STURMANN, MANFRED

STURMANN, MANFRED (1903–1989), Israeli author writing in German. Born in Koenigsberg (East Prussia), his first book, Althebraeische Lyrik – a rendering of biblical poetry into German – appeared in 1923 with an introduction by Arnold Zweig. This was followed by several books of his own lyrical poems, the first of which, Die Erben (1929), was awarded the Lyrics Prize of the City of Munich. After his immigration to Ereẓ Israel in 1938, he continued writing poetry as well as short stories in German. He dealt with the involved problem of an "Israel poet in the German language" in an essay published in Meilensteine – Vom Wege des Kartells Juedischer Verbindungen KJV in der Zionistischen Bewegung (Tel Aviv, 1972). He stated that both the serene landscape of the years of his youth and "the discovery of the Zionist dream" had a decisive influence on his outlook, his thinking, and his writing. Some of the short stories Sturmann wrote in Israel were inspired by his experience in the war of 1948, his social work in Jerusalem, and his deep love of this city and the country: Die Kreatur (1952) and Abschied von Europa (1963) contain a representative selection of his short stories. He was the literary administrator of else lasker-schueler . (Erich Gottgetreu)