The Bandits of the Deep

Werner Helwig was born on January 14, 1905, in Berlin. After completing elementary school and an agricultural education in Parchim, Mecklenburg, the seventeen-year-old went to Hamburg, where he joined Vandervogel's hiking organization.
Between 1923 and 1933 he made numerous trips to central and northern Europe. His engagement with authors such as Doebler, Maubert and Hans Henni Jann was decisive for him. He creates his first poems, ballads and songs, as well as translations of Japanese Poetry.
When the National Socialists took power, he left Germany and headed for southern Europe. Apart from Sicily, to which he dedicated his first major prose work, Die Ätna-Ballade (1934), he especially loved Greece, which he got to know on three trips between 1935 and 1938. These trips led him to his Mt. Pelion, in the Aegean on a boat and in the Ionian.
As early as 1935, he began to create the novel The Abyssinians, which was finally published in 1939. He spent the years during and after the war in exile in Liechtenstein. Until 1950, he produced several works there, mainly dealing with his experiences in the pre-war years, such as Im Dickicht des Pelion (1941), Gegenwind (1945), Isländisches Kajütenbuch (1950).
In 1951, Werner Helwig moved to Geneva. During the following decades he worked as a critic and columnist for numerous German and Swiss newspapers and magazines. At the same time, he created novels, fairy tales, short stories and poetry.
His last works were Capri. Magische Insel (1973), Totenklage (1984) and Letzte Gedichte (1985). On February 4, 1985, Werner Helwig passed away in Geneva.