Group 47
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Early history
The beginnings reach back to 1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary magazine Der Ruf (The Call) in Munich. Their goal was to inform and teach the German public about democracy after the Hitler era. The US American occupational forces revoked their printing license in April 1947 on the grounds of extensive Nihilism.
Founding
The former authors of Der Ruf met in September 1947 in order to start a new magazine, Der Skorpion. This was not successful because they lacked a sound financial basis. Inspired by the Spanish Group 98 they founded the Gruppe 47.
Organization
The group met regularly twice a year. Attendance was by invitation only; the organizers would send postcards listing the date and location to anyone who was deemed worthy of invitation, and only invitees and their spouses were allowed entry. No consistent membership list was kept, and a member who had been invited in the past could find himself without an invite at the whim of the organizers.
The meetings consisted of readings and criticism. A writer was required to read his own work, and could only read manuscripts which had not been published. At every meeting, prizes were awarded to the authors of the most popular pieces.
Founder and organizer Hans Werner Richter described this format as a "private public".
Goals
At first, the expressed goal of the Gruppe 47 was to encourage young authors, the so-called Nachkriegsliteratur (post-war literature). In addition, the group openly criticized the idealized, poetic dewey-eyedness of some modern prose, as well as the tendency to write about distant time instead of the here-and-now.
Literature Prize
The Literature Prize of the Gruppe 47 was awarded to as yet unknown authors starting in 1950. The prize money was at first collected from the members of the Gruppe 47; later some publishers and radio stations chipped in. The following list of recipients is by no means complete:
- 1950: Günter Eich, for "Abgelegene Gehöfte"
- 1951: Heinrich Böll, for "Die schwarzen Schafe"
- 1952: Ilse Aichinger
- 1953: Ingeborg Bachmann, for "Die gestundete Zeit"
- 1955: Martin Walser, for the story "Templones Ende"
- 1958: Günter Grass, for Die Blechtrommel
- 1962: Johannes Bobrowski
- 1967: Peter Bichsel, for "Die Jahreszeiten"
Decline
The Gruppe 47 quickly gained popularity, no doubt on the basis of the well-known members, and was soon a part of the literary establishment in Germany. The onset of the decline began just before the student protests in 1968. There were grave differences of political opinion in the group. The public meetings were discontinued from October 1967, and in 1977 the group was officially disbanded.
Well-known Members
- Ilse Aichinger
- Alfred Andersch
- Ingeborg Bachmann
- Heinrich Böll
- Paul Celan
- Günter Eich
- Hans Magnus Enzensberger
- Erich Fried
- Günter Grass
- Wolfgang Hildesheimer
- Erich Kästner
- Alexander Kluge
- Siegfried Lenz
- Reinhard Lettau
- Marcel Reich-Ranicki
- Hans Werner Richter (initiative and organization)
