Günter Grass

Günter Grass was born on 16 October 1927 in Danzig-Langfuhr and died on 13 April 2015 in Lübeck. After war service and American captivity in 1945/46 he completed an apprenticeship as a stonemason in Düsseldorf, studied graphic art and sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1948 to 1952 and with Karl Hartung at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin from 1953 to 1956; at first he worked as a sculptor and graphic artist. In 1958 he received the prize of the Gruppe 47; in 1959 the novel “Die Blechtrommel” appeared, which together with “Katz und Maus” (1961) and “Hundejahre” (1963) forms the Danzig Trilogy. Besides novels he wrote poetry and texts for the theatre and created works of visual art. In 1965, 1969 and 1972 he campaigned for the SPD, to which he belonged from 1982 to 1993. In 1999 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is represented as an author on the Cybele album Wolfgang Hufschmidt: Meissner Tedeum (2003).