Anna Seghers facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers (1966)
Born	Anna (Netty) Reiling (1900-11-19)19 November 1900 Mainz, German Empire
Died	1 June 1983(1983-06-01) (aged 82) East Berlin, East Germany
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	German Hungarian (by marriage, 1925)
Notable works	The Seventh Cross, Transit
Spouse	László Radványi ​ (m. 1925)​

Anna Seghers (born Anna Reiling, 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983) was a famous German writer. She used the name Anna Seghers as her pen name. She is well-known for writing about the difficult experiences people faced during World War II.

Anna Seghers was born into a Jewish family. She married a Hungarian Communist. When the Nazis took power in Germany, she had to escape. She traveled through France during the war. Eventually, she got a special paper called a visa and sailed to Mexico. She lived in Mexico City from 1941 to 1947.

After the war, she came back to Europe. She lived in West Berlin for a few years. Later, she settled in East Germany. There, she worked on cultural projects and promoted peace. She received many awards for her writing. In 1967, she was even suggested for the Nobel Prize. Anna Seghers passed away in Berlin in 1983 and was buried there.

Her pen name, Anna Seghers, is thought to be inspired by a Dutch painter. His name was Hercules Seghers.

Life of Anna Seghers

Anna Reiling was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1900. Her family was Jewish. People often called her "Netty." Her father, Isidor Reiling, bought and sold old art and special items. Anna studied history, art history, and Chinese in Cologne and Heidelberg.

In 1925, she married László Radványi. He was a Hungarian Communist and a smart scholar. Because she married him, she also became a Hungarian citizen.

In 1928, Anna joined the Communist Party of Germany. This was a time when Germany's government, the Weimar Republic, was becoming very weak. Her novel from 1932, Die Gefährten (The Companions), warned people about the dangers of Nazism. Because of this book, the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) arrested her. In 1932, she officially left the Jewish community.

The grave of Anna Seghers in Berlin

By 1934, she had left Germany. She went to Paris, France, after a stop in Zürich. When German soldiers invaded France in 1940, she had to flee again. She went to Marseille, hoping to leave Europe entirely.

A year later, she received a visa to enter Mexico. She also got a ticket for a ship. She settled in Mexico City. There, she started an anti-fascist group called the 'Heinrich-Heine-Klub.' It was named after a German Jewish poet. She also started an academic newspaper called Freies Deutschland (Free Germany).

While she was still in Paris in 1939, she wrote The Seventh Cross. This novel is about seven prisoners escaping from a concentration camp in 1936. It was published in English in the United States in 1942. Soon after, it was made into an American movie with the same name. The Seventh Cross was one of the few stories about Nazi concentration camps available during World War II. In 1947, Anna Seghers won the Georg Büchner Prize for this important novel.

Anna Seghers's most famous short story is The Outing of the Dead Girls (1946). She wrote it in Mexico. The story was partly based on her own memories. It was about a school trip she took before World War I on the Rhine river. She wrote about what happened to her classmates during both world wars. She described the German countryside and her hometown, Mainz, which was later destroyed. In this story, Seghers showed how war causes a loss of innocence. She also thought about the unfairness of war.

In 1947, Seghers returned to Germany. She lived in West Berlin, which was a part of Germany controlled by the Allies. She joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the Soviet-controlled area. That same year, she also won the Georg Büchner Prize for her novel Transit. This book was written in German and published in English in 1944.

In 1950, she moved to East Berlin. There, she helped create the Academy of the Arts of the GDR. She also became a member of the World Peace Council.

Her radio play, The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen, 1431, was turned into a stage play. It was worked on with Bertolt Brecht. The play first opened in Berlin in November 1952.

Awards and Recognition

In 1951, Anna Seghers received the first National Prize of the GDR. She also won the Stalin Peace Prize. The University of Jena gave her an honorary doctorate degree in 1959. In 1967, the German Academy of Arts suggested her for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1981, her hometown of Mainz made her an honorary citizen. She died in Berlin on June 1, 1983, and is buried there.

Anna Seghers in Movies

• The Seventh Cross (1944) was a movie made in English. It was based on her 1942 novel. The film was released by MGM and starred Spencer Tracy.
• Anna Seghers is mentioned in the German film Good Bye, Lenin! (2003).
• Her novel Transit (1944) was made into a 2018 film. The movie was directed by Christian Petzold. It was set in Marseilles, just like the book.

Important Books by Anna Seghers

Anna Seghers's early books are often linked to a style called "New Objectivity." She also wrote many important books while she was living outside Germany, like Transit and The Seventh Cross. Her later novels, published in East Germany, are often called "socialist realism." Many of her books have been made into movies in Germany.

• 1928 – Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara – Revolt of the Fishermen of Santa Barbara (novel)
• 1933 – Der Kopflohn – A Price on His Head (novel)
• 1939 – Das siebte Kreuz – The Seventh Cross (novel)
• 1943 – Der Ausflug der toten Mädchen – "The Excursion of the Dead Girls" (story)
• 1944 – Transit – Transit (novel)
• 1946 – Die Saboteure – The Saboteurs
• 1949 – Die Toten bleiben jung – The Dead Stay Young (novel)
• 1949 – Die Hochzeit von Haiti (short story) "The Wedding from Haiti"
• 1950 – Die Linie.
• 1950 – Der Kesselflicker "The Tinker" (short story)
• 1951 – Crisanta (novella)
• 1951 – Die Kinder.
• 1952 – Der Mann und sein Name (novella)
• 1953 – Der Bienenstock "The Beehive" (short story)
• 1958 – Brot und Salz "Bread and Salt" (short story)
• 1959 – Die Entscheidung "The Decision" (novel)
• 1961 – Das Licht auf dem Galgen "The Light on the Gallows" (short story)
• 1965 – Die Kraft der Schwachen The Power of the Weak (novel)
• 1967 – Das wirkliche Blau. Eine Geschichte aus Mexiko. "The Real Blue" (short story)
• 1968 – Das Vertrauen Trust (novel)
• 1971 – Überfahrt. Eine Liebesgeschichte. "Crossing: A Love Story"
• 1972 – Sonderbare Begegnungen Strange Encounters (short stories)
• 1973 – Der proceß der Jeanne d'Arc zu Rouen 1431 The Trial of Joan of Arc in Rouen (radio play)
• 1973 – Benito's Blue and Nine Other Stories
• 1977 – Steinzeit. "Stone Age" Wiederbegegnung "Reencounter" (short stories)
• 1980 – Drei Frauen aus Haiti Three Women from Haiti (short stories)
• 1990 – Der gerechte Richter The Righteous Judge (short stories)

See Also

• Exilliteratur