Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (67) paid tribute to the writer Martin Walser (1927-2023), who died at the age of 96, and offered his condolences to his widow Käthe. He wanted to express his condolences. With Walser, Germany has “lost a great person and a world-class writer”.
“If you were to give an example of historically conscious, committed poetry in German post-war literature, who else would come to mind than Martin Walser?” Steinmeier asks. The work of the writer, who was born in Wasserburg on Lake Constance in 1927 – including novels such as “Ehen in Phillipsburg” and “Ein jumping fountain”, the much-discussed “Death of a Critic” and the novella “A Fleeing Horse” – had a decisive influence on German literature.
For the deceased, the letter was “always a commitment to relentless commitment,” Steinmeier continues. As a “lifelong combative and idiosyncratic political spirit,” Walser was not afraid of arguments or criticism. At the same time, “all attempts to classify Martin Walser in a political or ideological ideology failed to recognize what drove this writer from the bottom: to express one’s own feelings as truthfully as possible. […] As an ingenious analyst of human He has repeatedly questioned his own inner worlds in writing and allowed the readers to participate in this process.”
Walser “opened the eyes of many people with his books and essays, especially about the country in which they live and about the time in which they live”. Steinmeier concludes with the words: “We all mourn Martin Walser. We will not forget him.”
First, the “Südkurier” and the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported on Walser’s death. This was later confirmed to ZDF, among others.
