Walter Jens
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Walter Jens | |
|---|---|
 Jens addressing the Academy of Arts, Berlin (2005) | |
| Born | 8 March 1923 Hamburg, Germany |
| Died | 9 June 2013 (aged 90) |
| Occupation(s) | Professor, philologist, writer |
Walter Jens (8 March 1923 – 9 June 2013) was a German philologist, literature historian, critic, university professor and writer.[1]
He was born in Hamburg, and attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums from 1933 to 1941, when he gained his Abitur,[2] before studying at the University of Hamburg.[3]
In the early 1940s, Jens joined the NSDAP.[4][5] He denied having applied for membership actively and claimed that he had become a member automatically because he was a member of the Hitler Youth and that he never received a membership card.
During World War II, he earned a doctorate in Freiburg with a work about Sophocles' tragedy and habilitated at age 26 with the work Tacitus und die Freiheit (Tacitus and Freedom) at the University of Tübingen.[6]
From 1950 onward, he was a member of the Group 47.[7] That year, he had his breakthrough with the novel Nein. Die Welt der Angeklagten.[8][9]
From 1965 to 1988, Jens held the chair for General Rhetoric at the University of Tübingen,[10] which was created in order to keep him at the university. Under the pseudonym Momos, he wrote television reviews for Die Zeit.[11] From 1976 to 1982, he was president of the International PEN center in Germany.[10] From 1989 to 1997, he was president of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and afterwards he was the honorary president.[12] From 1990 to 1995, he was chairman of the Martin-Niemöller-Foundation.[13]
