Paul Gratzik
Encyclopedia
Paul Gratzik is a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Writer.

Life

Paul Gratzik is the son of a farm worker. He attended elementary school and afterwards completed an apprenticeship to a cabinet maker from 1952 to 1954. He worked in the Ruhr Area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...

, in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

 then in the brown coal open mine in Schlabendorf. He was and official in the Weimar Kreis management of the Free German Youth
Free German Youth
The Free German Youth, also known as the FDJ , was the official socialist youth movement of the German Democratic Republic and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany....

. From 1963 to 1966, he studied at the Institute for Teacher Formation in Weimar and was afterwards active as a Educator until 1971. He began studies at the "Johannes R. Brecher" Literature Institute in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, he would however be relegated after a short time. From 1971, he was an Author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and worked also part time in an industrial firm in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

. From 1977, Gratzik lived in Berlin and was a lecture author at the Berliner Ensemble
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...

. Afterwards he cooperated as an unofficial employee for the Ministry for State Security
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

 of East Germany between 1962 and 1981 then however he rejected continued service and was himself an Object to Watch of the Stasi from 1984.

Paul Gratzik is an author of drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 and narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 works. He is allowed as an extreme outside into the authors of the DDR-Literature since he willingly return to the "Production" and - in one of the much of one's own mind from Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

 influenced language - portrayed the everyday industrial worker of East Germany. He also stopped at nothing to make known child labor centers from his own experience, an East German taboo theme, difficulties with the state Censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 had seized his work.

Paul Gratzik received the 1980 Heinrich Mann Prize
Heinrich Mann Prize
The Heinrich Mann Prize is a literary award given annually by the Berlin Academy of Art . The prize given for works with socially critical aspects in a character that would honor Heinrich Mann...

.

Works

  • Unruhige Tage (Disquieted Days), Leipzig 1966
  • Umwege (Detours), Berlin 1970
  • Transportpaule, Rostock 1977
  • Malwa, Frankfurt on the Main 1978
  • Lisa, Frankfurt on the Main 1979
  • Kohlenkutte (Coal Cowl), Berlin 1982

External links

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