One of Erich Kästner's quotes also characterises the edge lettering of the 20 euro collector's coin: ‘There is nothing good unless you do it.’ The coin, designed by artist Jordi Truxa from Neuenhagen near Berlin, refers to both the author and his work. It shows a striking profile of the critical and positive writer in the later years of his life and links the line drawing with an architecturally structured stack of books, which contains his best-known children's novels alongside the book of his life (1899-1974) and is effectively emphasised by the colouring. Together with a pair of children reading in the foreground, the composition perfectly emphasises the timeless, cross-generational significance of his work. The value side with the federal eagle, whose wings appear to consist of book pages, follows the vibrancy of the picture side.
In addition to his often humorous and melancholy poems, his children's and youth books, which (almost) everyone in Germany knows, are timeless classics. The 20 euro collector's coin honours the person and life's work of the popular writer.
‘Emil und die Detektive’, ‘Pünktchen und Anton’, ‘Das fliegende Klassenzimmer’, ‘Das doppelte Lottchen’ or ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ - millions of children have grown up with the stories of Erich Kästner. But as a self-proclaimed ‘moralist’ and ‘great-grandson of the German Enlightenment’, he also wrote for adults, covering many genres and media. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, among others, and received the German Film Prize for his screenplay for the film ‘Das doppelte Lottchen’. He was President of the West German PEN Centre from 1951 to 1962.
Erich Kästner, born in 1899, grew up in lower middle-class circumstances in Dresden-Neustadt. His mother fought vigorously to give her son social advancement and access to cultural education. In 1919, Kästner passed his Abitur with distinction and went on to study German language and literature, history, philosophy, journalism and theatre studies in Leipzig. After gaining his doctorate in 1925 and a position as editor of the Neue Leipziger Zeitung, he moved to Berlin in 1927, where he experienced his breakthrough and his ‘golden years’ as a writer. In 1933, he was banned from publishing in Germany and was an eyewitness when his works were thrown into the fire at the book burning on Berlin's Opera Square in May 1933. Nevertheless, he remained in Germany and worked under a pseudonym for theatre and film. In 1941, he wrote the screenplay for the Ufa anniversary film ‘Münchhausen’.
After the end of the war, when the aim was to create a new intellectual and cultural beginning, his creative energy reached a second peak. He was in demand as a representative of a ‘different’ Germany and, unlike many emigrated authors, was also in demand locally. In addition to his prolific literary activities, he supported the establishment of the International Youth Library in Munich, for example, and increasingly expressed himself politically as a public figure, for example in campaigns against nuclear armament. At the beginning of the 1960s, his creative energy diminished, he suffered from numerous physical, psychological and alcohol problems and spent months in a sanatorium.
