Walter Höllerer

Walter Höllerer was born in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Bavaria. He joined the Wehrmacht and became a soldier in 1942 during the Second World War. After 1945 he studied philology, philosophy, history, German studies, and comparative literature at the Universities of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Göttingen, and Heidelberg; in 1949 he earned a Doctor title in Gottfried Keller School. He worked as a lecturer assistant from 1954 to 1958 at the Goethe University Frankfurt. In 1954, he attended regular sessions with the 47, which was a group of young German authors who spoke about post-war Germany from the west BRD. During the early 1960s he moderated literature broadcasts on a free broadcasting channel of Berlin.[1] From 1959 to his retirement in 1988 he was a professor of literary studies at the Technical University of Berlin. Meanwhile, he looked and researched a lot of professors from the United States.

During his research and work he published poems and novels, and put together critical statements for other literature works. In 1954 Höllerer put together the bimonthly literary magazine Akzente, one of the most important literature forums in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1961 Höllerer published the newspaper Sprache im technischen Zeitalter ("Language in the Age of Technology"), in 1963 he founded the Literary Colloquium of Berlin. Through his hard work as a publisher and critic and a professor at TU Berlin he helped with the era of literature. In 1965 Höllerer married a photographer from Mangoldt, Renate, she previously had two sons. In 1977 he founded literary archives in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, which he then embedded the magazine Akzente into the archives.

In 1966 he was honored with the Fontane-Award and in 1993 together with Robert Creeley, the Horst-Bienek-award for lyrics and in 1994 the Rahel-Varnhagen-von-Ense-Medaille from Berlin. He was also honorary citizen and culture award-winning from the city Sulzbach-Rosenberg.

Robert Neumann harshly criticized Höllerer's leading role in the Group 47 and in the literary scene.[2] He obtained research from Christoph König that Höllerer was a member of the NSDAP in 1941.[3] Höllerer said that he has not gotten any confirmation for being in the NSDAP.

Höllerer was laid to rest at the Friedhof Heerstraße in Berlin. His widow Renate donated the archive Sulzbach-Rosenberg as a gift to Walter Höllerers research, which since 2007 has been developed and been researched even more. Since 19 April 2007, the Sulzbach-Rosenberg school changed its name to Walter-Höllerer-Realschule.

• Barbara Baumann-Eisenack: Walter Höllerer: Zu seinen Gedichten und seiner Lyrik-Anthologie "Transit". Literaturarchiv Sulzbach-Rosenberg 2002, ISBN 3-9808442-0-X
• Helmut Böttiger, Lutz Dittrich: Elefantenrunden. Walter Höllerer und die Erfindung des Literaturbetriebs. Ausstellungsbuch, Texte aus dem Literaturhaus Berlin, Bd. 15, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-926433-42-6
• Walter Höllerer: Memorandum zur Gründung eines Instituts "Sprache im technischen Zeitalter". In: Berliner Hefte zur Geschichte des literarischen Lebens, 8, 2008, ISSN 0949-5371, S. 103–109
• Roland Berbig, Alexander Krüger: Ein Novum unter der Ägis eines Lehrstuhlinhabers. Walter Höllerer im Jahr 1959. In: Berliner Hefte zur Geschichte des literarischen Lebens, 8, 2008, ISSN 0949-5371, S. 89–99
• Achim Geisenhanslüke, Michael Peter Hehl (ed.): Poetik im technischen Zeitalter. Walter Höllerer und die Entstehung des modernen Literaturbetriebs. Transcript, Bielefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-8376-1598-2

• Biography as part of the Berlin Institute of Technology's 125th anniversary commemoration
• Walter Höllerer (in German) in the Sulzbach-Rosenberg (Höllerer-Nachlass) literature archive