Willi Bredel
Willi Bredel (2 May 1901 – 27 October 1964) was a German writer and president of the Akademie der Künste. Born in Hamburg, he was a pioneer of socialist realist literature.
Contents
Career
Soon after the Nazis seized power in 1933, Bredel was imprisoned at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. He was released in spring 1934.[1] Fleeing from Nazi Germany, he went to Czechoslovakia and then Moscow, where he lived at the Hotel Lux. He published Die Prüfung (1934), a novel describing the Nazi concentration camp, which was reprinted several times and translated into other languages.[1] He also published accounts of his experiences in the Deutsche Zentral Zeitung,[1] a German-language newspaper published in Moscow.
Bredel took part in the Spanish Civil War as commissar of the Thälmann Battalion[2] as well as the Second World War, in which he fought on the Soviet side. After the war, he returned to Germany as part of the Sobottka Group,[3] sent to lay the groundwork for the Soviet occupation of Mecklenburg. He later lived in East Germany and died in Berlin.
Awards and decorations
- 1955 Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
- 1956 Hans Beimler Medal
- 1960 Banner of Labor
- 1961 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold
- 1964 Burial at the Memorial of the Socialists (Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery)
Selected works
- Die Prüfung
- The Death of General Moreau and other stories
- Verwandte und Bekannte Trilogy
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Klaus Drobisch, Günther Wieland, System der NS-Konzentrationslager: 1933-1939 Akademie Verlag (1993), pp. 243–244. ISBN 3-05-000823-7. Retrieved December 21, 2011 (German)
- ↑ Antifascism and Memory in East Germany - Remembering the International Brigades 1945-1989 - McLellan, Josie; Oxford Historical Monographs, Page 31
- ↑ "Namensliste der drei KPD-Einsatzgruppen vom 27. April 1945" German Federal Archives. BArch NY 4036/517. Retrieved November 22, 2011 (German)
External links
- Willi Bredel Gesellschaft Official website (German)
- Articles with German-language external links
- Pages with broken file links
- 1901 births
- 1964 deaths
- Writers from Hamburg
- Communist Party of Germany politicians
- Socialist Unity Party of Germany politicians
- Cultural Association of the GDR members
- Members of the People's Chamber
- East German writers
- International Brigades personnel
- German people of the Spanish Civil War
- German people of World War II
- National Committee for a Free Germany members
- Refugees from Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union
- Nazi concentration camp survivors
- Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit
- Recipients of the Banner of Labor
- Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany
- 20th-century German novelists
- German male novelists
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