Editing Heinrich Böll (section)

== Biography ==
Böll was born in [[Cologne]], Germany, to a [[Roman Catholic Church in Germany|Roman Catholic]] and [[pacifist]] family that later opposed the rise of [[Nazism]]. Böll refused to join the [[Hitler Youth]] during the 1930s.<ref name="KATERKater2006">{{cite book|author1=Michael H KATER|author2=Michael H Kater|title=Hitler Youth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IlIOP1O7H4wC&pg=PA24|access-date=26 August 2012|date=30 April 2006|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01991-1|pages=24–}}</ref> He was apprenticed to a bookseller before studying [[German studies]] and [[classics]] at the [[University of Cologne]].

Conscripted into the [[German Army (1935–1945)|Wehrmacht]], he served in [[Invasion of Poland|Poland]], [[France]], [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]], [[Kingdom of Hungary|Hungary]] and the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Soviet Union]]. In 1942, Böll married Annemarie Cech, with whom he had three sons; she later collaborated with him on a number of different translations into German of English-language literature. During his war service, Böll was wounded four times and contracted [[typhoid]]. He was captured by [[US Army]] soldiers in April 1945 and sent to a [[prisoner-of-war camp]].{{Sfn|Conard|1992|pp=xvi–xvii}}

After the war, he returned to Cologne and began working in his family's cabinet shop and, for one year, worked in a municipal statistical bureau, a job he did not enjoy and which he left in order to take the risk of becoming a writer instead.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Steinhauer|first1=Harry|title=Deutsche Erzählungen|date=1984|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=0-520-05054-1|page=423|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a_ll4XkchPMC&q=%22Heinrich+Boll%22+biography&pg=PA421|access-date=20 July 2014}}</ref>

Böll became a full-time writer at the age of 30. His [[first novel]], ''Der Zug war pünktlich'' (''[[The Train Was on Time]]''), was published in 1949. He was invited to the 1949 meeting of the [[Group 47]] circle of German authors and his work was deemed to be the best presented in 1951.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Magill |editor-first1=Frank N.|title=The 20th Century A-GI: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 7|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-59334-5|page=349|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nq1GU6I5umQC&q=%22Heinrich+Boll%22+%22biography&pg=PA349|access-date=29 June 2014}}</ref> Many other novels, short stories, [[radio play]]s, and essay collections followed.