At first the speech did not cause a great stir. Indeed, the audience present in Church of St. Paul received the speech with applause, though Walser's critic Ignatz Bubis

Ignatz Bubis

Ignatz Bubis , German Jewish leader, was the influential chairman of the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland from 1992 to 1999. In this capacity he led a public campaign against German anti-Semitism...

 did not applaud, as confirmed by television footage of the event. Some days after the event, and again on 9 November 1998, the 60th anniversary of the Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

 pogrom against German Jews, Bubis, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany

Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland

The Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland is a federation of German Jews organizing many Jewish organisations in Germany. It was founded on July 19, 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish community and increasing interest in Jewish affairs by the ...

, accused Walser of "intellectual arson" (geistige Brandstiftung) and claimed that Walser's speech was both "trying to block out history or, respectively, to eliminate the remembrance" and pleading "for a culture of looking away and thinking away". Then the controversy started. As described by Karsten Luttmer: Walser replied by accusing Bubis to have stepped out of dialog between people. Walser and Bubis met on 14 December at the offices of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...

to discuss the heated controversy and to bring the discussion to a close. They were joined by Frank Schirrmacher

Frank Schirrmacher

Frank Schirrmacher is a German journalist, doctored literature expert and essayist, writer, and since 1994 co-publisher of the national German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.-Education:...

 of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Salomon Korn of the Central Council of Jew in Germany. Afterward, Bubis withdrew his claim that Walser had been intentionally incendiary, but Walser maintained that there was no misinterpretation by his opponents.

Works

Works of Walser's that have been translated into English include:

• Halftime: A Novel (1960)
• The Gadarene Club (1960)
• Oak Tree and Angora Rabbit: A Play (1962)
• Rabbit Race (1963)
• Runaway Horse: A Novel (1978)
• Swan Villa (1983)
• The Unicorn (1983)
• Beyond all Love (1983)
• The Inner Man ("Seelenarbeit") (1984)
• Letter to Lord Liszt (1985)
• Breakers (1988)
• No Man's Land (1988)
• The Burden of the Past: Martin Walser on Modern German Identity: Texts, Contexts, Commentary (2008)

In German:

• Beschreibung einer Form. Versuch über die epische Dichtung Franz Kafkas. Dissertation (1951)
• Ein Flugzeug über dem Haus und andere Geschichten (1955)
• Ehen in Philippsburg (1957)
• Halbzeit (1960)
• Eiche und Angora: Eine deutsche Chronik (1962)
• Überlebensgroß Herr Krott: Requiem für einen Unsterblichen (1964)
• Lügengeschichten (1964)
• Erfahrungen und Leseerfahrungen (1965)
• Das Einhorn (1966)
• Der Abstecher. Die Zimmerschlacht (1967)
• Heimatkunde: Aufsätze und Reden (1968)
• Ein Kinderspiel: Stück in zwei Akten (1970)
• Fiction: Erzählung (1970)
• Aus dem Wortschatz unserer Kämpfe(1971)
• Die Gallistl'sche Krankheit (1972)
• Der Sturz (1973)
• Das Sauspiel: Szenen aus dem 16. Jahrhundert (1975)
• Jenseits der Liebe (1976)
• Ein fliehendes Pferd (1978)
• Seelenarbeit (1979)
• Das Schwanenhaus (1980)
• Selbstbewußtsein und Ironie (1981)
• Brief an Lord Liszt (1982)
• In Goethes Hand: Szenen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert (1982)
• Liebeserklärungen (1983)
• Brandung (1985)
• Meßmers Gedanken (1985)
• Geständnis auf Raten (1986)
• Die Amerikareise: Versuch, ein Gefühl zu verstehen, with André Ficus (1986)
• Dorle und Wolf: Eine Novelle (1987)
• Jagd: Roman (1988)
• Über Deutschland reden (1988)
• Die Verteidigung der Kindheit: Roman (1991)
• Das Sofa (written 1961) (1992)
• Ohne einander: Roman (1993)
• Vormittag eines Schriftstellers (1994)
• Kaschmir in Parching': Szenen aus der Gegenwart (1995)
• Finks Krieg: Roman (1996)
• Deutsche Sorgen (1997)
• Heimatlob: Ein Bodensee-Buch (with André Ficus) (1998)
• Ein springender Brunnen: Roman (1998)
• Der Lebenslauf der Liebe: Roman (2000)
• Tod eines Kritikers: Roman (2002)
• Meßmers Reisen (2003)
• Der Augenblick der Liebe: Roman (2004)
• Die Verwaltung des Nichts: Aufsätze (2004)
• Leben und Schreiben: Tagebücher 1951–1962 (2005)
• Angstblüte: Roman (2006)
• Der Lebensroman des Andreas Beck (2006)
• Das geschundene Tier: Neununddreißig Balladen (2007)
• Ein liebender Mann: Roman (2008)
• Mein Jenseits: Novelle (2010)

External links

• Audio clip from the novel "Ein liebender Mann" (2008), read out on Literaturport.de by Martin Walser himself (in German)
• Audio clip from the novel "Angstblüte" (2006) on Literaturport.de (in German)