One of the Great Story-tellers:

Luise Rinser

by Paul A. Schons

Originally published by the Germanic-American Institute in November, 2002

One of the great writers of novels and short stories of the 20th century, Luise Rinser, died this year on March 17. During her lifetime more than 5,000,000 copies of her books had been sold worldwide in the original German and in translation into 20 languages. Her (over 30) books include Die gläsernen Ringe (1941), Erste Liebe (1946), Mitte des Lebens (1950), Daniela (1952), Mirjam (1983), Abaelards Liebe (1991) and Saturn auf der Sonne (1994).

Rinser was born in Pitzling (near Munich) on April 30, 1911. Her upbringing in a Bavarian Catholic family was strictly religious and instilled a life-long spirituality within her, although she rebelled against the strict Catholicism of her youth and became much enchanted with mysticism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions. In her youth she had been charmed by Hermann Hesse’s Siddartha (1922) and later by the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. When she was 16 and 17 she turned enthusiastically to Meister Eckart, Amos Domenius and Nicolaus Cusanus. Throughout her life she traveled frequently to Asia following her interest in Eastern religions. She was in her 80’s when she traveled to the Himalayas to visit the Dalai Lama. Her interest in Eastern religion did not mean an abandonment of her native Christianity, however. She termed herself a “christliche Sozialistin” (Christian socialist).

Despite some rebellious tendencies in her youth, Rinser’s early life was fairly normal. After high school she studied psychology and education and became a teacher. She married the musician Günther Schnell and the couple had two children. But, of course, after the rise to power of the Nazi party, no German’s life would any longer be normal. She refused to join the party and was, thus, excluded from teaching by 1939. Her husband was assigned to a punishment unit of the army for his refusal to cooperate with the Nazis and would be killed on the Eastern Front in 1943. Luise was arrested for treason as a result of her first published book, Die gläsernen Ringe (The Glass Rings) and sent to a women’s prison. She might well have been executed there had the war not ended.

Having defied the dictatorship she would remain defiant for the remainder of her life. She was a feminist, an environmentalist, a pacifist, and a protester against atomic weapons. She joined the novelist Heinrich Böll in his anti-war protests. In 1970 the magazine Quick accused her of sheltering the anti-war terrorists of that time, Ensslin and Baader. She campaigned actively for her friend Willy Brandt. In 1984 she was a candidate of the young Green Party for the position of federal president against Richard von Weizäcker. (Weizäcker won.) Although she would become discouraged from time to time, she saw her protests in the post-war period as a continuation of the self-sacrifice for a better world she had begun as resister in the Nazi times. “Wozu waren wir eigentlich während des Dritten Reiches im Wiederstand? Wir haben dafür gesorgt, dass Deutschland für das Ausland trotz des Nazifaschismus noch positive Züge behalten hat.” (“Why were we in the resistance during the Third Reich? Through it we were responsible for Germany retaining positive characteristics in the eyes of the rest of the world in spite of Nazi fascism.”)
In all of her radical activities Rinser was inspired by a vision of a better way of life. A spirit of human concern and love permeates her novels and short stories as well as her rhetoric in public statements. She said it was always her desire in her books to help her readers to love and to live fuller lives.

In 1954 she married the composer Karl Orff (Carmina Burana, 1937). (The marriage lasted only until 1959 and ended in divorce.) Rinser was a close friend of the theologian Karl Rahner. She won the Elisabeth Lagngässer prize for literature in 1987. From the 60’s on she established a second home in Rome and for the remainder of her life commuted between Rome and Munich. She was in a retirement home in Munich when she died in 2002 at age 90.

At the time of her death, the German president, Johannes Rau spoke of her lifetime commitment to freedom, democracy and of her concern for humanity. He praised her ability to bring the basic, important questions of life into her literature. Her son, Christoph Rinser, said that in spite of her rejection of the institutions of religion she remained “im Herzen tief im Katholizismus verwurzelt.” (“deeply rooted in Catholicism in her heart.”) She herself had indicated many times that she lived a blend of Christianity and Eastern religions, seeking a universal harmony. She found in the works of Teilhard de Chardin, whom she admired, a sense of universality. She crafted a universal world view of her own in her blending of Buddhism and Christianity, “Es wird lange dauern, bis die Menschheit begriffen hat, dass nicht nur die Völker der Erde ein Volk sind, sondern dass Menschen, Pflanzen und Tiere zusammen ‘Reich Gottes’ sind, und dass das Schicksal des einen Bereichs auch das Schicksal des andern ist.” (It will be a long time before humanity will understand that it is not only the peoples of the earth who are one people, but that people, plants and animals together are the “kingdom of God” and that the fate of one is the fate of all.”)