Fritz Lau (1872–1966) was Low German writer, playwright and lyricist.[1]
Life
Fritz Lau was born on 10 August 1872 in the fishing village of Möltenort near the north German city port of Kiel.[2] His father was a mariner[2] and often away from home. According to Lau, his mother was a good storyteller, who also regaled Klaus Groth with her stories when he occasionally stopped by.[3] Lau went to school in Altheikendorf[2] and, at the age of 17, he entered the postal service where,[2] after an initial job as an assistant in the Kiel area, he worked in many parts of Germany. He lived in Glückstadt from 1898[2] and retired in 1923. In his free time he was a writer in the Low German dialect. Publishing very little during the Nazi era, he released a final collection of stories in 1962: Wat löppt de Tiet. Utsöcht Vertellen.[1] He died on 5 July 1966 in Glückstadt.
On 16 May 1955, the town of Glückstadt made him an honorary citizen.[4] In his honour, his study was faithfully recreated in the Detlefsen Museum in Glückstadt.
^Fritz Lau: Bi uns to Huus. In: "Norddeutsche Rundschau" 12 August 1972; also in: De besten Geschichten von Fritz Lau, 31 stories from 11 volumes of his collected works selected and edited by Erich Könnecke. Hamburg: Glogau and Verlag der fehrs-Gilde, 1981.
^ abEhrenbürger. In: glueckstadt.de. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
Lau, Fritz. In: Franz Brümmer: Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Vol. 4. 6th edn. Leipzig, 1913, p. 195. digital copy
Geerd Spanker: Vom niederdeutschen Ernst und niederdeutscher Freude. (Zum 70. Geburtstag von Fritz Lau.). In: Die Heimat. 52.1942. Issue 3, July – September 1942.
Lotte Foerste: Fritz Lau. In: Plattdeutsche Erzähler des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1977, pp. 221–225.
Kai Dohnke: Bibliographie Fritz Lau. In: Steinburger Jahrbuch, 28th Year (1984), pp. 148–159
Magdalene Iwersen: Fritz Lau – Postbeamter und Heimatdichter. In: Post- und Fernmeldegeschichte zwischen Nord- und Ostsee. Heft 1. Kiel 1987, S. 177–189.
Susanne Fischer: Fritz Lau: Literarische Produktion und Selbstdeutung. In: Quickborn, 77th Year. (1987) No. 3, pp. 183–194.
Stefanie Janssen: Auf den Spuren von Fritz Lau. Ed. Seestern, Mönkeberg 2006.
Fritz Lau – Heimweh na Möltenort. In: Kieler Nachrichten dated 3 January 2012]
Lau, Fritz. In: Killy Literaturlexikon. Autoren und Werke des deutschsprachigen Kulturraums, ed. by Wilhelm Kühlmann. Vol. 7. 2010. p. 254. digital copy