Heinrich Böll (1) (1917–1985)
Author of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
For other authors named Heinrich Böll, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Heinrich Böll was born in Cologne, Germany on December 21, 1917. He studied German at the University of Cologne. He was drafted into military service in 1938 shortly after he finished his schooling and served several years in the infantry before his demobilization in 1945. His first novel, Der Zug show more war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), was published in 1949. His other works include Billiards at Half-Past Nine, The Clown, Absent without Leave, Enter and Exit, and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. He received numerous awards including the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. He died on July 16, 1985 at the age of 67. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Heinrich Böll
1947 bis 1951 : 'Der Zug war pünktlich', 'Wo warst du, Adam?' und sechsundzwanzig Erzählungen (1963) — Author — 21 copies
Billard um halbzehn / Ansichten eines Clowns / Ende einer Dienstfahrt. (3 Romane in einem Band) (1972) 13 copies
El tren llegó puntual: ¿Dónde estabas, Adán? ; Y no dijo ni una palabra ; El pan de los años mozos ; El honor… (1900) — Author — 10 copies
The Stories of Heinrich Boll 9 copies
Verhalen 8 copies
Billiards at Half-Past Nine / Group Portrait With Lady / The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1985) 8 copies
Le opere: E non disse nemmeno una parola ; Racconti umoristici e satirici ; Opinioni di un clown ; La mia musa (1978) 8 copies
Billiards at Half-Past Nine / The Clown / Group Portrait With Lady / The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1991) 7 copies
Narrativa completa, tomo 3: Retrato de grupo con señora ; E·l honor perdido de Katharina Blum ; Asedio preventivo (2015) — Author — 6 copies
Verzamelde verhalen. 1956-1983 6 copies
Essayistische Schriften und Reden 1, 1952-1963 (Werkausgabe, Herausgegeben von Bernd Balzer) (1979) 6 copies
Un sorso di terra 5 copies
Heinrich Böll liest Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum + Gruppenbild mit Dame + Berichte zur Gesinnungslage der… (2003) 3 copies
Jällenägemine puiesteel : [novellid] 3 copies
La mia musa 3 copies
Fünf Erzählungen 3 copies
Il mestiere inspiegabile. La scrittura come contemporaneità. Dialogo con Heinrich Vormweg (1994) 2 copies
Die Juden von Drove 2 copies
Stories of Heinrich Boll 2 copies
Racconti umoristici 1 copy
Das Brot der frühen Jahre : Erzählung. Nachw. von Gerhard Joop / Ullstein Nr. 239, 3548002390 1 copy
Oldenbourg Interpretationen : Heinrich Böll : Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (1998) — Writer — 1 copy
Heinrich Böll: Ich han dem Mädche nix jedonn, ich han et bloß ens kräje : Texte, Bilder, Dokumente zur Verleihung… (1983) 1 copy
Werke - Eine Auswahl. Novellen, Erzählungen, Heiter-satirische Prosa. Irisches Tagebuch, Aufsätze,… 1 copy
Werke. Kölner Ausgabe. Bände 1/2004 bis 27/2010. Herausgegeben von Arpad Bernath, Hans Joachim Bernhard,… (2004) 1 copy
Frühe Erzählungen 1 copy
Erzählungen: Die Waage der Baleks /Die schwarzen Schafe /Weggeflogen sind sie nicht /Anekdote zur Senkung der… (1995) 1 copy
Opere 1 copy
Romane 1 copy
Śmierć Lohengrina 1 copy
Heinrich Böll . Werke in 10 Bänden . 1: Romane und Erzählungen 1947-1951, 2: Romane und Erzählungen… 1 copy
Treno era in orario, Il 1 copy
Don Enrique (una antología) 1 copy
El pan de los años mozos / Billar a las nueve y media — Author — 1 copy
Unfertig ist der Mensch — Author — 1 copy
Widerstand ist ein Freiheitsrecht: Schriften und Reden zu Literatur, Politik und Zeitgeschichte (2011) 1 copy
Город привычных лиц 1 copy
Klassiker auf CD-Rom : Heinrich Böll : Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum [sound recording + commentary] (2001) — Text — 1 copy
Zu seinem Tod 1 copy
Damals in Odessa 1 copy
Klopfzeichen 1 copy
Sämtliche Werke 1 copy
Heinrich Böll und Köln: Mit einer Wanderung durch Heinrich Bölls Köln von Martin Stankowski (Fiction, Poetry &… (1994) 1 copy
Lebbra 1 copy
Associated Works
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1955) — Translator, some editions — 6,066 copies
World Exhibition of Photography: 555 Photos by 264 Photographers from 30 Countries on the Theme What Is Man? (1900) — Introduction — 33 copies
Deutsche Kurzgeschichten : eine Auswahl für mittlere Klassen (1972) — Author, some editions — 5 copies
Chargesheimer. Die Entdeckung des Ruhrgebiets [Ausstellungskatalog Ruhr Museum, Essen, 2014] (2014) 4 copies
Natale raccontato da ... — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Böll, Heinrich
- Legal name
- Böll, Heinrich Theodor
- Other names
- BÖLL, Heinrich Theodor
BÖLL, Heinrich - Birthdate
- 1917-12-21
- Date of death
- 1985-07-16
- Burial location
- Merten, Germany
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Germany
- Birthplace
- Cologne, German Empire
- Place of death
- Kreuzau-Langenbroich, Germany
- Places of residence
- Köln, Germany
- Education
- Cologne University, Germany
- Occupations
- novelist
short-story writer
essayist
bookseller - Relationships
- Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (friend)
Böll, Viktor (nephew)
Böll, Annemarie (spouse) - Organizations
- Gruppe 47
International PEN
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
German Army (WWII) - Awards and honors
- Nobel Prize (Literature, 1972)
Georg Büchner Prize (1967)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1974)
Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1960)
Charles Veillon Prize (1960)
American Philosophical Society (1983) (show all 9)
American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1984)
Tribune de Paris Prize (1954)
Eduard von der Heydt Prize (1958)
Members
Reviews
Irish Journal (The Essential Heinrich Boll) by Heinrich Böll
Most of the observations about Ireland and the Irish are still valid today, so much so that, reading the journal sixty years after, I had a couple of Aha! moments.
Good, sometimes brilliant short (sometimes very short) stories from a youthful German combatant in WWII. These are youngsters caught up in fearful, absurd and degrading conditions and live minute to minute. Even so, these stories are made human because the characters at the centre of them cherish any possible relief that comes to hand. It may be wine or beer, but so often it is the desperation to purchase the next cigarette.
Un libro entretenido y de lectura rápida.
Un tema que trata de una práctica que ya lleva tiempo, creo que actualmente ya son pocos los que creen a ciegas lo que digan los medios de información, al menos eso quiero creer. La realidad es que están muy desprestigiado y sé sabe que son pretencioso$ e imparciales. El que cree actualmente en ellos lo quiere así por gusto y ya sabe de lo que se trata.
Si lo quisiéramos pasar a la actualidad (actualizar), ahora serían las redes sociales, como pueden destruir a una persona... que es un tema triste.… (more)
Un tema que trata de una práctica que ya lleva tiempo, creo que actualmente ya son pocos los que creen a ciegas lo que digan los medios de información, al menos eso quiero creer. La realidad es que están muy desprestigiado y sé sabe que son pretencioso$ e imparciales. El que cree actualmente en ellos lo quiere así por gusto y ya sabe de lo que se trata.
Si lo quisiéramos pasar a la actualidad (actualizar), ahora serían las redes sociales, como pueden destruir a una persona... que es un tema triste.… (more)
As with The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974), which I reviewed here, Böll uses irony extensively. Anna Funder in her Introduction refers to Böll's preoccupation with subservience to authority as the root of totalitarianism, but makes no mention of Andreas's numerous references to praying for the Jews. The Train Was on Time was first published in 1949 as Germany was trying to come to terms with the Holocaust, when people all over the world were reeling in horror at the knowledge that trains transported millions of Jews to their deaths. Those trains were 'on time' too, and the irony of this nightmare journey is that whereas the soldier Andreas knows he is destined for death on the battlefield, the Jews being deported from all over Europe did not know their fate. Significantly — considering the pervasive postwar denials about what was known at the time — this character Andreas knows about the fate of the Jews and that he should pray for them. Other than Böll being a Catholic himself, I am not sure if there is any significance in Andreas being Catholic rather than Protestant. Perhaps someone else can enlighten me.
On the first page of The Train Was On Time, Böll alerts the reader to the importance of language, in what seems to be a rather strange paragraph:
For Andreas, it's as he boards the train that the word 'soon' enters him like a bullet and almost imperceptibly penetrating flesh, tissues, cells, nerves, until at some point it caught, like a barbed hook... His fate dawns on him as he tries to calculate where and when his ultimate destination might be and he is suddenly overwhelmed by the shock of fear. He realises he will never again see that station, his friend, or even a man he'd abused.
Reminiscent of the way Jews were packed into trains so tightly that some of them were crushed to death en route, Andreas and his fellow soldiers are squeezed into the carriage for their journey. Andreas sits down on his pack because there's nowhere else to put it, and...
In another irony, they jam the door shut with their bodies so that others may not enter, an allusion to the way that the Jews were locked and bolted into the carriages from the outside so that they could not get out.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/23/the-train-was-on-time-1949-by-heinrich-boll-...… (more)
On the first page of The Train Was On Time, Böll alerts the reader to the importance of language, in what seems to be a rather strange paragraph:
Now and again what appears to be a casually spoken word will suddenly acquire a cabalistic significance. It becomes charged and strangely swift, races ahead of the speaker, is destined to throw open a chamber in the uncertain confines of the future and to return to him with the deadly accuracy of a boomerang. Out of the small talk of unreflecting speech, usually from among those halting, colourless goodbyes exchanged beside trains on their way to death, it falls back on the speaker like a leaden wave, and he becomes aware of the force, both frightening and intoxicating, of the workings of fate. To lovers and soldiers, to men marked for death and to those filled with the cosmic force of life, this power is sometimes given, without warning; a sudden revelation is conferred on them, a bounty and a burden... and the word sinks down inside them. (p1-2)
For Andreas, it's as he boards the train that the word 'soon' enters him like a bullet and almost imperceptibly penetrating flesh, tissues, cells, nerves, until at some point it caught, like a barbed hook... His fate dawns on him as he tries to calculate where and when his ultimate destination might be and he is suddenly overwhelmed by the shock of fear. He realises he will never again see that station, his friend, or even a man he'd abused.
Reminiscent of the way Jews were packed into trains so tightly that some of them were crushed to death en route, Andreas and his fellow soldiers are squeezed into the carriage for their journey. Andreas sits down on his pack because there's nowhere else to put it, and...
... tried to arrange his legs as comfortably as possible: he stretched the left one carefully past the face of one sleeping soldier, and placed the other one across a piece of luggage that was shielding the back of another.
In another irony, they jam the door shut with their bodies so that others may not enter, an allusion to the way that the Jews were locked and bolted into the carriages from the outside so that they could not get out.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/23/the-train-was-on-time-1949-by-heinrich-boll-...… (more)
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Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 299
- Also by
- 39
- Members
- 15,989
- Popularity
- #1,418
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 268
- ISBNs
- 1,117
- Languages
- 32
- Favorited
- 21
