Heinz Kahlau

Heinz Kahlau (6 February 1931 – 6 April 2012) was a German writer.

He is remembered as one of the best known lyric poets in the German Democratic Republic. He wrote song lyrics, dramas and prose pieces. He was particularly well known for his popular love poems. At the time of his death the Leipziger Volkszeitung (newspaper) reported that around four million copies of volumes of his poetry had been sold.

Life Heinz Kahlau was born into a working-class family at Drewitz, a small town at that time just outside Potsdam. After leaving school in 1945 he worked as an unskilled labourer in various sectors, at one stage as an electrician and at another as a "wood turner". In 1948 he obtained a job driving a tractor.

He later wrote, that his first poems were "written by a nineteen year old whose relationship to poetry, up to that point, had been the worst imaginable" ("Mein erstes Gedicht wurde von einem 19-Jährigen geschrieben, dessen Beziehungen zur Poesie bis dahin die denkbar schlechtesten waren"). His stepfather thought that reading made you stupid and threw any printed material that came his way into the fire. However, in 1949 Kahlau was sent away for half a year to a TB clinic at Rathenow where he had "his first pleasant encounter with poems" and wrote his own first verses. He characterised himself as thin-skinned at that time in his poem "Weißer Mann" (loosely: "white/pale Man"): he had "suffered till he was nineteen from depression, delusion and heightened anxiety. Sometimes he hid away from people. Since then he writes poems". In later years he would gratefully recall how Brecht had taught him to recognise "life's contradictions", and to write using simple, clear language. In 1957 the authorities determined that verse written by Kahlau had been critical of the fraternal invasion of Hungary. He had already stirred serious controversy a couple of months before the Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest with a speech delivered in June 1956 to a Congress of Young Artists at Karl-Marx-Stadt (as Chemnitz was then known).

Threatened with imprisonment, In 1964 he succeeded in revoking the "Statement of duty/obligation" ("Verpflichtungserklärung") that he had signed in 1957. For ten years, between 1970 and 1980, he led the organisation's East German division.

When he was 75 Kahlau moved with his family from Berlin to Usedom where he spent his final years, still working as an author. It was here that he died - as his widow put it "slowly" - of heart failure. He died in a clinic, but his body was buried at the cemetery of Stolpe auf Usedom near his island home. 1962: Heinrich Greif Prize 1963: Heinrich Heine Prize 1963: Johannes R. Becher medal 1964: Arts prize of the FDJ 1967: Critics prize of the Berliner Zeitung for Ein Krug mit Oliven as best youth piece 1970: Goethe Prize (Berlin) 1972: Lessing prize 1981: Johannes R. Becher medal 1984: National Prize of the German Democratic Republic Class III, for arts and literature 1989: Patriotic Order of Merit

Output (selection)

Hoffnung lebt in den Zweigen des Caiba. Neues Leben, Berlin 1954 Gedichte. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1956 Die Schönste. (Drehbuchteile der Zensurfassung). 1957 Die Maisfibel. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1960 Steinzeitballade. 1961 (Liedtexte). Jones’ Family. Eine Groteske mit Gesang. Henschel, Berlin 1962 On the sunny side. 1962 (Drehbuch). Der Fluß der Dinge. Gedichte aus 10 Jahren. Aufbau, Berlin 1964 Mikroskop und Leier. Bechtle, München 1964 Ein Krug mit Oliven. Parabelstück. Henschel, Berlin 1966 Du. Liebesgedichte. Aufbau, Berlin 1971 Balladen. Aufbau, Berlin 1971 Der Rittersporn blüht blau im Korn. Kinderbuchverlag. Berlin 1972 Flugbrett für Engel. Gedichte. Aufbau, Berlin 1974 Der Vers, der Reim, die Zeile. Wie ich Gedichte schreibe. Neues Leben, Berlin 1974 Das Hammer-Buch. Junge Welt, Berlin 1975 Wie fand der Fritz grad, krumm und spitz. (Kinderbuch) Zeichnungen: Éva Gaál. Corvina Verlag, 1976 Konrads Traktor. (Bilderbuch. Zeichnungen von Rudolf Platzer). Berlin, Junge Welt, 1976. Tasso und die Galoschen. 2 Stücke. Aufbau, Berlin 1980 Daß es dich gibt macht mich heiter. Liebesgedichte. Eremiten-Presse, Düsseldorf 1982, Fundsachen. Gedichte. Aufbau-Verlag. Berlin und Weimar 1984 Ich liebe dich. Handpresse Gutsch. Berlin 1988, Eines beliebigen Tages. Ausgewählte Gedichte. Tribüne, Berlin 1989, Sinn- und Unsinngedichte. Aufbau, Berlin 1989, Der besoffene Fluss. Balladen. Aufbau, Berlin 1991, So oder so. Gedichte 1950–1990. Aufbau, Berlin 1992, Kaspers Waage. Gedichte. Aufbau, Berlin 1992, Zweisam. Liebesgedichte. Aufbau, Berlin 1999,