Heinrich Heine Prize refers to three different awards named in honour of the 19th-century German poet

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, ...

: * ''Heinrich Heine prize of

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

'' * ''Heinrich Heine prize of the Ministry for Culture'' of the former

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

, which was assigned until 1990 * ''Heinrich Heine Prize'' of the "Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft" in Hamburg

Heinrich Heine prize of the city of Düsseldorf

The Heinrich Heine prize of the city of

was established on the occasion of Heine's 175th birthday. The honor ''is awarded to personalities who through their work in the spirit of Heine's emphasis on the basic rights of man, advance social and political progress, mutual understanding of the peoples, or spread the idea that all people belong to the same group: mankind''. Beginning in 1972, the Heine prize was awarded every three years; since 1981 it was awarded every two years. The assignment of the Heine prize 1995 was shifted to the year 1996. Since that time the Heine prize is again awarded every two years. It is endowed with ; starting from the year 2006, the 150th after the death of the poet, the city of Düsseldorf has doubled the prize sum to .

Recipients

* 1972

Carl Zuckmayer Carl Zuckmayer (27 December 1896 – 18 January 1977) was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer. His first two dramas were failures. In 1929, he wrote the script ...

* 1974

Kito Lorenc Kito Lorenc (4 March 1938 – 24 September 2017) was a Sorbian writer, lyric poet and translator. He was a grandson of the writer and politician Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski. Lorenc attended the Sorbian boarding high school in Cottbus from 1952 to 1956 ...

* 1975

Pierre Bertaux Pierre Bertaux (8 October 1907 in Lyon – 14 August 1986 in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine) was a noted French resistance fighter and scholar of German literature. While holding administrative positions, he also wrote on Friedrich Hölderlin. He parti ...

* 1978

Sebastian Haffner Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and historian. As an émigré in Britain during World War II, Haffner argued that accommodation was impossible not on ...

* 1981

Walter Jens Walter Jens (8 March 1923 – 9 June 2013) was a German philologist, literature historian, critic, university professor and writer. He was born in Hamburg, and attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums from 1933 to 1941, when he gained his ...

* 1983

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, un ...

* 1985

Günter Kunert Günter Kunert (; 6 March 1929 – 21 September 2019) was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Bierman ...

* 1987

Marion Gräfin Dönhoff Marion or MARION may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Marion (band), a British alternative rock group * ''Marion'' (miniseries), a 1974 miniseries * ''Marion'' (1920 film), an Italian silent film * ''Marion'' (2024 film), a UK short People a ...

* 1989

Max Frisch Max Rudolf Frisch (; 15 May 1911 – 4 April 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity (social science), identity, individuality, Moral responsibility, responsibility, morality, and political commi ...

* 1991

Richard von Weizsäcker Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 15 April 1920 – 31 January 2015) was a German politician ( CDU), who served as President of Germany from 1984 to 1994. Born into the aristocratic Weizsäcker family, who were part of the German nobili ...

* 1993

Wolf Biermann Karl Wolf Biermann (; born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song " Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976. Early life Biermann was ...

* 1996

Władysław Bartoszewski Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of th ...

* 1998

Hans Magnus Enzensberger Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarde ...

* 2000

W. G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was according to ''The New Yorker'' ”widely recog ...

* 2002

Elfriede Jelinek Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors to write in German and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices ...

* 2004

Robert Gernhardt Robert Gernhardt (13 December 1937 – 30 June 2006) was a German writer, painter, graphic artist and poet. Life Robert Gernhardt was born the son of a judge and a chemist in Tallinn, where his family was part of the Baltic German minority. In ...

* 2006 ''not awarded'' * 2008

Amos Oz Amos Oz (; born Amos Klausner (); 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a pro ...

* 2010

Simone Veil Simone Veil (; ; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as health minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman t ...

* 2012

Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas ( , ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt S ...

* 2014

Alexander Kluge Alexander Kluge (born 14 February 1932) is a German author, philosopher, academic and film director.(editor) Early life, education and early career Kluge was born in Halberstadt, Province of Saxony (now Saxony-Anhalt), Germany. After growing ...

* 2016

A. L. Kennedy Alison Louise Kennedy (born 22 October 1965) is a Scots writer, academic and stand-up comedian. She writes novels, short stories and non-fiction, and is known for her dark tone and her blending of realism and fantasy. She contributes columns an ...

* 2018

Leoluca Orlando Leoluca Orlando (born 1 August 1947) is an Italian politician. He was mayor of Palermo for over twenty years and was president of the Italian Federation of American Football (FIDAF). He is best known for his strong opposition to the Sicilian Ma ...

* 2021 * 2022

Yurii Andrukhovych Yurii Ihorovych Andrukhovych (, born March 13, 1960 in Stanislav, Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian prose writer, poet, essayist, and translator. His English pen name is Yuri Andrukhovych. Andrukhovych is a representative of the Stanislav phenom ...

* 2024

David Grossman David Grossman (; born January 25, 1954) is an Israeli author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages. In 2018, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature. Biography David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the eld ...

Controversy concerning Peter Handke

The jury that decided the prize consisted of 5 members of the city government, 1 representative of the state of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

, the rector of the

Heinrich Heine University Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

, and 5 other members (critics and literary experts). The 5 members from the city government have 1 vote each, the others 2 votes each. On 20 May 2006, the jury voted 12:5 to award the prize to Peter Handke (the state representative was not present). The mayor congratulated Handke, and Handke accepted the award. According to press reports, a majority of the city council of Düsseldorf did not want to award the prize to Handke, arguing that his (perceived) support of

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević ( sr-Cyrl, Слободан Милошевић, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989 and 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugos ...

's oppressive regime was in blatant conflict with the spirit of the prize. According to the statutes of the Heine prize, "the city council awards the prize based on the decision of the jury". On 2 June 2006, jury members Siegrid Löffler and Jean-Pierre Lefèbvre declared to leave the jury in protest. In a letter to Düsseldorf's Mayor

Joachim Erwin Joachim Erwin (2 September 1949 – 20 May 2008) was a German politician and the Mayor of Düsseldorf from 1999 until his death in 2008. He was born in Stadtroda, Thuringia, Germany. Erwin was a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CD ...

dated 2 June 2006, Mr Handke refused the award, as he did not want himself and his work to be ''"exposed again and again to the scorn of party politicians"''.Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf – News, Events und Bürgerservice
In a reply of 7 June 2006, Mr Erwin expressed his solidarity with Handke.

Heinrich Heine Prize of the Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft

Since 1965, the Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft ("Heine Society") of Hamburg has presented a literary prize at irregular intervals. It consists of a bronze object "Die Schere der Zensur" ("the scissors of censorship") made by sculptor

Bert Gerresheim Bert or BERT may refer to: Persons, characters, or animals known as Bert *Bert (name), commonly an abbreviated forename and sometimes a surname *Bert, a character in the poem "Bert the Wombat" by The Wiggles; from their 1992 album ''Here Comes a ...

Recipients

*1965

Max Brod Max Brod (; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček. Although he was a prolific writer in his ow ...

*1972

Hilde Domin Hilde Domin (27 July 1909 – 22 February 2006) is the pseudonym of Hilde Palm (née Löwenstein), a Germans, German lyric poet and writer. She was among the most important German language, German-language poets of her time. Biography Domin was b ...

*1976

Marcel Reich-Ranicki Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the f ...

*1981

Martin Walser Martin Johannes Walser (; 24 March 1927 – 26 July 2023) was a German writer, known especially as a novelist. He began his career as journalist for ''Süddeutscher Rundfunk'', where he wrote and directed audio plays. He was a member of Group 47 ...

*1984

Peter Rühmkorf Peter Rühmkorf (25 October 1929 – 8 June 2008) was a German writer who significantly influenced German post-war literature. Rühmkorf's literary career started in 1952 in Hamburg with the magazine ''Zwischen den Kriegen'' ("Between the Wars"), ...

*1989 Kay und

Lore Lorentz Lore Lorentz (12 September 1920 – 22 February 1994) was a German Kabarett artist and standup comedian. She was born in Mährisch-Ostrau, Czechoslovakia (today Ostrava in the Czech Republic), as Lore Schirmer. She studied history, German literatu ...

*1992

Sarah Kirsch Sarah Kirsch (; 16 April 1935 – 5 May 2013) was a German poet. Biography Sarah Kirsch was originally born Ingrid Bernstein in Limlingerode, Prussian Saxony but had changed her first name to Sarah in order to protest against her father's ...

*1994

Tankred Dorst Tankred Dorst (19 December 1925 – 1 June 2017) was a German playwright and storyteller. Dorst lived and worked in Munich. His farces, parables, one-act-plays and adaptations were inspired by the theatre of the absurd and the works of Ionesco ...

*1997 Ruth Klüger *2000

Bernhard Schlink Bernhard Schlink (; born 6 July 1944) is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel '' The Reader'', which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize. Ea ...

*2003 Dieter Forte *2006

Alice Schwarzer Alice Sophie Schwarzer (born 3 December 1942) is a German journalist and prominent feminist. She is founder and publisher of the German feminist journal '' EMMA''. Beginning in France, she became a forerunner of feminist positions against anti-ab ...

*2009

Herta Müller Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf (; ), Timiș County in Romania; her native languages are German and Romanian. Si ...

*2012

Dževad Karahasan Dževad Karahasan (25 January 1953 – 19 May 2023) was a Bosnian writer, essayist and philosopher. Karahasan was awarded the Herder Prize and Goethe Medal for his writings. In 2020, the city of Frankfurt awarded him the Goethe Prize. Early li ...

Heinrich Heine prize of the Ministry for culture of the GDR

The Heinrich Heine prize of the Ministry for culture of the GDR 1950 donated and once annually awarded for lyric works and works of literary journalism. The height of the prize amounted to 15,000

Marks Marks may refer to: Business * Mark's, a Canadian retail chain * Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain * Collective trade marks A collective trademark, collective trade mark, or collective mark is a trademark owned by an organization (such ...

Recipients

* 1953

Stefan Heym Helmut Flieg (10 April 1913 – 16 December 2001) was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym (). He lived in the United States and trained at Camp Ritchie in 1943, making him one of the Ritchie Boys of World War II. In 1952, he r ...

* 1957 Herbert Nachbar * 1959

Heiner Müller Heiner Müller (; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postd ...

Wieland Herzfelde Wieland Herzfelde ( Herzfeld; 11 April 1896 – 23 November 1988) was a German publisher and writer. He is particularly known for his links with German avant-garde art and Marxist thought, and was the brother of the photo montage artist John H ...

* 1960 Gerd Semmer * 1961 Armin Müller * 1962

Hermann Kant Hermann Kant (; 14 June 1926 – 14 August 2016) was a German writer noted for his writings during the time of East Germany. He won the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1967. He served the Stasi as an informer under the codename ''IM Martin''. Early lif ...

* 1963

Heinz Kahlau Heinz Kahlau (6 February 1931 – 6 April 2012) was a German writer. He is remembered as one of the best known lyric poets in the German Democratic Republic. He wrote song lyrics, dramas and prose pieces. He was particularly well known for his p ...

* 1964

Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist. She is considered one of the most important writers to emerge from the former East Germany.Hugo Huppert Hugo Huppert (5 June 1902 in Bielitz, Austrian Silesia – 25 March 1982 in Vienna) was an Austrian poet, translator and writer. Decorations and awards

* 1964: Heinrich Heine Prize#Heinrich Heine prize of the Ministry for culture of the GDR, ...

* 1965 Heinz Knobloch * 1970 Rolf Recknagel * 1971

Volker Braun Volker Braun (born 7 May 1939 in Dresden) is a German writer. His works include ''Provokation für mich'' (''Provocation for me'') – a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, ''Die Kipper'' (''The Dumpe ...

* 1972 Stephan Hermlin,

Hans Kaufmann Hans Kaufmann (born 13 June 1948) is a Swiss politician and business consultant. He was a member of the Swiss National Council from 1999 to 2014. Political career He was born in Ettiswil. He was first elected to the Swiss National Council in 1 ...

* 1973

Ulrich Plenzdorf Ulrich Plenzdorf (; 26 October 1934 – 9 August 2007) was a German author and dramatist. Life Born in Berlin, Plenzdorf studied Philosophy in Leipzig, but graduated with a degree in film. He found work at DEFA. He became famous in both East Ge ...

* 1974

* 1975

Irmtraud Morgner Irmtraud Morgner (22 August 19336 May 1990) was a German writer, best known for works of magical realism concerned predominantly with the role of gender in East German society. Life Irmtraud Morgner was born in 1933 in Chemnitz, the daughter of ...

Eva Strittmatter Eva Strittmatter (née Braun; 8 February 1930 – 3 January 2011) was a German writer of poetry, prose, and children's literature. Her books of poems sold millions of copies, reportedly making her the most successful German poet of the second ha ...

* 1976 Dieter Süverkrüp * 1977

Heinz Czechowski Heinz Czechowski (7 February 1935 – 21 October 2009) was a German poet and dramatist. At the age of ten, Czechowski survived the highly destructive bombing of his birthplace of Dresden. After training in surveying and graphic design, he studied ...

* 1978 Egon Richter * 1979 Jürgen Rennert * 1984 Bernt Engelmann (?), John Erpenbeck * 1985

Peter Gosse Peter Gosse (born 6 October 1938 in Leipzig) is a German poet, prose author and essayist. Life Peter Gosse first completed a study of high frequency technology in Moscow. After working as an engineer, he became a freelance writer in East German ...

* 1987

Luise Rinser Luise Rinser (30 April 1911 – 17 March 2002) was a German writer, best known for her novels and short stories. Early life and education Luise Rinser was born on 30 April 1911 in Pitzling, a constituent community of Landsberg am Lech, in Upper B ...

* 1988

* 1990 Hans-Eckardt Wenzel

References

External links

Der Heine-Preis der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
(official website)

(regulations regarding awarding of the prize)
Zum Heinrich-Heine-Preis der DDR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heine, Heinrich Culture in Düsseldorf German literary awards Heinrich Heine Municipal awards Awards established in 1972 Awards established in 1965 Awards established in 1953 Awards disestablished in 1990 East German awards

Heinrich Heine prize of the city of Düsseldorf

Recipients

Controversy concerning Peter Handke

Heinrich Heine Prize of the Heinrich-Heine-Gesellschaft

Recipients

Heinrich Heine prize of the Ministry for culture of the GDR

Recipients

See also

References

External links