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Horst Lange

ホルスト・ラングェ

Horst Lange

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1904-10-06 （Liegnitz (now Legnica)）
Died
1971-07-06 age 66
Nationality
German
Languages
German
Religion
Roman Catholic
Residence History
Liegnitz → Weimar → Berlin → Breslau → Munich

Career

Occupations
poet, novelist
Active Years
1925-1971
Influenced By
Günter Eich, Oda Schaefer, Paul Klee, Walter Gropius, Schopenhauer
Influenced
Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Günter Grass

Education

Bauhaus school Weimar
Architecture-related
Period: 1921
Country: Germany
Briefly, office job via uncle
University of Berlin
Art history, literature, theatre
Period: 1925-
Country: Germany
University of Breslau
Art history
Country: Germany

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Schwarze Weide

1937 Magical realism

A novel about a protagonist's awakening sexuality, visions of murder, and a sect-dominated village, exploring fate, guilt, and taboo themes.

fateguiltsexualityapocalypse

Ulanenpatrouille

1940 Novel

Explores submission to dark, formless powers and inevitable fate.

fatewar

Die Leuchtkugeln

1944 Novella

Three stories about a doomed organist-composer Hermes on a path of self-discovery at the front.

self-discoverywar

Ein Schwert zwischen uns

1952 Novel

Indictment of moral corruption and materialism in post-war Germany.

moral corruptionmaterialism

Verlöschende Feuer

1956 Novel

A doomed young couple in Berlin during the air-raids of the war's end.

late wardoom

Style & Themes

Literary Style
NaturmagieMagical realismExpressionist elements
Recurring Motifs
fateguiltsexual deformityapocalyptic visionsdualism of light and darkness

Health

  • Loss of sight in one eye
    1940年代（第二次世界大戦中）
    Wounded during front service in WWII

Legacy

Key figure of Inner Emigration during the Third Reich. Provided important example of magical realism influencing post-war German literature like Schnurre and Grass. Marginalized post-war but revived by 1979 war diaries publication.

Quotes

  • Today no gods are visible. And if they were visible, one would not believe in them anymore. This mankind is therefore so helpless and so abandoned that it falls prey to its seducers without resistance, because they are no longer capable of separating good from evil.
    Source: War Diaries (1979)
  • The apocalypse has already existed for a long time next to our bourgeois cosiness, the plush sofa. Fire falls from the skies and the disorder which man has caused is growing to infinity.
    Source: War Diaries (1979)

Trivia

  • Briefly joined the Communist Party
  • Openly opposed Nazis, distributed anti-Nazi stickers
  • Practiced Inner Emigration with wife Oda Schaefer
  • Protagonist in Schwarze Weide allegedly modeled on Hitler
  • Met Paul Klee at Bauhaus