Grete Weiskopf
{{Short description|German writer of children's and young adult fiction}}
Grete Weiskopf (11 May 1905 – 15 March 1966), known by the pseudonym Alex Wedding, was a German writer of children's and young adult fiction.
Life
Born Grete Bernheim in Salzburg, she initially worked as a typist, bookseller, and bank clerk in Berlin. In 1928 she married the Czech-born author Franz Carl Weiskopf, a member of the German Communist Party and the Association of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors.{{cite web |url= https://www.sozialistenfriedhof.de/index.php?id=weiskopf_wedding |title= Franz Carl Weiskopf (1900-1955) / Grete Weiskopf (1905-1966), Pseudonym Alex Wedding |author= |date= |website= Sozialist enfried HOF |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}} In 1931 she authored her first young adult novel, Ede und Unku, which was among the books destroyed during the Nazi book burnings. In 1933 she and her husband fled to Prague; in 1939 they fled via Paris to New York City.{{cite book|last=Scheibe|first=Hermine|title=Alex Weddings künstlerischer und literaturtheoretischer Beitrag zur Entwicklung der sozialistischen deutschen Kinderliteratur|date=1976|publisher=DDR-Zentrum für Kinderliteratur}}
After the Second World War the couple returned to Prague for a brief period. That same year, Franz began working in the diplomatic service, which led to assignments in Washington, DC and Stockholm. From 1950 to 1952 they lived in the People's Republic of China, where she worked as a translator and journalist. From 1953 until her death she lived in East Germany. She and her husband are buried in Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.
Career
During her life in East Germany, Weiskopf wrote children's and young adult novels and short stories. Her two most successful books are Ede und Unku and The Arctic Ocean, which were both adapted into films. She was considered a pioneer of socialist children's literature.{{cite book|last=Blumesberger|first=Susanne|title=Alex Wedding (1905–1966) und die proletarische Kinder- und Jugendliteratur|date=2007|publisher=Praesens Verlag|isbn=3-7069-0363-6}}
Honors
- She is the namesake of a literary prize, the Alex-Wedding-Preis, awarded since 1968. In 2024, the prize was merged with her husband’s own prize.{{cite web |url= https://www.adk.de/en/academy/sections/literature/prizes_scholarships/weiskopf-wedding-prize_en.htm |title= Weiskopf Wedding Prize |author= |date= |website= Akademie der Kunste |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}
- On 27 January 2011, on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nation Socialism, a path in Friedrichshain was renamed Ede-und-Unku-Weg in memory of Weiskopf's most celebrated novel.
- Since 2009 a street on Alexanderplatz between Karl-Liebknecht-, Knebel-, and Wadzeckstrasse is named Alex-Wedding-Strasse.
Works
Weiskopf's works include; {{cite web |url= https://www.librarything.com/author/weddingalex |title= Alex Wedding |author= |date= |website= Library Thing |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}
- 1931: Ede und Unku
- 1936: Das Eismeer ruft
- 1948: Die Fahne des Pfeiferhänsleins
- 1948: Söldner ohne Sold, Ein Roman für die Jugend
- 1952: Das eiserne Büffelchen
- 1961: Die Drachenbraut. Chinesische Volksmärchen
- 1963: Erinnerungen an einen Freund. Ein Gedenkbuch für F. C. Weiskopf. {{cite web |url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/Erinnerungen-Gedenkbuch-Weiskopf-including-portraits/dp/B0018JT9FY |title= Erinnerungen an einen Freund. Ein Gedenkbuch für F. C. Weiskopf. |author= |date= |website= Amazon |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}
- 1963: Hubert, das Flusspferd. (based on the true story of Huberta)
- 1965: Im Schatten des Baobab. Märchen und Fabeln aus Afrika
Filmography
=Adaptations=
- 1961: Das Eismeer ruft (Ledove more vola), directed by Hanus Burger
- 1980: Als Unku Edes Freundin war, directed by Helmut Dziuba
- 1982: Das große Abenteuer des Kaspar Schmeck, directed by Gunter Friedrich
- 1984: Das Eismeer ruft, directed by Jörg Foth
=Scripts=
Further reading
- Astrid Fernengel: Kinderliteratur im Exil, Tectum, Marburg, 2008, Diss. TU Berlin 2006
- Manfred Orlick: Reminiszenz an Alex Wedding (zum 50. Todestag). In: Ossietzky, Volume 6, 2016, S. 208–210, [http://www.sopos.org/aufsaetze/56e68ab108992/1.phtml online] bei sopos.org.
- Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss: International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Émigrés 1933-1945. Vol.2, Munich: Saur, 1983 {{ISBN|3-598-10089-2}}, S. 1212
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category|Alex Wedding}}
- [https://www.kulturring.org/konkret/frauen-persoenlichkeiten/index.php?frauen-persoenlichkeiten=strassennamen&id=129 Straßenbenennung], Female personalities in Berlin Mitte
- [http://www.kinderundjugendmedien.de/index.php/autoren/372-alex-wedding Information on Grete Weiskopf at KinderundJugendmedien.de]
- [https://archiv.adk.de/bigobjekt/24877 Alex-Wedding-Archiv] in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
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Category:German children's writers
Category:German women novelists