Michael Ende

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Ende was born on 12 November 1929 in Garmisch, Bavaria, the only child of the surrealist painter Edgar Ende and Luise Bartholomä Ende, a physiotherapist. In 1935, when Michael was six, the family moved to the 'artists' quarter of Schwabing' in Munich. In 1936, his father's work was declared 'degenerate art' and banned by the Nazi Party, forcing Edgar Ende to draw and paint in secret. World War II heavily influenced Ende's childhood. He was twelve years old when he witnessed the first Allied bombing raid on Munich, describing it: 'Our street was consumed by flames. The fire didn't crackle; it roared. The flames were roaring. I remember singing and careering through the blaze like a drunkard.' He was horrified by the 1943 Hamburg bombing, which he experienced while visiting his paternal uncle. Ende attended the Maximillians Gymnasium until schools were closed and pupils were evacuated. He returned to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where his interest in German poetry was awakened, studying the German Romantic poet Novalis, whose Hymns to the Night made a great impression on him. In 1944, Edgar Ende's studio in Munich was destroyed, with over two hundred and fifty paintings and sketches lost. In 1945, German youths as young as fourteen were drafted into the Volkssturm; three of Michael Ende's classmates were killed on their first day of combat. Ende himself stated he was never actually called up, and there is no credible evidence of him joining a resistance group. In 1946, his grammar school re-opened, and he attended classes for a year, then completed his high-school education at a Waldorf School in Stuttgart, funded by the parents of a girl he had fallen in love with (to keep the pair apart). It was at this time that he first began to write stories.

Reader's Guide

Ende's career began after drama school, with his first acting job at a provincial theatre company in Schleswig-Holstein, where the troupe travelled from town to town by bus, usually performing on makeshift stages surrounded by beer, smoke, and the clatter of skittles. Despite frustrations, he valued it as a learning experience: 'It was a good experience, a healthy experience. Anyone interested in writing should be made to do that sort of thing.' In the late 1950s, Ende wrote his first novel Jim Button. He described the process: 'I sat down at my desk and wrote: "The country in which the engine-driver, Luke, lived was called Morrowland. It was a rather small country." Once I'd written the two lines, I hadn't a clue how the third line might go.' The manuscript grew to five hundred pages over ten months. He sent it to ten different publishers, but all responded that it was 'Unsuitable for our list' or 'Too long for children.' It was finally accepted by K. Thienemann Verlag in Stuttgart, where director Lotte Weitbrecht liked the story but stipulated it be published as two separate books. The first Jim Button novel was published in 1960. About a year later, on the morning of the announcement that Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver had won the German Prize for Children's Fiction, Ende was being sued by his landlady for seven months' rent back payment. The prize money of five thousand marks improved his financial situation substantially. Within a year, the first Jim Knopf book was also nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and received the Berlin Literary Prize for Youth Fiction. The second Jim Knopf novel, Jim Button and the Wild Thirteen, was published in 1962. Both books were serialized on radio and TV, and the Augsburger Puppenkiste adapted the novels in a version filmed by Hesse's broadcasting corporation. Translations into numerous foreign languages soon followed. Ende claimed, 'It is for this child in me, and in all of us, that I tell my stories,' and that '[my books are] for any child between 80 and 8 years.' He often expressed frustration over being perceived as a children's author.

Did You Know?

• Ende's father, surrealist painter Edgar Ende, had his work declared 'degenerate art' by the Nazi Party in 1936, forcing him to draw and paint in secret.
• At age twelve, Ende witnessed the first Allied bombing raid on Munich and described feeling a 'kind of euphoria,' almost tempted to cast himself into the fire.
• Ende himself stated he was never actually called up for the Volkssturm in 1945, and there is no credible evidence of him joining a resistance group.
• The first Jim Button manuscript was rejected by ten publishers before being accepted by K. Thienemann Verlag, and on the day it won the German Prize for Children's Fiction, Ende was being sued for seven months' back rent
• Ende's works have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 35 million copies.