Paul Gratzik#Annekatrin Hendel

Gratzik was born in Lindenhof, near Lötzen in East Prussia (modern Poland), the third of six children of a farm worker. His father fell in the first days of the Second World War.{{cite news|last=Becker|first=Dirk|title=Er hat an das Paradies geglaubt|url=http://www.pnn.de/potsdam-kultur/590347/|accessdate=11 August 2013|newspaper=Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten|date=28 October 2011|language=German}} Early in 1945 he, his mother, and siblings fled westwards in an ox cart, ending up in Schönberg in Mecklenburg, in what would become East Germany. After completing compulsory education, he undertook a carpentry apprenticeship from 1952 to 1954, and then did manual work in the Ruhr, in Berlin, in Weimar, and later in the brown coal open-cast mine in Schlabendorf in the Lausitz. In Berlin, he tried to complete his Abitur at evening classes.

In Weimar, in 1962, he was an official in the local Free German Youth and decided to collaborate with the Ministry for State Security (MfS or Stasi) as an informer. He also began to write.

From 1963 to 1968, Gratzik studied at the Weimar teacher training institute (:de:Institut für Lehrerbildung). His first play was published in 1966.{{cite web|title=Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek|url=https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?query=per%3D%22paul+gratzik%22&method=simpleSearch|publisher=Deutsche Nationalbibliothek|location=Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main}} In 1968 he enrolled at the "Johannes R. Brecher" Institute for Literature at Leipzig University, a creative writing school, but after a short time, by almost unanimous vote of faculty and students, he was expelled. He then taught at a children's home in Dönschten in the Osterzgebirge.

In 1971, he began to work as a full-time writer and joined the GDR writer's guild (Deutscher Schriftstellerverband). But in 1974 he began again to work in industry, part-time, at the Dresden transformer factory. From 1977, Gratzik lived in Berlin, employed as playwright by the Berliner Ensemble. He was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1980.

In 1981, he refused all further cooperation with the MfS and confessed to his friends, amongst them Heiner Müller, that he had informed on them. He was no longer allowed to publish, and many friends shunned him.{{cite news|last=Joel|first=Fokke|title=Dokumentation eines Verrats|url=http://www.zeit.de/kultur/film/2011-09/film-vaterlandsverraeter|accessdate=11 August 2013|newspaper=Zeit Online|date=4 October 2011|language=German}}{{cite news|last=Schneider|first=Rolf|title=Kohlenkutte: Baal im realen Sozialismus|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14349221.html|accessdate=11 August 2013|newspaper=Der Spiegel|date=12 July 1982|language=German}} From 1984, he became an object of observation by the Stasi and experienced harassment by them.

Since the middle of the 1980s, he lived in seclusion in the Uckermark, between Templin and Prenzlau.

Gratzik's work reflects his own experiences as a manual worker under East German socialism. Although a convinced communist, his unadorned realism, and readiness to tackle taboo themes, for example the East German juvenile re-education establishments (Jugendwerkhöfe), brought him into conflict with the censors. In GDR literary circles he was, as a worker who wrote, already unusual, but his gregariousness, charisma, and magnetic effect on women, made him one of the most colourful figures.{{cite web|title=Vaterlandsverräter|url=http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2011/02_programm_2011/02_Filmdatenblatt_2011_20113210.php|publisher=Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin|accessdate=11 August 2013|language=German}}

Neither the British Library nor the German National Library list any English translations of his work.{{cite web|title=Explore the British Library|url=http://catalogue.bl.uk/|publisher=The British Library|location=London|access-date=2013-08-16|archive-date=2012-05-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120504165426/http://catalogue.bl.uk/|url-status=dead}}

(This list is taken from with some publication data added from the German Wikipedia article Paul Gratzik)

• 1965. Unruhige Tage. (Play). Leipzig: Zentralhaus für Kulturarbeit 1966
• 1968. Malwa. (Play after Maxim Gorki). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Autoren 1978
• 1969. Warten auf Maria. (Play).
• 1970. Umwege. Bilder aus dem Leben des jungen Motorenschlossers Michael Runna. (Play). Berlin: Henschelverlag 1970
• 1971. Der Kniebist. (Play). Hans Otto Theater, Potsdam 1971
• 1975. Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen. (Play).
• 1976. Lisa. Zwei Szenen. (Play). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Autoren 1979
• 1976. Handbetrieb. (Play).
• 1977. Paul Gratzik - Stücke. (Collected plays). Rostock: Hinstorff 1977
• 1977. Transportpaule. Monolog. (Novel). Rostock: Hinstorff 1977; Berlin: Rotbuch 1977
• 1980. Tschekisten. (Play).
• 1982. Kohlenkutte. (Novel). Berlin: Rotbuch 1982; Rostock: Hinstorff 1989
• 1984. Die Axt im Haus. (Play)
• 1988. Gabis Ort. (Novel, unpublished)
• 1994. Hans Wurst in Mogadischu. (Play)
• 1996. Tripolis. (Story, filmed as Landleben)
• 1997. Litauische Claviere. (Play after Bobrowski). {{Interlanguage link multi|Theater 89|de|3=Theater 89}}, Berlin 1997
• 1999. Simplizissimus. (Play after Grimmelshausen). Theater 89, Berlin 1999
• 2010. Der Führergeburtstag. (Play)

Vaterlandsverräter is a 97-minute documentary film about Paul Gratzik directed by the German film maker {{Interlanguage link multi|Annekatrin Hendel|de|3=Annekatrin Hendel}}, who had known Gratzik for twenty years before making the film.{{cite web|last=Ernst|first=Katja|title=Vaterlandsverräter|url=http://www.arte.tv/de/vaterlandsverraeter/7313802,CmC=7313792.html|work=Arte Magazin|publisher=Arte|accessdate=11 August 2013|date=1 March 2013|language=German|archive-date=24 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924043635/http://www.arte.tv/de/vaterlandsverraeter/7313802,CmC=7313792.html|url-status=dead}} It premiered at the Berlinale in 2011. In 2012 it was broadcast by Arte, and in 2013 awarded a Grimme-Preis in the Information category: {{blockquote|text=Annekatrin Hendel presents her protagonist as a contradictory, sometimes challenging, sometimes repellent character. A protagonist disdaining discretion, pompous, charming, brusque. She allows him no excuses, forces him to confront his past, the while respecting him as a person. It is stimulating, even exciting, and forces the viewer to address this polarising figure, to take a position. There are hundreds of films about the GDR and the Stasi, this is one of the few that do not follow the well-trodden path of self-certainty.|sign=Jury|source=Grimme-Preis, 2013{{cite web|title=Vaterlandsverräter / Jurybegründung|url=http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id=1742|work=Grimme Preis|publisher=Grimme Institute|accessdate=11 August 2013|language=German|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029192031/http://www.grimme-institut.de/html/index.php?id=1742|archivedate=29 October 2013}}}}

Die Zeit, amongst others, also praised the film: {{blockquote|text=It concerns a traitor who regrets his treachery, finds the courage to confess to his friends, and now waits out his days in provincial Uckermark. Vaterlandsverräter begins to historicize the Stasi, but also to differentiate its image. It is an important film with a new angle on the subject.}}

The DVD of Vaterlandsverräter has English subtitles.

• {{Interlanguage link multi|Annekatrin Hendel|de|3=Annekatrin Hendel}}
• {{cite web |title=Annekatrin Hendel |url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/annekatrin-hendel-p692906 |website=AllMovie |language=en}}
• {{cite web |title=Annekatrin Hendel, director, Berlin |url=https://www.crew-united.com/en/Annekatrin-Hendel_183189.html |website=Crew United |language=en}}
• {{cite web |title=Hendel, Annekatrin |url=https://ecommerce.umass.edu/defa/people/38264 |website=DEFA Film Library |publisher=ecommerce.umass.edu }}
• {{cite web |last1=Elstermann |first1=Knut |title=Portrait: Annekatrin Hendel |url=https://germanfilmsquarterly.de/annekatrin_hendel.html |website=German Films Quarterly |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160625084748/https://germanfilmsquarterly.de/annekatrin_hendel.html |archive-date=June 25, 2016}}
• James Cleverley. [https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/228851/3e059e6c-a95a-e911-949f-0050568d7800_Memories_of_the_GDR-James_Cleverley_PhD_Thesis.pdf Memories of the GDR] (Ph.D. Thesis)

{{Reflist}}

• [http://vaterlandsverraeter.com/ Film official site 'Enemy of the State']
• {{cite web |last1=Hendel |first1=Annekatrin |author1-link=Annekatrin Hendel |title=Vaterlandsverräter |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1817291/ |website=IMDb }}

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Category:1935 births

Category:2018 deaths

Category:People from Giżycko County

Category:Writers from East Prussia

Category:East German writers

Category:German male novelists

Category:20th-century German male writers

Category:20th-century German novelists

Category:Heinrich Mann Prize winners

Category:Stasi informants