Veit, Birgit

Born in Essen in 1948, Birgit Veit studied Slavic philology, Literature, Latin and Greek philology and Theology in Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Leningrad. She now lives in Berlin.
For six years she worked as research fellow for Slavic literature history at Freie Universität Berlin; since 1985 as a free lance translator from Russian to German, as interpreter and journalist.

Dahlmann, Friedrich Christoph

Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, born in Wismar in 1785, died in Bonn in 1860. He was a German historian and politician. His father, who was burgomaster of Wismar, then controlled by the Swedes, intended him to study theology, but he preferred to study classical philology in Copenhagen, Halle and again Copenhagen.
After finishing his studies, he translated some of the Greek tragic poets, and The Clouds of Aristophanes. But he was also interested in modern literature and philosophy; and the troubles of the times, of which he had personal experience, aroused in him a strong feeling of German patriotism, though throughout his life he was always proud of his connection with Scandinavia.
He took a doctor's degree in Wittenberg in 1810, then qualified at Copenhagen in 1811, with an essay on the origins of the ancient theatre, as a lecturer on ancient literature and history, on which he delivered lectures in Latin, and was summoned to the University of Kiel as professor of history in 1812. In the inevitable conflict with the Danish crown his upright point of view and his German patriotism were further confirmed.
After transferring to Göttingen around 1829 he had the opportunity of working in the same spirit. As confidant of the duke of Cambridge, he was allowed to take a share in framing the Hanoverian constitution of 1833, which remodelled the old aristocratic government in a direction which had become inevitable since the July revolution in Paris; and when in 1837 the new king Ernst August declared the constitution invalid, Dahlmann inspired the famous protest of the seven professors of Göttingen. Though deprived of his position and banished, he had the satisfaction of knowing that German national feeling received a boost from his courageous action, while public subscriptions saved him from poverty.
After several years in Leipzig and Jena, King Frederick William IV of Prussia appointed him in October 1842 to a professorship at the University of Bonn.
His Politik (1835) had already made him a name as a writer; he now published his Dänische Geschichte (1840–1843), a historical work of the first rank; and this was soon followed by histories of the English and French revolutions,
When the revolution of 1848 broke out, the "father of German nationality," found himself the centre of universal interest. Naturally he was elected to the national assembly at Frankfurt, and took a leading part in the constitutional committees appointed first by the diet, then by the parliament. His objective was to make Germany as far as possible a united constitutional monarchy, with the exclusion of the whole of Austria, or at least, of its non-German parts.

Jungfer, Victor

Victor Jungfer, a German economist, writer and translator, was born in Hirschberg, Silesia on 6 May  1893. He studied economics and philosophy from 1913-14 at the University of Munich and from 1918-21 at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where he received his doctorate in economics for a dissertation on the Lithuanian export of lumber. He became acquainted with Lithuania and some of its more prominent figures during World War I while serving in the German army when it occupied Lithuania and Courland, the southern part of Latvia; he made several journeys through the occupied territories, which were referred to by the Germans as Ober Ost, and learnt Lithuanian. It was during this period that he wrote his first book on Lithuania ‑ Kulturbilder aus Litauen. Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnis des litauischen Volkstums, 1918. Together with Msgr. Kazimirs Jasėnas (1867-1950) he translated Simanas Daukanta's Būda Senowes Lietuvii ir Kalnienu into German and edited it as the first part of Alt-Litauen. Eine Darstellung von Land und Leuten, Sitten und Gebräuchen, 1926. From 1925-39 he taught economic history, sociology and statistics at the University of Kaunas and from 1939-40 at the University of Vilnius. During this period he translated several books on economics from Lithuanian into German and produced two poetically conceived works about Lithuania: Hinter den Seen, hinter den Wäldern. Bilder litauischen Volkstums, 1932, and Litauen, Antlitz eines Volkes, 1938 (21948), as well as a translation of Lithuanian folksong texts titled Litauischer Liederschrein. Volkslieder in deutschen Übertragungen und Nachdichtungen, 1939 (21948). Descriptions of Lithuanian people and life can also be found in some of his German novels, for example, Das Gesicht der Etappe. Ein Kulturroman, 1919, Der Weg der Skaringa, 1940, and Irka, 1945. Two of his works,  Das Gesicht der Etappe and Litauen, Antlitz eines Volkes, were banned by the Nazis. Despite this, from December 1941 until January 1945 Jungfer held a professorship at the Posen Reich University. Following his escape to the West, Jungfer taught at a college in Nuremberg and at the University of Erlangen from 1946 until his official retirement 1957. Jungfer died in Nuremberg on April 21, 1964.

Bergengruen, Werner

Bergengruen was born in Riga in 1892. After growing up in Lübeck and attending the Katharineum, he started studying theology in Marburg in 1911. He later changed to studying German philology and art history, but failed to graduate; he then moved to Munich.
Bergengruen started writing novels and short stories in 1923 and decided to become a full-time writer in 1927. While his earlier works were of a more contemplative nature and pondered metaphysical and religious questions, the Nazis' rise to power led him to write more political works. His most successful novel, Der Großtyrann und das Gericht, published in 1935, is set in the Renaissance era, but the story of a merciless tyrant playing with the weaknesses of his underlings was often seen as a clear allegory on Germany's political situation. This interpretation is doubtful, though, as most of the novel was written before the Nazi takeover in 1933. In 1936 Bergengruen was received into the Catholic Church. In 1937 he was expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer for being unfit to contribute to German culture.
After WWII, he lived in Switzerland, Rome, and finally Baden-Baden, where he died in 1964.

Bjelfvenstam, Dorothea

Born in 1933, she grew up in Königsberg, lived in Potsdam until 1952 and moved to Sweden in 1955. She introduced Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Jansson in German, esp. the Moomin books and her books for adults, and translated prose books by Lars Norén, Axel Strindberg and others to German, before working as a teacher in Stockholm.

In 2012 she published an autobiographical book of her own, Man nannte uns Hitlermädchen. Kinderlandverschickung von Königsberg (Pr.) nach Sachsen.

Interview with Dorothea Bjelfvenstam, summer 2022, in German: Gespräch über die Übersetzungen von Tove Jansson.

Greverus Mjøen, Cläre

Cläre Mjøen, born Greverus Berndt in Magdeburg in 1874, died in Norway in 1963. She was one of the most productive translators from Norwegian to German after her marriage with Jon Alfred Mjøen in Magdeburg in 1896. She moved to Kristiania (Oslo) soon after she had married, where she became the translator of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Knut Hamsun, Barbra Ring and many others.
She was the mother of six children, five of which became actors, and the grandmother of Norwegian writer Gerd Brantenberg.