Stefan Paul Andres was a German novelist. He worked variously as a writer for newspapers and journals, and as a speaker.
Background
Stefan Paul Andres was born on June 26, 1906, in Breitweis, Germany.
During the rise and coming to power of the Nazi party, Stefan Andres had a lifelong struggle with his ties to his homeland. Andres’ father, a mill owner, had gone against the tide of popular opinion by opposing World War I when Stefan was a child. Andres showed the same resolve with regard to the events that took place in Germany during his lifetime.
Education
The combined with publication restrictions on his work by the Reich’s Chamber of Literature, caused Andres to abandon his home and move to Italy after receiving a grant from the Abraham Lincoln Foundation in 1933.
In 1928, after attending monastery school and entering the Capuchin order, Andres gave up his religious calling to study philosophy, German literature, and art history at university.
Career
In 1933, Andres’s first novel, Bruder Luzifer (“Brother Lucifer”), was published. When Andres returned home from Italy later that same year, he found his homeland in an even more turbulent state. His novella, El Greco malt den Grossinquisitor, one of his most popular works, was published in 1936. In the year following the publication of El Greco malt den Grossinquisitor, Andres managed to move his family out of the country. In 1937, the Andres family emigrated to Positano, Italy, where they would slay until 1947.
During his years in Italy, Andres found a way to continue publishing his writings in Germany. He was able to have his books published there and the payments sent to him in Italy until 1943 when Wir sind Utopia (“We Are Utopia”) came out. The Berlin publisher Ulrich Riemerschmidt had to have this novel a printed and sold illegally.
While writing Die Sintflut, Andres left Italy, moving to West Germany in 1947. But he would only stay in Germany a decade, returning to Italy in 1960 to settle in Rome.
In 1965, Andres completed Die biblische Geschichte (“The Bible Story”). It is one of his most famous works and enjoyed much critical acclaim upon publication.
Andres’s last novel, Die Versuchung des Synesios (“The Temptation of Synesios”) was completed just before the author’s death in 1970.
Besides writing, Andres was also a powerful speaker. In 1961, he spoke about the assassination attempt on Hitler at the end of the war. The position Andres look in his speech was to support the morality of such an act in unique circumstances.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
“Andres considers it his obligation to demonstrate the possibilities of individual freedom and to revive aesthetic values which had gone through a process of disintegration. His appeal for beauty and spiritual freedom contributed to his popularity.” - Fraz-Joseph Wehage
Connections
Andres married Dorothee Freudiger, whom he met at the University of Jena, in 1932, a year before his first novel was published.