Andreas-Friedrich, Ruth (9.23.1901 – 9.7.1977) – Author and journalist; Schauplatz Berlin (1962; Battleground Berlin, 1990) and Berlin Underground (1946; Der Schattenmann, 1947) deal with Berlin during and immediately after WWII, including her experiences as a member of an underground Berlin resistance group, Onkel Emil, which helped to hide Jews from authorities in the Third Reich; honored by Yad Vashem for her resistance activities.
Benjamin, Walter (7.15.1892 – 9.26.1940) – Philosopher, cultural theorist, literary critic and essayist; his writing is heavily informed by both historical and dialectical materialism; born and raised in Berlin-Charlottenburg; his Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert (Berlin Childhood at 1900 is an in-depth study of memory and the process of modernization as reflected in the topography of Berlin; Passagen-Werk (Arcades Project), an unfinished project which focuses on the Parisian Arcades of the 19th century as a source for uncovering "historical truths" about modernity, is an intricate cultural and historical-materialist study into the process of modernization.
Brussig, Thomas (12.19.1965) – Author and Screenwriter; born and raised in Berlin; studied sociology and later film; guest lecturer; co-founder of the Lübeck-based Gruppe 05 (Group ‘05); wrote the screenplay for Sonnenallee (Sun Alley, 1999) from the novel Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee (At the Shorter End of Sun Alley, 1999) about teenagers in 1970s East Berlin; his satirical novel Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us, 1995), about teenagers who helped bring down the wall, was adapted to film and premiered on the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; his novels depict the problems and absurdity of everyday life in East Berlin (i.e. the GDR).
Döblin, Alfred (8.10.1878 – 6.26.1957) – Author, physician and psychiatrist; known for expressionist and modernist styles, especially his [filmic] montage technique perfected in his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, a story of big-city experience; moved to Berlin in 1888; wrote Wadzeks Kampf mit der Dampfturbine (Wadzek's Struggle with the Steam Turbine, 1918) which deals with adaptation and assimilation in modern Berlin; contributed to the expressionist periodical Der Sturm (The Storm) and helped found the Gruppe 1925, a political left group of writers; became president of the Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller (Association of German Writers) in 1924; wrote about politics in the Weimar Republic; one of the first authors-in-exile to return to Germany after WWII.
Dückers, Tanja (9.25.1968) – Author and journalist; born and raised in West Berlin; partakes in the Berlin slam-poetry scene; does travel reporting and writes about social and political issues; organizes an annual reading in the Roter Salon (Red Salon) of the Volksbühne (People’s Stage) in Berlin; among her works are Spielzone (Play-Zone, 1999), a novel about experiences in former West- and East Berlin after the fall of the Wall, and Himmelskörper (Heavenly Bodies, 2003).
Fontane, Theodor (12.30.1819 – 9.20.1898) – Author, journalist and critic; representative of "poetic Realism"; born in Neuruppin (Brandenburg); worked as pharmacist before becoming freelance writer; wrote travel literature, theater criticism and wrote for the Neuen Preußischen Zeitung (New Prussian Newspaper) in Berlin; several of his novels, Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), Irrungen, Wirrungen (1888), and Effi Briest (1894/95), are set in Berlin.
Gay, Peter (6.20.1923) – Historian, author; born in Berlin, his autobiography, My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin (Meine deutsche Frage. Jugend in Berlin 1933 – 1939, 1998), narrates the story of his experiences as a Jew growing up in Berlin during the Third Reich.
Grass, Günter (10.16.1927) – Author, poet, playwright, painter, graphic artist and sculptor; style includes magical-realism and deals with Vergangenheitsbewältigung ("coming to terms with the past") in Germany; politically-engaged writer; awarded the Gruppe 47 (Group 47) prize in 1958; served in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS in WWII and became an American POW; studied at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf (1948-52) and at the School of Visual Arts in Berlin (1953-56); lived in Berlin-Friedenau (1960-72); best known work is Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1960); publicly called for an equal "cultural" reunification of the GDR and FRG in an article in Die Zeit (2.9.1990); won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for his life’s work; his novel Ein weites Feld (Too Far Afield, 1995) is set in Berlin shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and merges historical figures (e.g. Theodor Fontane), places and the history together in its two protagonists.
Hensel, Jana (1976) – Author and journalist; editor of the Leipzig literary periodical EDIT (2000) and co-creator/co-editor of the internet anthology Null (Zero) with Thomas Hettche; published Zonenkinder (After the Wall, 2002), a collection of essays about the assimilation of GDR youth to West German culture after reunification.
Hettche, Thomas (11.30.1964) – Author; studied philosophy; lived in Rome, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and again in Berlin (since 2005); member of the P.E.N. Club of Germany since 1999; worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt General Newspaper) and Neue Zürcher Zeitung as a journalist; co-creator/co-editor of the internet anthology Null (Zero) with Jana Hensel; novels include Nox (Night, 1995), a metaphor-laden story about the night of the fall of the Berlin Wall which critically reflects upon reunification, and Woraus wir gemacht sind (What We are Made of, 2006).
Isherwood, Christopher (8.26.1904 – 1.4.1986) – Author; born in Cheshire, England; befriended W.H. Auden; language teacher in Berlin 1929-1933; wrote about the sexual underworld of Berlin; his works Goodbye to Berlin and Mr. Norris Changes Trains detail his experiences in early 1930s Berlin, the latter being the basis for the musical and film Cabaret.
Kaminer, Wladimir (7.19.1967) – Author and columnist; born in Moscow; sought asylum in 1990 in Berlin; studied theater at the Theater Institute of Moscow; belonged to the Reformbühne Heim & Welt (Reform Stage Home & World) and regularly appeared at Kaffee Burger in Berlin including staging his Russendisko (Russian Disco); published in various German periodicals; has a weekly radio show called Wladimirs Welt (Wladimir's World) on SFB 4 Radio Multikulti; some of his story collections include Russendisko (2000), Militärmusik (Military Music,2001) and Schönhauser Allee (2001); only writes in German, and writes about his experiences as a Russian in Berlin.
Kracauer, Siegfried (2.8.1889 – 11.26.1966) – Journalist, editor, architect, film critic and sociologist; worked as an architect and writer for several years in Berlin; studied under Georg Simmel; worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Frankfurt and Berlin, where he published articles concerning architecture, film and metropolitan culture; also worked with Walter Benjamin in Berlin; wrote From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947) and Das Ornament der Massen (Ornament of the Masses, 1927), which engages the aesthetics of mass culture.
Maron, Monika (6.3.1941) – Author; stepfather was Minister of State (1955-63) in the GDR; was a factory worker before studying theater; worked as a reporter and director’s assistant for the feminist periodicals Für Dich (For You) and Wochenpost (Weekly Post); since 1976 has worked as an author; most of her works deal with memory and confronting the past, and and contain surreal elements and passages; due to increasing alienation left Berlin for Hamburg in 1988, but returned in 1992; published Geburtsort (Birthplace, 2005), a collection of essays and articles about Berlin; only GDR author to address the issue of pollution (Flugasche, Flight of Ashes, 1981); Still Zeile sechs (Quiet Row Six, 1991) is a critical coming to terms with the GDR after the Wende, or fall of the Berlin Wall.
Regener, Sven (1.1.1961) – Author and musician; recorded his first album in 1982 as a trumpet player with Zatopek, joined funk/punk rock band Neue Liebe (New Love) in 1984, and co-founded the Berlin group Element of Crime in 1985; wrote Herr Lehmann (Berlin blues) in 2001 about a barkeeper in Berlin- Kreuzberg in the Fall of 1989, which was subsequently adapted for film by Leander Haußmann (2002); his Neue Vahr Süd (2004) is a prequel to his best-selling novel Herr Lehmann.
Roth, Joseph (9.2.1894 – 5.27.1939) – Author and journalist; born in Brody (Galicia) in the Austro-Hungarian empire; wrote many feuilleton/flaneur articles about Berlin; stylistically described as belonging to the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement; his writing is very insightful into sociological and cultural conditions of modernity in the metropolis Berlin during the Weimar Republic.
Schneider, Peter (4.21.1940) – Author and political essayist; was an organizer of the leftist student movement in Berlin in the 1960s; believes in politically- engaged literature; many of his works are representative of the student movement (the so-called ‘68ers); his novels Lenz (1973), Der Mauerspringer (The Wall-Jumper, 1982) and Vati (Daddy, 1987) have garnered much acclaim in their treating of such issues as disillusionment, the Berlin Wall and the Nazi past; Der Mauerspringer deals with East-West identities and the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for divergent systems under the Cold War, and his collection of essays, Extreme Mittellage: Eine Reise durch das deutsche Nationalgefühl (The German Comedy: Scenes of Life After the Wall), deals with the Wende.
Simmel, Georg (3.1.1858 – 9.28.1918) – Philosopher and sociologist; born and raised in Berlin; private tutor for philosophy (and later a professor’s assistant) at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University (now Humboldt University) in Berlin; co-founder of "Formal Sociology" and founder of "Urban Sociology"; his Philosophie des Geldes (Philosophy of Money, 1900) was a ground-breaking study of the impact of money on modern society.
Speer, Albert (3.19.1905 – 9.1.1981) – Architect; in charge of building inspection and designing the Welthauptstadt Germania (Berlin) from 1937-45, and was Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition (Minister for Arms and Munitions, 1942-45); proposed a neo-classical "monumentalism" style for the "1000-year Reich" which included a gargantuan building style; his Erinnerungen (Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs, 1969/1970) reflect upon his experiences serving under Hitler; sentenced to 20 years prison in the Nuremberg Trials.
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