Gerhard Ortinau was a part of the Romanian-German minority and grew up in the Banat. He was born in the Baragan steppe in southeastern Romania, to which his parents had been deported in 1951.

While still in school Ortinau began writing verse and short prose texts that cast a new critical light on the state and society. The confrontation with his parents' generation was essential: “You shot, says Frank. Shot shot shot. It doesn't bother me when you hit me, father. You were always on the wrong side, you shouldn't give us orders any more. Not you!”, he wrote in an early text.

He was expelled from the university in Timisoara (today West University of Timisoara) in 1976 and was unable to finish his German and Romanian studies as a result. He became a member of the Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of young German-language authors. Some 20 years later, former member Ernest Wichner wrote of the group: “In the early 1970s, young people, secondary school pupils and graduates began [...] to take the minutes of their intellectual development in literary forms. They wrote poems and short prose texts [...]”. The Aktionsgruppe Banat, whose members largely emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany, included Richard Wagner, Rolf Bossert, Ernest Wichner, William Totok and Johann Lippet. After a short incarceration in October 1975, a year later Ortinau applied for an emigration permit. The response was years of surveillance by the Securitate secret police. He was only allowed to emigrate in 1980. In Germany he was silent for many years. His first book was published in 1996.

Selected works:
Verteidigung des Kugelblitzes (short stories, 1976)
Ein Pronomen ist verhaftet worden. Texte der Aktionsgruppe Banat (short stories, Aufsätze, 1992)
Ein leichter Tod (short stories, 1996)
Wehner auf Öland (theater monologue, 2002)

Further reading:
Sterbling, Anton: Am Anfang war das Gespräch. Reflexionen und Beiträge zur "Aktionsgruppe Banat" und andere literatur- und kunstbezogene Arbeiten. Hamburg: Krämer 2008
Schuster, Diana: Die Banater Autorengruppe. Selbstdarstellung und Rezeption in Rumänien und Deutschland. Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre 2004