy. Many critics thought they recognized the literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki in the protagonist of the work. “FAZ” editor Frank Schirrmacher rated the book, which was intended as a reckoning with the literary business, as an “execution” of Reich-Ranicki. As a result, Walser had a dispute with his long-standing publisher Suhrkamp. In 2004 he switched to Rowohlt.
Walser’s oeuvre today includes dozens of novels, numerous short stories and collections of stories, a large number of plays, radio plays and translations as well as essays, speeches and lectures. Although Walser traveled a lot and also worked as a guest lecturer in the USA, among other things, he remained strongly connected to his region: He was rooted in the south, a native person – maybe even a native writer.
Not far from his birthplace of Wasserburg, he lived for several decades in Überlingen. Walser had been married to his wife Käthe since 1950, they had four daughters, all of whom are artistically active. In 2009 it also became known that Walser is the father of journalist and publisher Jakob Augstein. In their joint book “Das Leben literal” (2017), they deal with Walser’s life, the German past and their relationship, among other things.
