Anna Seghers (1900–1983)
Author of The Seventh Cross
About the Author
Anna Seghers was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Mainz. During the twenties she established a modest reputation as a writer committed to social reform. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Seghers went into exile in France. When France capitulated to the Nazis, she proceeded to Mexico, barely show more escaping the gestapo. In 1942 she published her novel The Seventh Cross, which tells of seven prisoners who attempt to leave a Nazi labor camp and elude the police. It was immediately translated into English and became an international best-seller. In 1947 she settled in East Berlin, where she was greeted as a national heroine. Seghers began to publish even more prolifically, producing novels and stories in the style of socialist realism. In 1966 she was named president of the East German Writers' Union, an office in which she had considerable influence on cultural policy. She resigned, for personal reasons, in 1978. Seghers's prose is notable for its epic scope and psychological insight. Her reputation, like that of Brecht, remains somewhat clouded by unresolved questions of complicity with the Stalinist regime in former East Germany. After the unification of Germany in 1990, archivists uncovered a novel of hers entitled Der gerechte Richter (The Just Judge), which was critical of the state and which she had deliberately withheld from publication. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Anna Seghers, 1952
Works by Anna Seghers
Crisanta 4 copies
Geschichten aus Mexiko 4 copies
Drei Erzählungen. Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara. Die Gefährten. Das wirkliche Blau (1968) 3 copies
Erzaehlungen Band 1 (SL 102) 3 copies
Sämtliche Erzählungen : 1924 - 1980. – [2]: Reise ins Elfte Reich : Erzählungen 1934 - 1946 (1994) 2 copies
Sämtliche Erzählungen : 1924 - 1980. – [1]: Der letzte Mann der Höhle : Erzählungen 1924 - 1933 (1994) 2 copies
Die Tochter der Delegierten 2 copies
Varjupaik ja teisi jutte 2 copies
Das Argonautenschiff 2 copies
Auf dem Wege zur amerikanischen Botschaft und andere Erzählungen (Bibliothek verbrannter Bücher) (2008) 2 copies
Romane und Erzählungen. Das siebte Kreuz. Transit. Die Toten bleiben jung. Erzählungen. (1992) 2 copies
Las Bodas de Haití : relatos 1 copy
Das siebte Kreuz 1 copy
Mrtví nestárnou 1 copy
Gewöhnliches und gefährliches Leben: Ein Briefwechsel aus der Zeit des Exils, 1939-1946 (German Edition) (1986) 1 copy
Die Hochzeit von Haiti 1 copy
Транзит 1 copy
Εκείνο ακριβώς το μπλέ 1 copy
Em Trânsito 1 copy
Die Kinder : 3 Erzählungen 1 copy
Niezwykłe spotkania 1 copy
KUOLLEET PYSYVÄT NUORINA 2 1 copy
Sämtliche Erzählungen : 1924 - 1980. – [3]: Die Hochzeit von Haiti : Erzählungen 1948 - 1949 (1994) 1 copy
Kamp-feller 1 copy
Der Mann und sein Name 1 copy
Shledání 1 copy
Erzählungen. Band 2 1 copy
Gerçekliğin Evrensel Mirası 1 copy
Associated Works
The New Sufferings of Young W. and Other Stories from the German Democratic Republic (1997) — Contributor — 12 copies
Berliner Ensemble Adaptations : The tutor {Manheim/Sauerlander} + Coriolanus {Manheim} + The trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen, 1431 {Manheim/Sauerlander} + Don Juan {Manheim} +… (2014) — Original author [Joan of Arc] — 7 copies
Ein Haus mit vielen Zimmern: Autorinnen erzählen vom Schreiben (edition fünf 27) (German Edition) (2015) — Contributor — 2 copies
Es muss einer den Frieden beginnen: Jahrhundertautoren gegen den Krieg (2014) — Contributor — 2 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Reiling, Netty
- Other names
- Зегерс, Анна
- Birthdate
- 1900-11-19
- Date of death
- 1983-06-01
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Cologne
University of Heidelberg - Occupations
- short story writer
novelist
political activist - Organizations
- Communist Party of Germany
- Awards and honors
- Georg Büchner Preis (1947)
- Relationships
- Radvanyi, Jean (grandson)
- Short biography
- Anna Seghers, née Reiling, was born to a German Jewish family in Mainz. Her father Isidor Reiling was an antiquarian and art dealer and her mother Hedwig Fuld came from a very wealthy Frankfurt family. She studied subjects as diverse as history, literature, and Chinese at the Universities of Cologne and Heidelberg, earning a doctorate in art history. She became serious about writing during her last year at university and in late 1924 published her first story, "Die Toten auf der Insel Djal" (The Dead on the Island of Djal). In 1925, she married Laszlo Rádványi, also known as Johann Lorenz Schmidt, a Hungarian Jewish Communist and teacher, with whom she had two children, and went to live in Berlin. She joined the German Communist Party in 1928. Her first novel, Die Gefährten, published in 1932, was a warning against the dangers of fascism, which led to her being arrested by the Nazis. By 1934, she had gone into exile via Zurich to Paris. After Germany invaded France during World War II, she fled to Marseilles and a year later to Mexico, where she founded the anti-fascist Heinrich-Heine-Klub, named after the poet, and Freies Deutschland (Free Germany), an academic journal. In 1939, she published The Seventh Cross, for which she received the Büchner-Prize in 1947. It was published in the USA in 1942 and adapted into a Hillywood film in 1944. The Seventh Cross was one of the very few depictions of Nazi concentration camps, in either literature or the cinema, during World War II. Her best-known story was "The Outing of the Dead Girls" (1946), an autobiographical reminiscence of a pre-World War I school excursion on the Rhine. After the war, she returned to Germany, eventually settling in East Berlin.
- Nationality
- Germany
- Birthplace
- Mainz, Germany
- Places of residence
- Heidelberg, Germany
Marseille, France
Mexico City, Mexico
Berlin, Germany
Meudon, France - Place of death
- Berlin, Germany
- Burial location
- Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof, Berlin, Germany
- Map Location
- Germany
Members
Reviews
Netty Reiling, pen name Anna Seghers, was a German Jew and a communist, both of which made her a target when the National Socialists came to power in 1933. She fled with her Marxist husband and two children to Paris, and then had to flee again in 1940 when the Germans occupied France. She stayed in Mexico City until 1947 when she returned to East Germany. Her experiences as a communist and having to continually flee, one step ahead of the Nazis, lend authenticity to the novel, as does the show more research she did into conditions within prison camps at the time. Her novel was extremely popular in the US and was made into a movie starring Spencer Tracey in 1944 and an abridged edition was given to US soldiers going to the European theatre, although many of the references to communism were deleted. The main character was seen as a symbol of successful resistance, as well as the book as a whole being a window into the German psyche.
Although divided into seven chapters, taking place over seven days, the novel moves between the main character, George Heisler, and thirty other characters in over 100 episodes. The continual movement between characters and scenes might have been choppy in another author's hands, but instead works well here, creating increasing tension. The novel opens in a prison barracks, with the prisoners wondering if the seventh escapee is still at large. We then immediately switch to descriptions of the countryside outside Mainz as a young man, Franz Marnet, pedals his bike through the early morning fog on his way to work. At the factory, he learns of an escape from the nearby concentration camp of seven prisoners, one of whom he might know. It is only then that George Heisler is introduced, hiding in a ditch outside the camp, heart-pounding and desperate. Although George's desperate attempt to reach safety is the main plotline, the back and forth between him and the other escapees, people he knows, his family, and the guards at the camp creates an almost unbearable tension. As one by one the other escapees are captured and George's situation becomes increasing tenuous, I had to put the book down to break the spell, only to find myself drawn back to it, unable to escape as well.
The situation of German communists, labor organizers, and others in the years 1933 to the start of the war was a time period about which I was not well versed. I knew that many were sent to prisons such as Dachau, but the conditions and treatment of communists both by the SA and by everyday Germans was complex. Families sometimes contained both SS members and communists. Former party members might still be loyal, but silent, or they may have succumbed to societal pressure and economics. Communities might come together to help a neighbor on the run, or might isolate an entire family. Segher's novel sheds light on these complexities while at the same time being very straightforward and realistic. Although parts of it read like an adrenaline-driven escape novel, on another level it's a testament to the ties that bind people even when faced with unbearable consequences. And although some people will break under pressure, others find the strength to resist, even unto death. show less
Although divided into seven chapters, taking place over seven days, the novel moves between the main character, George Heisler, and thirty other characters in over 100 episodes. The continual movement between characters and scenes might have been choppy in another author's hands, but instead works well here, creating increasing tension. The novel opens in a prison barracks, with the prisoners wondering if the seventh escapee is still at large. We then immediately switch to descriptions of the countryside outside Mainz as a young man, Franz Marnet, pedals his bike through the early morning fog on his way to work. At the factory, he learns of an escape from the nearby concentration camp of seven prisoners, one of whom he might know. It is only then that George Heisler is introduced, hiding in a ditch outside the camp, heart-pounding and desperate. Although George's desperate attempt to reach safety is the main plotline, the back and forth between him and the other escapees, people he knows, his family, and the guards at the camp creates an almost unbearable tension. As one by one the other escapees are captured and George's situation becomes increasing tenuous, I had to put the book down to break the spell, only to find myself drawn back to it, unable to escape as well.
The situation of German communists, labor organizers, and others in the years 1933 to the start of the war was a time period about which I was not well versed. I knew that many were sent to prisons such as Dachau, but the conditions and treatment of communists both by the SA and by everyday Germans was complex. Families sometimes contained both SS members and communists. Former party members might still be loyal, but silent, or they may have succumbed to societal pressure and economics. Communities might come together to help a neighbor on the run, or might isolate an entire family. Segher's novel sheds light on these complexities while at the same time being very straightforward and realistic. Although parts of it read like an adrenaline-driven escape novel, on another level it's a testament to the ties that bind people even when faced with unbearable consequences. And although some people will break under pressure, others find the strength to resist, even unto death. show less
"But I knew deep down in my bones—of course I didn’t tell her this—that love sometimes goes along with suffering, that there’s also death, separation, and hardship, and that happiness can overtake you for no reason at all, as can the sadness into which it often imperceptibly turns."
These past two weeks have been terrible for me. A personal crisis that came at the most inopportune of times–as they often do, threatened and disrupted a lot. My reading of course stagnated, and while I show more still reel from it, the worst seems to have passed. Reading pace in a way has always been an unconscious gauge to how I'm doing, and that I've finally finished this book and gone back to consistently reading others, is a positive sign of the crisis abating.
I learnt of Anna Seghers a while ago through an essay by Christa Wolf. Wolf had highly praised her work, written of the influence it had on her and shared how Seghers had been of help to her as a personal friend. Seghers had quite a life, her books were among those burned by the Nazis during that infamous book burning, she had been jailed by the Gestapo and fled to France where she lived in exile until she left for further exile in Mexico.
This book is set in France during the early period of German occupation. The protagonist, like Seghers, is a German who flees to France. Having escaped a concentration camp, he goes to Paris but soon leaves when the city falls to the Germans, and then heads to Marseille. However while still in Paris he discovers the documents of a dead writer named Weidel, among them a manuscript, and begins to adopt the dead man's identity as his own. One dramatic turn after another ensues as the protagonist encounters people that Weidel knew and the dead man's past enjoins his present and moulds his future.
One of the similarities between Wolf and Seghers is the antithesis of the unreliable narrator. A protagonist who is self-aware of their faults, and attempts to be as honest as they can be to the reader even if they're not always honest to themselves or the other characters. A reassuring voice that a reader can almost completely trust, and I enjoy stories with such narrators.
Among the reasons this book will become an unforgettable experience for me, other than the great storytelling, is how eerily familiar it was. Since I was two I've lived in exile and in a place, just like France during the second world war, meant to be transitory. A transitory country is one that has no solid structures for refugee integration. It's a place that harbours refugees with plans for either resettlement or repatriation. The precarity of this situation, the despair and restlessness and listlessness of those caught in this limbo while still unhealed from the violence they've fled, the harassment and police raids and arrests and deportations, the bureaucracy of documentation, the grief of separation among those who leave and those who stay, the physical and spiritual deaths, and the survival of all this were all uncannily familiar to me and so brilliantly captured. The figures in this story could have easily been people I've known since I was a child. All this familiarity meant that a mixture of wonderment and aversion accompanied me as I read this. show less
These past two weeks have been terrible for me. A personal crisis that came at the most inopportune of times–as they often do, threatened and disrupted a lot. My reading of course stagnated, and while I show more still reel from it, the worst seems to have passed. Reading pace in a way has always been an unconscious gauge to how I'm doing, and that I've finally finished this book and gone back to consistently reading others, is a positive sign of the crisis abating.
I learnt of Anna Seghers a while ago through an essay by Christa Wolf. Wolf had highly praised her work, written of the influence it had on her and shared how Seghers had been of help to her as a personal friend. Seghers had quite a life, her books were among those burned by the Nazis during that infamous book burning, she had been jailed by the Gestapo and fled to France where she lived in exile until she left for further exile in Mexico.
This book is set in France during the early period of German occupation. The protagonist, like Seghers, is a German who flees to France. Having escaped a concentration camp, he goes to Paris but soon leaves when the city falls to the Germans, and then heads to Marseille. However while still in Paris he discovers the documents of a dead writer named Weidel, among them a manuscript, and begins to adopt the dead man's identity as his own. One dramatic turn after another ensues as the protagonist encounters people that Weidel knew and the dead man's past enjoins his present and moulds his future.
One of the similarities between Wolf and Seghers is the antithesis of the unreliable narrator. A protagonist who is self-aware of their faults, and attempts to be as honest as they can be to the reader even if they're not always honest to themselves or the other characters. A reassuring voice that a reader can almost completely trust, and I enjoy stories with such narrators.
Among the reasons this book will become an unforgettable experience for me, other than the great storytelling, is how eerily familiar it was. Since I was two I've lived in exile and in a place, just like France during the second world war, meant to be transitory. A transitory country is one that has no solid structures for refugee integration. It's a place that harbours refugees with plans for either resettlement or repatriation. The precarity of this situation, the despair and restlessness and listlessness of those caught in this limbo while still unhealed from the violence they've fled, the harassment and police raids and arrests and deportations, the bureaucracy of documentation, the grief of separation among those who leave and those who stay, the physical and spiritual deaths, and the survival of all this were all uncannily familiar to me and so brilliantly captured. The figures in this story could have easily been people I've known since I was a child. All this familiarity meant that a mixture of wonderment and aversion accompanied me as I read this. show less
I read an ARC (Netgalley) of the NYRB edition translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo.
There is a breakout at a German concentration camp for political prisoners in the 1930s. Seven men escape. Seven 'crosses' are erected in front of the parade ground, and the officer in charge of the camp announces that all the men will be returned.
Told through multiple voices, as inexorably the Nazi regime hunts down the tired, underfed, overworked and tortured men on the run, I found this slow at first. Then show more the pace accelerates as prisoner after prisoner is tracked down. Seghers shows the great courage (often alongside fear) required to step out from the crowd and challenge the system. At first it seems impossible that anyone will make it, when even small children are weaponised to hunt. Guards stand at every crossing point on the river. Wives and girlfriends are taken in, questioned. Photos of the escapees are posted in the press. Alongside the narrative of escape, friends question what they can do to help (if they can help?) but in the rural areas around the camp men and women largely continue their daily lives.
One of the other reviewers who has recently read this book on LT talks about the similarities to the present day. I also felt this, Seghers points to the difficulties of opposing unjust political systems, but you never feel that it is anything less than vital that we do. This is more than a narrative of heroes, of those who are somehow different from everyone else, superhuman. Instead, she acknowledges the role of chance, of people who are flawed human beings, of the power of friendship and of challenging the idea of those who claim opposition is impossible.
I think the style is of its time (1942) - I wondered how it would have been edited if submitted today. But an amazing book.
Recommended.
(and then read Transit!) show less
There is a breakout at a German concentration camp for political prisoners in the 1930s. Seven men escape. Seven 'crosses' are erected in front of the parade ground, and the officer in charge of the camp announces that all the men will be returned.
Told through multiple voices, as inexorably the Nazi regime hunts down the tired, underfed, overworked and tortured men on the run, I found this slow at first. Then show more the pace accelerates as prisoner after prisoner is tracked down. Seghers shows the great courage (often alongside fear) required to step out from the crowd and challenge the system. At first it seems impossible that anyone will make it, when even small children are weaponised to hunt. Guards stand at every crossing point on the river. Wives and girlfriends are taken in, questioned. Photos of the escapees are posted in the press. Alongside the narrative of escape, friends question what they can do to help (if they can help?) but in the rural areas around the camp men and women largely continue their daily lives.
One of the other reviewers who has recently read this book on LT talks about the similarities to the present day. I also felt this, Seghers points to the difficulties of opposing unjust political systems, but you never feel that it is anything less than vital that we do. This is more than a narrative of heroes, of those who are somehow different from everyone else, superhuman. Instead, she acknowledges the role of chance, of people who are flawed human beings, of the power of friendship and of challenging the idea of those who claim opposition is impossible.
I think the style is of its time (1942) - I wondered how it would have been edited if submitted today. But an amazing book.
Recommended.
(and then read Transit!) show less
Between the history of how and when this book was written and the execution of the novel, this ended up being a fascinating and enjoyable read. [[Anna Seghers]] was a German Jewish woman with communist beliefs born in 1900. She fled Germany in in the 1930s to France and, when France no longer felt safe, left for Mexico. It was in Mexico in 1942 that this book was published.
In [The Seventh Cross], seven prisoners escape from one of Hitler's concentration camps. They split up immediately and show more most are quickly captured, but the action follows George Heisler. He somehow manages to avoid the Gestapo, even though he has no real plan and makes several mistakes. George is not particularly a hero. He is just a man who wants to be free. During the week following his escape, while he is trying to get to a safe space, we see an enormous cross section of German life. There are people unaffected by and uninterested in the political change. There are people benefitting from the new system and turning a blind eye. There are people who are scared of Hitler's policies but go with the flow because they don't know what else to do. There are people working against the new system but in extreme hiding with their beliefs. And because this is all believed in extreme secrecy, George doesn't know who to trust and those he turns to don't know who to trust either.
I thought it was brilliant that the novel isn't about what you think it would be about. From the description, I was expecting more about the escape from the concentration camp. I was expecting to hear a lot about the beliefs of the men who escaped and why they were in the camp in the first place. By not addressing this, Seghers makes clear that there wasn't much rhyme or reason to who ended up targeted by the Gestapo. George was politically against Hitler, but he was young and it's doubtful to me that he was doing anything particularly effective. And once George escapes, it wasn't a high-octane thriller.
I really enjoyed this. [[Anna Seghers]] is a great writer. This book was published at a time when it made a great impact on readers around the world and began to clue people in to what had happened in Germany. This book was a great mix of a novel that was enjoyable to read and opens up some insight into a troubling era. show less
In [The Seventh Cross], seven prisoners escape from one of Hitler's concentration camps. They split up immediately and show more most are quickly captured, but the action follows George Heisler. He somehow manages to avoid the Gestapo, even though he has no real plan and makes several mistakes. George is not particularly a hero. He is just a man who wants to be free. During the week following his escape, while he is trying to get to a safe space, we see an enormous cross section of German life. There are people unaffected by and uninterested in the political change. There are people benefitting from the new system and turning a blind eye. There are people who are scared of Hitler's policies but go with the flow because they don't know what else to do. There are people working against the new system but in extreme hiding with their beliefs. And because this is all believed in extreme secrecy, George doesn't know who to trust and those he turns to don't know who to trust either.
I thought it was brilliant that the novel isn't about what you think it would be about. From the description, I was expecting more about the escape from the concentration camp. I was expecting to hear a lot about the beliefs of the men who escaped and why they were in the camp in the first place. By not addressing this, Seghers makes clear that there wasn't much rhyme or reason to who ended up targeted by the Gestapo. George was politically against Hitler, but he was young and it's doubtful to me that he was doing anything particularly effective. And once George escapes, it wasn't a high-octane thriller.
I really enjoyed this. [[Anna Seghers]] is a great writer. This book was published at a time when it made a great impact on readers around the world and began to clue people in to what had happened in Germany. This book was a great mix of a novel that was enjoyable to read and opens up some insight into a troubling era. show less
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