Reinhard Lettau
Reinhard Lettau (10 September 1929, Erfurt – 17 June 1996, Karlsruhe) was a German-American writer. Career. He was a professor of German Literature at the University of California, San Diego from 1967 to 1991. He was an active member of the Group 47. He gave incendiary speeches at the Freie Universität Berlin denouncing the Springer Press. He was thereupon expelled from East Germany because he was a foreigner—he carried an American passport. He returned to Germany in 1991 after German reunification. He received the War Blind Prize for radio plays in 1979, the Berlin Literature Prize in  1993, and the Bremen Literature Prize in 1995. He had studied German, philosophy, and literature in Heidelberg and at Harvard. His dissertation at Harvard in 1960 was titled "Utopie und Roman; Untersuchungen zur Form des deutschen utopischen Romans im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert.", about utopian novels in the 20th century. He was a member of the PEN-Zentrum in Germany, and of the Deutsche Akademie der Darstellenden Künste. He was "Poet in Residence" at the University of Essen in German in the winter term 1979/1980. He married Gene Carter in 1954; they had three daughters, Karin (1957), Kevyn (1959) and Kathy  (1965), born just after he separated from his wife. They were divorced in 1968. He lived from 1965 in Berlin-Schöneberg together with Véronique Springer, the daughter of the Galerist Rudolf Springer. They were married in 1969 after moving to San Diego in 1967. They were divorced in 1972. He married Dawn Teborski in 1979. They returned to Berlin in 1991 after Lettau took early retirement in 1991 because of health problems. In 1996 he traveled to Karlsruhe for the 90th birthday of his mother. He was hospitalized after a fall and died there of pneumonia. He is buried in  the Protestant Cemetery No. III of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church and New Church (Friedhof III der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde) at Mehringdamm No. 21 in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Books. His books include: