Karl-Heinz Schönfelder

Karl-Heinz Schönfelder (* 1929) is a German historian of modern literature and the founder of American studies at the University of Leipzig.

Biography

During World War II Schönfelder became a Prisoner of war in American captivity. Since 1948, he had a teaching practice for dealing in American English at Karl Marx University in Leipzig. In 1950 he reached his doctorate with a thesis about Sinclair Lewis as a social and cultural critics. From 1953 he also gave lectures about the history of the United States. 1954 he reached his habilitation about international problems of mixing nations and languages including the aspects of German feud heritage in American English.

Together wth his assistant Eberhard Bruning from 1955 Schönfelder headed the Departement of American Studies at the Institute of Anglistic and American Studies. Even after his appointment at Jena (1956-1963) Schönfelder stood a visiting scholar at Leipzig. Schönfelder always tried to highlight the "socialist" side of American literature, for example in 19th century works. He also wrote numerous pre-and postscripts for translations of American literature, for example to several works of Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway.