The writer Walter Kempowski was born in Rostock in 1929 and created a literary monument to his hometown with the novels of the "German Chronicle". The honorary citizen of the Hanseatic city already gave parts of his work archive to Rostock in 1993, which are presented in a permanent exhibition.
Part of the archive of works of the writer Walter Kempowski has been kept in the monastery houses of the "Holy Cross Monastery" since 1993. Between 1993 and 2001, visitors could view the archive materials in two rooms of House 1. Since November 13, 2002, the archive has been housed in House 3. This opened up completely new possibilities for presenting the life and work of Walter Kempowski.
The author Walter Kempowski is one of the most important and most widely received German post-war authors. With the novels of the "German Chronicle" he has set a literary monument to his hometown Rostock. Above all, the novels Tadellöser and Wolff, Aus großer Zeit and Schöne Aussicht have made the Hanseatic city of Rostock and the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern known to an audience of millions. Through the local fixation of the novel's plot on the one hand and the literary examination of German social and intellectual history in the first half of the 20th century on the other, Rostock/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern become a panorama and setting for national culture of remembrance.
Since 1993, the writer Walter Kempowski has made part of his archive of works available to his native city of Rostock. With the reopening of the exhibition (on the occasion of the award of the honorary doctorate of the University in Rostock in 2002) in the Klosterhof 3, the rooms were designed according to the novel-specific characteristics and the work contexts.