Erich Fried
Erich Fried was an influential Austrian poet born on May 6, 1921, in Vienna. His early life was marked by the rise of anti-Semitism and the violence of postwar Austria, culminating in his family's flight to England after his father’s detention by the Gestapo and subsequent death in a concentration camp. Initially taking on various jobs, Fried became politically conscious and published his first poetry volumes focusing on the dire political conditions in Europe and the atrocities of the Holocaust. After World War II, he worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation and published his first novel in 1960, exploring complex moral issues related to Nazism.
Fried's poetry, especially during the 1960s, evolved to address pressing global issues like political corruption, war, women's rights, and environmental destruction, while maintaining a unique and personal voice. Known for its technical skill and rich imagery, his work also critiqued both contemporary and historical injustices, including anti-Semitism and the treatment of terrorists in West Germany. Throughout his life, Fried received several prestigious literary awards and was considered a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize. He passed away on November 22, 1988, leaving behind a legacy that emphasized the role of art in confronting sociopolitical realities.
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Erich Fried
Poet
- Born: May 6, 1921
- Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
- Died: November 22, 1988
- Place of death: Baden-Baden, Germany
Biography
Erich Fried was born on May 6, 1921, in Vienna, Austria. A voracious reader, he received a modest education in Austria’s state schools. While growing up, he witnessed bloody street violence amid the postwar depression as well as the rise of anti-Semitism. In 1938, on the heels of the Anschluss, Fried’s father was detained by the Gestapo, even though he was not involved with any political resistance. He would eventually die in a concentration camp, but by the time he died, Fried and his mother had fled to England.
While Fried initially worked a number of odd jobs, including as a chemist for a dairy conglomerate, a librarian, and a factory worker, he was converted to the political credo of socialism and published his first two volumes of poetry, which were dedicated specifically to his alarm over the political conditions in mainland Europe and the horrors of the concentration camps. Following the war, Fried edited the periodical Blick in die Welt until he secured a job in 1952 with the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he stayed until 1968. His first novel, 1960’s Ein Soldat und ein Mädchen, extended his investigation of the complex moral dimension of Nazism. In the book, a former concentration guard awaiting execution at Nuremberg after the war falls in love with one of her guards, a Jewish soldier.
By contrast, Fried’s poetry during the early 1960’s, while it won critical praise, was distinctly apolitical. Its cerebral lyrics exhibited technical virtuosity, a fascination with sophisticated wordplay, and dense imagery drawn from classic literatures. The year 1963 marked the beginning of Fried’s most prolific period (he published more than thirty volumes over the next twenty-five years), a period in which his poetry would return to pressing political and social questions. This very public poetry would investigate a range of incendiary international issues, including European political corruption, the war in Vietnam, women’s rights, the destruction of the environment, nuclear disarmament, and the rise of capitalist materialism. Although clearly leftist, Fried maintained a courageously idiosyncratic vision; for instance, a vocal critic of anti-Semitism, he also a vocal proponent of Palestinian rights; horrified by the barbarism of the Nazis, he nevertheless crusaded for just treatment of West Germany’s domestic terrorists.
Fried’s uncompromising moral sensibility extended to his volumes of short pieces, compendiums of parables, sketches, satires, autobiographical fragments, and short stories. In examining the implications of immediate political and social issues, Fried drew on art’s privileged responsibility to foment change, raise consciousness, and ultimately awaken the complacent to the moral implications of contemporary events. A perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize, he was awarded the Schiller Prize in 1965, the Austrian Appreciation Prize for Literature in 1972, and the Bremen Literature Prize in 1983. He died in Baden-Baden, Germany, on November 22, 1988. Politically engaged, timely yet timeless, Fried’s poetry demands that art boldly confront its sociopolitical context without simplifying into propaganda or slogans. While preserving lyric intensity and rich verbal play, his impassioned verse demands that art not merely delight but also educate and provoke.