Im Dunkeln singen, 1982 bis 1985

by Luise Rinser

»Luise Rinser bleibt sich treu«: Immer wieder taucht dieser Satz in der Ankündigung eines neuen Buches der unermüdlichen und unerschrockenen Autorin auf; immer wieder bestätigt sie ihn in der Auseinandersetzung mit der Welt und mit den Menschen, mit dem Tag und der Zeit. Dieser Treue ist nicht starr. Sie bedingt Mitgehen und Entgegentreten. Die geborene Schriftstellerin, Erzählerin begnügt sich nicht mit dem l’art pour l’art.
Schreiben und Handeln, Reagieren und Agieren sind ihr eins. Der Standpunkt mag im Laufe der Jahre sich verändern wie in der inneren Verfassung und Gestimmtheit der Anteil von Hoffnung und Verzweiflung. Luise Rinser ist leidenschaftlich, sogar schonungslos: Sie schont sich selber nicht, aber ihr oft sich regender kämpferischer Zorn und die Strenge ihres Urteils, ihrer Polemik werden überwogen von ihrer Sorge um den Menschen, ihre Menschenliebe. Diese ist die Treibkraft ihrer Arbeit, ihrer Existenz.
1970 publizierte Luise Rinser den band ›Baustelle‹, eine Art Tagebuch. Mit ihm hatte sie ihre eigene Form der Aussage zu Aktuellem und weiterhin Geltendem gefunden. Es folgten 1972 ›Grenzübergänge. Tagebuch-Notizen‹ (Niederschriften aus den Jahren 1970-1972), 1978 ›Kriegsspielzeug. Tagebuch 1972-1978‹, 1982 ›Winterfrühling. 1979 bis 1982‹. Ihm schließen sich nun Notizen, Reflexionen, Reden, Impressionen, geschlossene Prosastücke an, in denen sich neue Beobachtungen und Erlebnisse niedergeschlagen haben. Sie sind vereint unter vertrautem Gesamtnenner, ihr schwermütiges Grundgefühl klingt im Titel an. Reisen in den USA und in der DDR, eine Friedenskonferenz in Indien, Friedensfeste, Friedensdemonstrationen in unserem Lande, von der Autorin geäußerter, von ihr hervorgerufener Protest, Kandidatur zur Bundespräsidentenwahl, philosophische Lektüre, Gesichter und Landschaften, empörter Widerspruch und »Rühmen, Danken«. Temperamentvoll, charaktervoll bringt Luise Rinser zum Ausdruck, was und wie sie denkt, was und wie sie fühlt in jener Sorge um den Menschen, um Natur und Kreatur.

249 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Luise Rinser (30 April 1911 in Pitzling, Landsberg am Lech, Upper Bavaria – 17 March 2002 in Unterhaching, Munich) was a German writer.

Luise Rinser was born on 30 April 1911 in Pitzling, a constituent community of Landsberg am Lech, in Upper Bavaria. Her birth house still exists. She was educated in a Volksschule in Munich, where she scored high marks on her exams. After the exams, she worked as an aide in various schools in Upper Bavaria, where she learned the reformed pedagogical style of Franz Seitz, who influenced her teaching and writing. During these years, she wrote her first short stories for the journal Herdfeuer. She refused to join the Nazi Party, but after 1936 belonged to the NS-Frauenschaft and until 1939 she also belonged to the Teacher's Association. In 1939, she resigned from teaching and was married. In 1944 she was denounced for undermining military morale, and imprisoned; the end of the war stopped the legal proceedings against her, which probably would have concluded with a death sentence. She described her experience in the Traunstein women's prison in her Prison Journals (Gefängnistagebuch) of 1946. She described herself in an ode to Adolf Hitler as opposed to the Nazis. Her first husband, and the father of both her sons, the composer and choir director Horst Günther Schnell, died on the Russian Front. Afterward, she married the communist writer Klaus Herrmann, but this marriage was annulled about 1952. From 1945 to 1953, she was a freelance writer for the New Daily News (Munich), and she established her residence in that city.

In 1954, she married the composer Carl Orff and they divorced in 1960. She formed a tight friendship with the Korean composer Isang Yun, with the abbot of a monastery, and with the theologian Karl Rahner. In 1959, she lived in Rome, and then in 1965 in Rocca di Papa, near Rome, where she was recognized as an honored resident in 1986. Afterward, she lived until her death at her apartment in Munich.

Rinser kept herself active in political and social discussions in Germany. She supported Willy Brandt in his 1971/72 campaign, and demonstrated with the writers Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass and many others against the retrofitting of Germany with Pershing rockets. She became a sharp critic of the Catholic Church, although she never left it and she was an accredited journalist at the Second Vatican Council. She also criticized, in open letters, the prosecution of Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, and others, and wrote to Ensslin's father: "Gudrun has a friend in me for life.". In 1972, she traveled to the Soviet Union, the USA Spain, India, Indonesia, South Korea, North Korea, and Iran – she saw the Revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini as "a shining model for the states of the Third World." – Japan, Colombia and many other countries. She engaged herself for the abolition of the Abortion paragraph § 218 in its current form. She served as a leading voice for the Catholic Left in Germany.

In 1984, she was proposed by the Grünen as a candidate for the office of federal president.