Helga Schubert (pseudonym for Helga Helm, born 7 January 1940 in Berlin) is a German psychologist and author.^[1]

Life

Helga Schubert is a daughter of a librarian, who was also active in economics, and of a Gerichtsassessor who died as a soldier in 1941; she grew up in East Berlin. Schubert completed her Reifeprüfung (secondary school examination) and afterwards worked for a year on the assembly line in an industrial plant in Berlin. From 1958 to 1963, she studied psychology at Humboldt University and obtained a diploma in psychology. From 1963 to 1977, she was a full-time clinical psychologist; until 1973, she worked in adult psychotherapy. From 1973 to 1977, she studied for a PhD at Humboldt University but did not obtain the doctorate. From 1977 until 1987, she was active as a conversational therapist (Gesprächstherapeut) at a marital-counseling center in Berlin. During that period, she worked part-time as a psychologist and also as an author. From December 1989 until March 1990, she was a non-partisan press spokeswoman of the East German Round Table in East Berlin. Today she lives with painter and leading clinical psychologist Johannes Helm [de; la] in Neu Meteln, a parish of Alt Meteln near Schwerin—also known as Künstlerkolonie Drispeth (Artist Colony Drispeth).

Schubert, who had wanted to write since she was in her twenties, published a series of children's literature and prose that portrayed everyday life in East Germany. She also wrote theater dramas, radio dramas, television plays, and movie scenarios. After the German reunification, she became known for her documentary work "Judasfrauen," which dealt with denunciation in the Third Reich, based on archival work.^[2] Schubert, who belonged to the Schriftstellerverband der DDR (Writer's Association of East Germany) from 1976 and PEN Centre of East Germany from 1987, moved to PEN Centre Germany in 1991. She received the following awards, among others: 1982 Script Prize at the second National Film Festival of the DDR for Die Beunruhigung (The Worry), 1983 Heinrich Greif Prize, 1986 Heinrich Mann Prize, 1991 Honorary Doctorate-Doctor of Humane Letters from Purdue University, 1993 Hans Fallada Prize, and 2020 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.

Works

• Lauter Leben (A Lot of Lives), Berlin 1975
• Bimmi und das Hochhausgespenst (Bimmi and the Highrise Ghost), Berlin 1980
• Bimmi und die Victoria A (Bimmi and the Victoria A), Berlin 1981 (together with Jutta Kirschner)
• Die Beunruhigung (The Worry), Berlin 1982
• Bimmi und der schwarze Tag (Bimmi and the Black Day), Berlin 1982 (with Jutta Kirschner)
• Das verbotene Zimmer (The Forbidden Room), Darmstadt [et al.] 1982
• Bimmi und ihr Nachmittag (Bimmi and Her Afternoon), Berlin 1984 (with Jutta Kirschner)
• Blickwinkel (Point of View), Berlin [u. a.] 1984
• Anna kann Deutsch (Anna Can Speak German), Darmstadt [et al.] 1985
• Und morgen wieder ... (And Again Tomorrow ...), Berlin 1985
• Schöne Reise (Beautiful Trip), Berlin [u. a.] 1988
• Über Gefühle reden? (Speak about Feelings?), Berlin 1988
• Gehen Frauen in die Knie? (Do Women Go Down on Their Knees?), Zürich 1990 (with Rita Süssmuth)
• Judasfrauen. Zehn Fallgeschichten weiblicher Denunziation im Dritten Reich (Judas Women. Ten Case Stories of Female Denunciation in the Third Reich), Berlin 1990
• Bezahlen die Frauen die Wiedervereinigung? (Do Women Pay for Reunification?), Munich [et al.] 1992 (with Rita Süssmuth)
• Bimmi vom hohen Haus (Bimmi of the Highrise), Berlin 1992 (with Cleo-Petra Kurze)
• Die Andersdenkende (The Dissenter), Munich 1994
• Das gesprungene Herz (The Cracked Heart), Munich 1995
• Die Welt da drinnen (The World Inside), Frankfurt am Main 2003

Literature

• Alessandro Bigarelli: Ethik und Diskurs im weiblichen Schreiben am Beispiel von Helga Schuberts Geschichten (Ethics and Discourse in Women's Writing as Exemplified in Helga Schubert's Stories), Frankfurt a. M., Lang, 1998.