Stefan Heym
Writer
Honorary citizenship awarded on 2 October 2001
Stefan Heym was born in Chemnitz on 10 April 1913 under the civil name Helmut Flieg, the son of a Jewish merchant.
As an 18-year-old pupil at the Hohe Straße state grammar school, Helmut Flieg, who was influenced by a humanist upbringing, was already grappling with the social contradictions of the Weimar Republic.
With the publication of a poem in the Chemnitz newspaper "Volksstimme", in which German militarism was denounced, he made his first openly socially critical appearance. This resulted in his relegation from grammar school and, from 1933, National Socialist reprisals. To protect himself and his family from the anti-Semitic Nazi terror, he henceforth lived under the pseudonym Stefan Heym.
Nevertheless, emigration to Prague and later to the USA became unavoidable for him. After completing his studies in philosophy, German and newspaper studies in Chicago, he began working as a journalist as editor-in-chief of the anti-fascist weekly newspaper "Deutsches Volksecho". He began his life's work as a writer in the mid-thirties with the novel "Hostage".
His contempt for the Hitler regime and his desire to actively contribute to the end of the Second World War led Stefan Heym to join the US army. Immediately after the end of the war, he visited bombed-out Chemnitz as a soldier.
International Stefan Heym Prize
The International Stefan Heym Prize has been awarded since 1998 in honour of Stefan Heym, the son and honorary citizen of the city of Chemnitz. The honour is awarded every three years to outstanding authors and publicists who, like Stefan Heym, have proven themselves in their work as personalities who intervene in social and political debates in order to fight for moral values.
At the beginning of the Cold War, Stefan Heym took a critical stance on US policy and was expelled from the US Army for his "pro-communist stance". In protest against the Korean War, he returned his military honours to the US government.
In 1952, Stefan Heym saw the GDR, with which he had high hopes at the time, as his new home. As the author of novels that became classics, such as "Crusaders of Today", "The Glasenapp Case" and "The Eyes of Reason", he found a large readership and state recognition here. His literary work was honoured with the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1953, the FDGB Literature Prize in 1956 and the National Prize in 1959.
Describing himself as a critical Marxist, as an internationally recognised writer he did not allow himself to be appropriated or instrumentalised by the SED leadership. Instead, from the mid-1950s onwards, he became increasingly critical of developments in the GDR. His open approach to social problems repeatedly led to controversy with the GDR leadership. On the other hand, Heym achieved great popularity through his brilliant style and the topics he tackled. In novels such as "Lasalle" or "Der König David Bericht", Stefan Heym used the historical novel to present current issues from a perspective that did not conform to the official SED guidelines. Not infrequently, the German-language editions of some works could only be published in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1989.
Typical examples of this are the novels "Collin" and "Schwarzenberg", which were published by Bertelsmann in 1979 and 1984, but could only be published in the GDR in 1990.
Stefan Heym never made a secret of his rejection of the "real existing socialism" practised in the GDR. Signing the declaration of protest against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann led to his expulsion from the GDR Writers' Association. Increasingly regimented and merely tolerated, Stefan Heym continued his literary work unabated.
Through the West German media, he continued to deal with the social conditions in the GDR, which he continued to regard as his home despite all the shortcomings and difficulties he had experienced.
In the autumn of 1989, Stefan Heym was one of the outstanding personalities of the peaceful revolution in the GDR. Although he was already one of the few prominent figures in both German states at the beginning of the 1980s who predicted the restoration of German unity, he constructively and critically accompanied the unification process that took place after 1990.
In his opening speech as President of the 13th German Bundestag in 1994, he drew attention to undesirable developments during the reunification process and at the same time pointed out the great historical opportunities for democracy and social justice in a united Germany.
Throughout his life, the unconventional thinker Stefan Heym professed a world view characterised by humanism and social justice. He was never primarily concerned with the defence of ideologies. Rather, he contributed to the discussions with his social criticisms as a charismatic practitioner.
Over the course of more than seven decades, it was not only in his literary works that he addressed the social conditions in which he lived. His civil courage was always impressive, as was his constructive commitment to the search for a modern and sustainable form of society. With his usually unsparingly open and often uncomfortable manner, he repeatedly came up against the limits set for him by those in power. But neither German National Socialism, nor the USA in the Mc Carthy era, nor the SED system of rule in the GDR were able to stop Stefan Heym in his quest for true democracy and justice.
By conferring honorary citizenship on Stefan Heym on 2 October 2001, the city of Chemnitz honoured an internationally respected personality who was born and grew up here in Chemnitz. With his extensive life's work, Stefan Heym is one of the most important German writers of the 20th century.
Stefan Heym died on 16 December 2001 in Israel.
The city of Chemnitz will always remember Stefan Heym in honour.
Naming ceremony for Stefan-Heym-Platz
The square at the Chemnitz State Museum of Archaeology has been called "Stefan Heym Square" since 10 April 2013.
The Stefan Heym Prize winner Christoph Hein, Inge Heym, Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig and Dr Ulrike Uhlig from the International Stefan Heym Society took part in the unveiling of the street sign bearing the name of the writer, who died in 2001.
The naming was decided by the city council at its meeting on 12 July 2012.