Biography:

Ulrich Plenzdorf  was born In Berlin on October 26, 1934. He was one of East Germany’s most radical young writers and, after unification, one of Germany’s most sought-after scriptwriters. Breaking off his philosophy studies, Plenzdorf worked as a stagehand at the state-run East German DEFA Studios for Feature Films from 1955 to1958. He then studied at the Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam Babelsberg until 1963 and, in 1964, began working as a scriptwriter and dramatic advisor at DEFA.

Plenzdorf wrote his debut script for Herrmann Zschoche’s Carla. Along with most of the year’s production, this film was banned in 1965 and not shown until after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Plenzdorf’s 1972 play, originally written for film, Die neuen Leiden des jungen W., which references Goethe’s classic novella, elevated him to fame. Expressing the frustrations of East German youth, it became a sensational success, selling over 4 million copies in 30 languages, and was later adapted into a film by West German television in 1976. Critic Marcel Recih-Ranicki called the work Catcher of the GDR Rye.

Plenzdorf's 1972 film, Die Legende von Paul und Paula, was also a smash hit. He expanded his script into a novel Die Legende vom Glück ohne Ende (The Legend of Happiness without an End).

Plenzdorf continued writing socially insightful and successful plays – such as The Time of the Wolves (1989), about Stalinism – and screenplays, like Bunny Hops (1991), or the State Prosecutor’s Nightmare (1991), which addresses the apprehensions of a reunited Germany. In 1992, Plenzdorf took over, after the death of the author Jurek Becker, as scriptwriter for the German television series Liebling-Kreuzberg, starring Manfred Krug. In 1997 he wrote the script for the film, Abgehauen, based on Krug’s autobiographical writings.

Ulrich Plenzdorf, an exact observer of social realities with a keen sense of attitudes to life, died on August 9, 2007, after having suffered from a serious illness for several years.