Reading and Discussion with Helmut Böttiger, SODA Salon @ Kulturbrauerei, May 29, 2013

Helmut Böttiger, whose book “Group 47 – When German Literature Wrote History” was awarded the Prize of the Leipzig Bookfair, presented his strong work on the legendary alliance in German literature.

A group of unknown authors was brought together in 1947 by Hans Werner Richter,  and, at the end of the 50s - a time without competing literary cycles and festivals - had risen to the leading voice of the literary scene in Germany.
From this very group emerged stars and personalities such as Ingeborg Bachmann, Günther Grass or Peter Handke and literary critics such as Joachim Kaiser or Marcel Reich-Ranicki.

In discussions with Johan de Blank, initiator of the series “Literary Freedom”, the history, the development and the perpetual charges of the group’s anti-Semitism and rejection of the literary community in exile were analyzed along with individual statements by members of the Group 47.
The audience was left with the lasting impression, that literature can occupy a prominent political place, should it choose to voice the ills that politicians and society fail to address.
The group dispersed with the beginning of the Brandt era and the 68 generation.