75th birthday of Wolfgang Borchert - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1996 - 100 Pfennig

Wolfgang Borchert was born on May 20, 1921, the son of a primary school teacher and a homeland writer in Hamburg. He attends high school to upper secondary studies and begins in 1939 a bookseller apprenticeship, in which he comes into contact with the works of numerous German authors, and takes private acting lessons. The first lyrical attempts at writing are under the influence of Rilke and Hölderlin. Since 1941 war experiences on the fronts, severe illness and imprisonment characterize the short and painful life of Borchert, who died on November 20, 1947 at the age of only 26 in the Clara hospital in Basel. From December 1945 until his death, Borchert is confined to the sickbay without any hope of recovery: the writer has just two years left to make his life experiences with wartime and post-war literary. Impressive and shocking at the same time is his war returnee drama "Outside the door" (1947), which becomes a unique stage success. Masterfully, he masters the art of short prose. The conciseness of the language in his stories of loneliness, longing, famine and big city gives a vivid idea of ​​the bitterness of reality. His work left behind is narrow, but unparalleled marks the new beginning of a search for truth in literature after 1945. And that makes this writer one of the greats of this century. (Text: Dr. Nicolai Riedel, German Literature Archive, Marbach am Neckar)