born Dec. 21, 1917, Cologne, Ger.
died July 16, 1985, near Bonn, W.Ger.
German writer.
As a soldier in World War II he fought on several fronts, a central experience in the development of his antiwar, nonconformist views. His ironic novels on the travails of German life during and after the war captured the changing psychology of the German nation. He became a leading voice of the German left. Among his works are Acquainted with the Night (1953), Billiards at Half-Past Nine (1959), The Clown (1963), Group Portrait with Lady (1971), and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1974). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.