Hermann Kasack German writer Date of Birth: 24.07.1896 Country: Germany

Biography of Hermann Kasack

Hermann Kasack was a German writer and the founder of the radio drama genre in Germany. He was born into a family of a doctor in Potsdam and was the only child. After completing his education at Viktoria Gymnasium, he started studying economics and the history of literature in Berlin in 1914, which he successfully completed in Munich in 1920.

In 1915, his first poem "Mother" was published in one of the magazines. His first book, "Der Mensch. Verse", was published in 1918. In 1920, Kasack married Maria Fellenberg. In the same year, he started working as an editor at the Gustav-Kiepenheuer publishing house in Potsdam. In addition to his editorial duties, he published the works of Friedrich Hölderlin. In 1925, he moved to the radio studio Funk-Stunde Berlin, the first radio broadcasting company in Germany, where he became the editor responsible for programs on contemporary poetry. The premiere of his first play, "Sisters", took place the following year. Kasack later became the director of the S. Fischer Verlag publishing house.

In 1927, his son Wolfgang Kasack, a future Slavist, was born. In the following years, Hermann Kasack published poetry collections and produced over a hundred radio programs, including biographies of writers and numerous radio plays (only a few of these programs have survived to this day). On March 28, 1933, all work related to radio broadcasting was prohibited for Kasack. He remained without work until 1941 when he became an editor again at the S. Fischer (later Suhrkamp) publishing house. In 1944, during the imprisonment of the head of the publishing house, Peter Suhrkamp, Kasack performed his duties.

After the war, Kasack initially worked at the Berlin radio and then moved to Stuttgart in 1949. His most famous novel, "The City Beyond the River", was published in 1947 and earned him the Theodor Fontane Prize in 1949. Kasack's second and final novel, "The Great Net", was published in 1952. From 1953 to 1963, he served as the president of the German Academy of Language and Poetry, advocating for the publication of works by forgotten contemporary authors. In 1955, German composer Hans Vogt wrote an opera based on "The City Beyond the River", which premiered in Wiesbaden. On his sixtieth birthday, Suhrkamp publishing house released a collection of Kasack's major essays and speeches as a gift.

In 1960, the A.M. Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow awarded Kasack the Lev Tolstoy Memorial Medal. In 1963, Hermann Kasack stepped down from the position of president of the German Academy of Language and Poetry due to his progressive blindness. He passed away on January 10, 1966.