Origins & Early Life

Heinrich Theodor Böll (; German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈteːodoːɐ̯ ˈbœl] ; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post–World War II writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). Böll was born in Cologne, Germany, to a Roman Catholic and pacifist family that later opposed the rise of Nazism. Böll refused to join the Hitler Youth during the 1930s.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

He was apprenticed to a bookseller before studying German studies and classics at the University of Cologne. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht, he served in Poland, France, Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union. In 1942, Böll married Annemarie Cech, with whom he had three sons; she later collaborated with him on a number of different translations into German of English-language literature. During his war service, Böll was wounded four times and contracted typhoid. He was captured by US Army soldiers in April 1945 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

After the war, he returned to Cologne and began working in his family's cabinet shop and, for one year, worked in a municipal statistical bureau, a job he did not enjoy and which he left in order...

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