Then: Interpreter

Later: Writer and Poet

Soon after he was conscripted into the German Army and transported to the Western Front, 19-year-old Ernst Jandl crossed over to the American side and was captured as a prisoner of war. Jandl, a fierce critic of the Nazis, became an interpreter and gained access to the Americans’ small collection of books. When he came to the Salzburg Seminar in 1950, he spent hours in the Max Reinhardt Library and became enthralled with works by poets like Carl Sandburg and T.S. Eliot. In his first collection of poems, Andere Augen (“Other Eyes,” 1956), Jandl described these poets as his “Lehrmeister” (master-teachers). Jandl gained international acclaim for his experimental poetry, combining word play and social criticism. Scholars count him among the top 10 most important German-language poets of the 20th century.