Claus Bock

Claus Victor Bock ( born May 7, 1926 in Hamburg, † January 5, 2008 in Amsterdam ) was a German German scholar and poet.

Life

Claus Bock's parents fled because of the racist persecution in 1938 from Hamburg via Brussels to the Netherlands. Then they went to India for professional reasons, they sent their son to a prestigious Quaker school, the International School Eerde in Ommen, Netherlands, which seemed to be a safe place. After the occupation of the Netherlands by the Wehrmacht Claus Bock had to hide and survived in exceptional circumstances, which he described in his 1985 book " Immersed amongst friends ."

Since 1942 he lived hidden in the Amsterdam Herengracht 401 in Castrum Peregrini that had formed as a circle around George Wolfgang Frommel - despite the ever-present threat of raids by the German occupying forces.

After the Second World War Claus Bock spent a year with his parents in India. He then continued his studies at the University of Amsterdam on again, which he then continued in Manchester. In 1955 he received his doctorate in Basel at Walter Muschg specialist German literature. Then he went back to Manchester and London, where he worked as a lecturer. For eight years he was director of the German Institute of the University of London until 1980 Dean of the "faculty of the Arts " was. With his retirement in 1984 he returned to Amsterdam from home " Castrum Peregrini ". A foundation was established for the publication of the magazine founded in 1951 by Frommel Castrum Peregrini. Until 2001 he was Chairman of the Foundation. Until 2005, he worked on the magazine.

In the Dutch Spaarnwoude He was buried on 12 January 2008 to a small cemetery where Wolfgang Frommel is buried.

In 1984 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, and he was "assigned a Fellow of the Queen Mary and Westfield college" in 1996 from the University of London.

Philosophy of life

" As long as we dense and write, nothing will happen to us "