In less than two years of creative work, the young German writer Wolfgang Borchert (1921—1947) produced in his impressive prose, streaked with a lyrical quality, a number of anthological pieces. On the basis of his most important prose works, (Die Hundeblume, Die Küchenuhr, Das Brot, An diesem Dienstag, etc) the author of the article has attempted to determine his main characteristics. Using the power of his expressionist language, Wolfgang Borchert gave a stirring picture of the effects of war on the individual and on his society. By the stylistic means of repetition, mosaic, parable and staccato-technique he joined, in a masterly manner, the grotesquely-comic with the fatefui.ly-tragic; the skill of the poet to delineate detail here becomes especially accentuated. The poet of »the generation with no farewells« speaks equally touchingly and stirringly of a kitchen Clock, of bread, of a dandelion, as he speaks of the horrors of war. He often enriches the metaphoric nature and picturesqueness of his language by oxymorons, synaesthesia, alliteration but by very uncommon neologisms as well. With his critical social attitude he broke the path for many other German authors (Heinrich Boll, for example).
