Peter Suhrkamp

Suhrkamp was a farmer's son from Kirchhatten, some ten miles (16 km) south-east of Oldenburg.

The house where he was born is still standing: in the town hall at Kirchhatten there is a bust of him by Johannes Cernota (2012) as well as a portrait, while a few of his works are exhibited at the local library.

As a young man Suhrkamp was a candidate for the priesthood at the Evangelical seminary in Oldenburg. Like many of his generation, in 1914 he volunteered for the army where he would serve as an infantryman and as a Battalion Patrol Leader. For his contribution as an Assault Troop leader he won the Knight's Cross of the Royal Order of Hohenzollern, awarded "with swords, for particular bravery". Nevertheless, his experiences on the frontline led him to a nervous breakdown. After the war he studied Literature and linguistics at, successively, Heidelberg, Frankfurt and Munich. During his studies he also worked as a teacher at the Odenwald School, a private boarding school in Heppenheim and at the prestigious Wickersdorf Free School Community.

From 1921 to 1925 Suhrkamp worked as dramatic adviser and director at the Landestheater Darmstadt. Between 1925 and 1929 he returned to teaching at the Wickersdorf Free School Community where he had earlier worked while a student. He finally gave up teaching in 1929 and relocated to Berlin where he worked as a freelancer with the Berliner Tageblatt (BT), a leading liberal newspaper of the time, also working on the monthly magazine "Uhu" which was produced by the same publisher as the BT. During this time he was married three times: to Ida Plöger, a teacher, from 1913–1918, to Irmgard Caroline Lehmann from 1919 to 1923 and, more briefly, in 1923/24 to the opera singer, Fanny Cleve.