Wolfgang Weyrauch

Life and work

Wolfgang Weyrauch was born Königsberg, Prussia as the son of a surveyor. After attending gymnasium, and receiving his Abitur, he began going to acting school in Frankfurt am Main in 1924. Between 1925 and 1927, he acted in theaters in Münster, Bochum, and at the Harztheater in Thale. From 1927 to 1929, Weyrauch pursued German history, German studies, and Romance studies at Goethe University Frankfurt.

In 1929, he began working as a freelance writer, from 1929 to 1933, at the Frankfurter Zeitung, from 1932 to 1938, at the Berliner Tageblatt, and, from 1933 to 1934, at the Vossische Zeitung. In the 1930s, Weyrauch also began to write radio plays, a newly emerged art form. During the 1930s, Weyrauch also worked as a literary editor, and published his first books. From 1940 to 1945, he worked in an air intelligence unit in World War II. In 1945, he was held in a Soviet prisoner of war camp, and was released in the same year.

After 1945, Weyrauch wrote radio plays, and narratives, and published numerous anthologies (see list below). From December 1945 to 1948, Weyrauch was the editor of Ulenspiegel, a satirical magazine, and Ost und West, both published in Berlin. He shaped the direction of "Kahlschlagliteratur" in Tausend Gramm, a 1949 anthology edited by him, characterizing and promoting the rebirth of German literature, after the end of the Third Reich. From 1950 to 1958, he was a literary editor at the Hamburg publisher, Rowohlt Verlag. Beginning in 1959, he returned to freelance writing, first in Gauting, near Munich, and in Darmstadt, after 1967.

Weyrauch was a member of the West German P.E.N., and the German Writers' Union. In 1951, he began taking part in Gruppe 47 conferences, and, in 1967, he became a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt, where he died. In 1976, he published his own rather different version of the fairy tale The Fisherman and His Wife by the Brothers Grimm, known as a fairy tale called, Vom Fischer und seiner Frau (English version as "The Fisherman and His Wife"), which is part of the children's book Update on Rumpelstiltskin and other Fairy Tales by 43 Authors, which is compiled by Hans-Joachim Gelberg, illustrated by Willi Glasauer, and published by Beltz & Gelberg.

Awards and honors

In 1997, the city of Darmstadt created the Wolfgang Weyrauch Prize to encourage young writers with an award, and stipend. The stipend is in the amount of €8,000. During his lifetime, Weyrauch himself was awarded several prizes.

Works