Robert Wolfgang Schnell

Robert Wolfgang Schnell (March 8, 1916 – August 1, 1986) was a German writer.

Life

Robert Wolfgang Schnell was born in Barmen, Germany, into a middle-class family; his father was a bank clerk. He studied music and taught himself painting. The Nazis refused him admission as a painter in the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts Reichskulturkammer. During the "Third Reich", he worked as a laborer, then as a laboratory technician and was conscripted into the tax office in the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr. Activities as a stage manager at the theater in Schneidemühl and as an opera director in The Hague followed. A four-month period as a soldier ended in January 1945 by his desertion.

After the end of World War II Schnell was working as a part-time actor. He founded and directed the "Ruhrkammerspiele", a theater group, and was director at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In the following years, he worked in various activities, among other things he was a member of the satirical magazine " Ulenspiegel". In 1959 he founded with Günter Bruno Fuchs, the painter Sigurd Kuschnerus and Günter Anlauf the in Berlin-Kreuzberg based "Zinke (Galerie)" which continued until 1962. In the "Neuer Friedrichshagener" circle of poets he was an honorary member. From then on until his death he lived as a freelance writer, painter and actor in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Nationwide, he was known in 1978 for his guest role as a port pastor in the television series MS Franziska.

Robert Wolfgang Schnell was a writer first and foremost an author conventionally-realistic narrated novels and short stories, in which preferably "little people" and outsiders were described in their Berlin environment which to the author presented a counterpoint to the critically viewed contemporary society. Schnelle, a member of the PEN Centre Germany received in 1970 the "Eduard von der Heydt" Culture Prize of the city of Wuppertal.

He is the father of filmmaker Reinald Schnell.

His final resting place is in a specially marked grave, an "Ehrengrab" of the city of Berlin in the state-owned cemetery Ruhleben, entry XXIV-192nd

Works

Translations into German

Single Editions

Secondary Literature

External links