Gerhard Branstner Explained

Gerhard Branstner (25 May 1927 – 18 August 2008) was a German writer.

Life

Born in Blankenhain, Branstner attended primary schools from 1934 and began a three-year administrative apprenticeship in 1942. After two weeks of front-line service, he was briefly taken as an American prisoner of war in 1945. Branstner was then a French prisoner of war (until 1947) and finally a Belgian prisoner of war, from which he was released in 1947. As the son of poor parents (his father was a porcelain worker), he was given the opportunity in the GDR from 1949 to 1951 to catch up on his A-levels at the in Jena. He then studied philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1951 to 1956, where he later also worked as a lecturer. Branstner married in 1953. The marriage produced two sons (born 1955 and 1957) and a daughter (born 1959). With a thesis On Humour and its Role in Literature, he received his doctorate in 1963 (later published as The Art of Humour). From 1962, he was chief editor at and at the publishing house and became a freelance writer in 1968. The volume Ich kam, sah und lachte, published in 1973, contains eight settings of Branstner poems. Branstner composed six of them, Siegfried Matthus one, Wolfgang Pietsch another one.[1]

Branstner was unofficial collaborator of the GDR State Security under the code name "Friedrich".[2]

In April 2000, Branstner was expelled from the Party of Democratic Socialism because of his article Klartext, Herr Comrade Gysi! published in the Junge Welt on 14 March 2000; however, the party expulsion was already rescinded in June by the party's federal arbitration commission because of his objection.

He lived his last years in Berlin, where, in addition to his work as an author, he mostly performed at theatre events and readings. Branstner died in Berlin at the age of 81. His grave is located at the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery in Berlin.

Work

References

  1. http://www.trafoberlin.de/Autoren/branstner_gerhard.html Branstner, Gerhard
  2. Beate Müller: "Stasi - Zensur - Machtdiskurse" p. 341

[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Further reading