Inge Müller

Inge Müller (born Inge Meyer) (March 13 1925 - June 1 1966) was an East German poet.

Life

Inge Müller was born in Berlin in 1925. During World War II, she participated in the Reichsarbeitsdienst in different towns in Styria until she would be sent to Berlin as a Luftwaffe aide. Her parents died in an air strike, they lied buried together under rubble for three days with a dog - a traumatic experience which would accompany her the rest of her life.

In the post war era, she was a secretary, Trümmerfrau, worker, journalist and correspondent. Her first marriage to Kurt Loose lasted only a short time but produced a son. Already by 1948, she married Herbert Schwenker who was the leader of the Friedrichstadtpalast and later the Zirkus Busch. She became a member of the SED and lived in Lehnitz, a district of the town of Oranienburg, from 1954 until 1959 where she enjoyed a privileged and unburdened existence.

In autumn of 1953, she got to know Heiner Müller at a function of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Junger Autoren. She soon afterwards moved in a shared apartment with him and they were married in 1955. The pair, who now earned their money as freelance writers, worked together on radio drama and theater pieces.

However, Inge Müller's dream of working together with Heiner as equals soon began to burst. She stood in Heiner's shadow who she earlier considered a coworker than as an equal partner. She began an affair with Heiner's 16 year old brother Wolfgang Müller in 1956 which failed and the relations with her husband visibly worsened.

The awarding of the Heinrich Mann Prize to the both of them in 1959 did nothing to change their relations. In addition, the exception Heiner from the Schriftstellerverband der DDR added to these problems. Plagued by depressions and psychosomatic troubles caused her to try several times to take her life. She was finally successful after an attempt on June 1, 1966. Only 41 years old, the writer died in her apartment on Kissingenstraße 9 of poisonous gas. The futile Aufbau Verlag endeavored shortly after her death to publish a volume with her poetry. Her works quickly passed into oblivion for a suicide did not fit in the literary picture of East German politics besides Heiner reclaimed the sole authorship of the collaboration. The first posthumous publication of her works was carried out by Bernd Jentzsch in 1976 in his first series"Poesiealbum", first appeared in 1985 - 20 years after her death - a book, which made accessible Inge Müller's literary work of broad public nature, with Richard Pietraß' "Wenn ich schon sterben muß".

Her final resting place is in Friedhof Pankow III, a cemetery in Berlin.

Works

In her lifetime, Inge Müller published only a little among them the children's books "Wölfchen Ungestüm" (1955) and "Zehn Jungen und ein Fischerdorf" (1958), the emancipating and time relevant radio drama "Die Weiberbrigade" and the collaboration with Wiktor Rosows "Auf dem Wege". Many stayed only fragments like the novel "Ich Jona". With Heiner Müller, she created the dramas "Der Lohndrücker" (1956), "Die Umsiedlerin" (1956), "Die Korrektur" (1957), "Klettwitzer Bericht" (1958) and "Unterwegs" (1963).

She had remained above all a poet. Almost 300 lyrical works were created in her life time though few were published mostly in the anthology "In diesem besseren Land".

Literature

Biographies:
* Ines Geipel: " _de. Dann fiel auf einmal der Himmel um. Henschel" Verlag 2002
* Sonja Hilzinger: " _de. Das Leben fängt heute an". Aufbau Verlag Berlin 2005Works published:
* Richard Pietraß (Editor): " _de. Wenn ich schon sterben muß". Aufbau Verlag Berlin 1985
* Sonja Hilzinger (Editor): " _de. Daß ich nicht ersticke am Leisesein". Aufbau Verlag Berlin 2002