A short life of the author
Siegfried Lenz (1926–2014) was born on 17 March 1926 in Lyck, East Prussia (now Ełk, Poland). He deserted from the German navy near the end of World War II.
Life and Career
Deutschstunde (The German Lesson, 1968) — about Siggi Jepsen, a boy in a juvenile detention center who writes a punishment essay about “The Joys of Duty” and produces a vast memoir about his father, a village policeman who zealously enforces a painting ban against a local artist — is his masterpiece and one of the most important German novels about the Nazi period. It explores how obedience to authority corrupts ordinary people.
Heimatmuseum (The Heritage, 1978) — about a man who burns his local history museum — and Der Verlust (The Loss, 1981) examine memory, history, and the burden of the past.
Major Works and Themes
Lenz wrote about duty, memory, guilt, and the moral failures of ordinary Germans. He was, alongside Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, one of the three great postwar German novelists.
Key Works
- The German Lesson (1968)
Collecting Lenz
German originals (Hoffmann und Campe) are the primary collected form. English translations bring $10–$25. Lenz died in 2014.