Stephan Reimertz

Stephan Reimertz (born 4 March 1962) is a German poet, essayist, novelist and art historian. His poems, aphorisms, essays, novels and biographies circulate through the idea of an authentic, self-determined life in the face of modernity and ask the question if contemporary life can still be sounded historically and grasped philosophically.

Life

Born in Aachen, Germany, Reimertz is the grandnephew of Nikolaus Groß, resistance fighter in the 20th July plot against Hitler. His grandfather was a democratic major and politician from Westphalia. His father was a mining engineer and met his mother at RWTH Aachen; she was a pharmacist from Riga and of Baltic German ethnicity. Reimertz was baptized by auxiliary–bishop Friedrich in front or the Throne of Charlemagne at Aachen Cathedral and raised at his grandmothers in the medieval village of Niederwenigern on the Ruhr Peninsula, later attended school in Kronberg, the widow seat of the German empress, where he received an intense artistic and musical training, a o. with Sergiu Celibidache. Stephan was a boy scout in the German Scout Association Saint George, a competition swimmer and amateur boxer, an experience he described in his autobiographical novel, Papiergewicht.