Life

Born in Doruchow

Gmina Doruchów

Gmina Doruchów is a rural gmina in Ostrzeszów County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Doruchów, which lies approximately east of Ostrzeszów and south-east of the regional capital Poznań....

, Province of Posen

Province of Posen

The Province of Posen was a province of Prussia from 1848–1918 and as such part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. The area was about 29,000 km2....

, Theo Harych was the son of a farmer. From 1910 to 1918, he worked as a herder

Herder

A herder is a worker who lives a possibly semi-nomadic life, caring for various domestic animals, in places where these animals wander pasture lands....

 and servant

Domestic worker

A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...

 in Silesia

Silesia

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

. He stopped attending a Volksschule

Volksschule

A Volksschule was an 18th century system of state-supported primary schools established in the Habsburg Austrian Empire and Prussia . Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that only one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples...

 after 1916. He went to Central Germany in 1919 where he worked in a sugar factory and in a coal mine in Mücheln

Mücheln

' is a town in the Saalekreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approx. 15 km west of Merseburg....

. As a member of the Miner's Labor Union, he participated in the Mitteldeutschen Aufstand (Central German Rebellion) in the Gieseltal (Giesel Valley). He attended a driving and servant school in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

 (Saale

Saale

The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...

), subsequently he was a journeyman

Journeyman

A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

 in Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 on the way. For a short time, he was a valet

Valet

Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...

 of an Adel

German nobility

The German nobility was the elite hereditary ruling class or aristocratic class from ca. 500 B.C. to the Holy Roman Empire and what is now Germany.-Principles of German nobility:...

 though would be instantly dismissed, admittedly after five minutes, because of Communist propaganda. He followed with a refreshed journey and a time as a driver

Driving

Driving is the controlled operation and movement of a land vehicle, such as a car, truck or bus.Although direct operation of a bicycle and a mounted animal are commonly referred to as riding, such operators are legally considered drivers and are required to obey the rules of the road...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. From 1930 to 1936, Harych was unemployed

Unemployment

Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...

 and worked as a locksmith

Locksmithing

Locksmithing began as the science and art of making and defeating locks. A lock is a mechanism that secures buildings, rooms, cabinets, objects, or other storage facilities. A key is often used to open a lock...

 from 1936. He drove deliveries with one of his own panel van

Panel van

A panel van is a form of solid van, smaller than a lorry or truck, without rear side windows...

 from 1936 to 1944. He would indeed be drafted to the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 in 1944 however fared poorly because of ear problems. He was assigned to "Ear Company" and soon released.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he worked renewed as a valet in East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

. His writing talent would be discovered in 1950 and enable him an existence as a freelance writer. Harych was a member of the Deutscher Schriftstellerverband and received the 1954 Heinrich Mann Prize

Heinrich Mann Prize

The Heinrich Mann Prize is a literary award given annually by the Berlin Academy of Art . The prize given for works with socially critical aspects in a character that would honor Heinrich Mann...

. He died of suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 in Berlin in 1958.

Theo Harych published besides a children's book

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, 3 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s of which Hinter den schwartzen Wäldern (Behind the Black Forests) describes Harych's poor childhood. Themes of In Geiseltal are misery and rebellion in the Central German coal mines until the insurrection of 1921. The third novel, Im Namen des Volkes (In the Name of the People), is the documentary of the assimilation of the "Fall of Jakubowski one of the authentic miscarriage of justice

Miscarriage of justice

A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...

 whose victim had been a polish farm worker in the 1920s.

Theo Harych indeed personified that early East German cultured image of the writing worker however surpassed as a storied natural talent and in his documentary realism

Literary realism

Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...

 the most representative of the stately patronage of proletarian literature

Proletarian literature

Proletarian literature refers to the literature created by working-class writers for the class-conscious proletariat, published by the communist parties. It was a literature without literary pretensions....

.

Works

• Hinter den schwarzen Wäldern (Behind the Black Forests), Berlin 1951
• Bärbels und Lothars schönster Tag (Bärbel and Lothar's Beautiful Day), Berlin 1952
• Im Geiseltal (In Geisel Valley), Berlin 1952
• Im Namen des Volkes? (In the Name of the People), Berlin 1958

External links

• Wer was wer in der DDR? Harych Theo (Who was who in East Germany? Theo Harych)