Die Ernst-Toller-Gesellschaft trauert um ihr Mitglied Stephen (Steve) Lamb, der nach längerer Krankheit im Dezember 2025 verstarb.
Stephen Lamb (1946-2025) war Mitherausgeber der „Sämtlichen Werke“ Ernst Tollers, die 2015 im Wallstein Verlag in Göttingen erschienen. Er gehörte zu einer Reihe britischer Germanisten und Literaturwissenschaftler, die sich in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren um die Wiederentdeckung Ernst Tollers und die Neubewertung seiner literarischen und publizistischen Schriften aus sozialhistorischer und kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive verdient machten. Bis zu seiner Pensionierung hat Steve an der Universität Warwick gelehrt und geforscht.
Sein Kollege James Hodkinson hat einen sehr persönlichen Nachruf verfasst, der Anfang des Jahres auf der „JISCmail German Studies List“ veröffentlicht wurde. Wir freuen uns über die Erlaubnis, ihn hier wiedergeben zu dürfen.
«Our friend and colleague, Stephen (Steve) Lamb, known to many in Warwick German Studies circles and indeed more widely, passed away at Myton Hospice, Warwickshire on 21st December. His passing followed a challenging period of illness, which had seen Steve enter full-time care. He leaves behind him two sons, Christopher and Richard, as well as grandchildren. Chris informs me that Steve was, in the end, comfortable and died peacefully, which is in turn a comfort to those of us who knew and cared for him.
Steve’s DNA was so closely interwoven with that of Warwick. He was a founding member of staff in our (then) German Department in 1973. Together with colleagues (and I hope they don’t mind me naming them) such as Keith Bullivant, Godfrey Carr, Tony Phelan, and Rob Burns, he worked under the leadership of Richard Hinton Thomas to create a genuinely bold and innovative model of German Cultural Studies which, in hindsight, blazed a trail for our discipline. That tradition continued in later years and saw Steve, often as Head of German, working with scholars such as Erica Carter, Georgina Paul, Sean Allan and others: one of his most enduring legacies will be his work on the Ernst Toller Ausgabe with Jim Jordan, as is reflected in a well-loved picture of both those colleagues alongside Günter Grass.
Steve, I felt, was very much a man of his generation. His values, inherited in part from his mother’s politics, though galvanized by the time he spent in Berlin in the 1960-s, made him truly ‚people centred‘ and certainly someone who would go out to bat for students (cricketing pun intended). He retained a great interest in teaching and remained convinced that we, as educators, were turning out young people from university who would, in turn, do good in the world. He remained pivotal in keeping alive Warwick’s yearly pilgrimage to Schloss Dhaun in Germany, a quite unique gathering of staff and year abroad students based in Germany, designed to provide pastoral care, pedagogical coherence, and engender a feeling of camaraderie in all of us at Easter each year. All indispensable things.
Latterly in his career, Steve stepped into a role as the University’s Senior Tutor, effectively overseeing the developing culture and infrastructure of student care at Warwick at a time when this was becoming ever more central to what was expected of us in Higher Education. For this work he will be remembered by staff from across the wider university and, of course, by generations of students, many of whom have already started sharing their thoughts, memories and feelings on social media.
Personally, I shared with him interests in music, politics and German culture, discussed sport (mainly cricket and football) and enjoyed reflecting nostalgically on the 1960-s and 70-s. He was part of the panel that appointed me at Warwick and I cannot imagine my professional life without him. As colleagues will doubtless agree, there was so much to Steve and far more than can be said here: he was a father, a grandfather, a ‚rock‘ of a colleague, a keen cricketer, and a musician. He will be very much missed.»
Ein weiterer Nachruf ist im Guardian erschienen, hier erinnert Rob Burns an Stephen Lamb.