Martin Grambauer wears autobiographical traces of his author, while Gottlieb Grambauer is a tribute to the author's father. After 1945, Welk ceased his literary work for a few years. He stayed in East Germany and founded six Volkshochschulen (adult education centres) in Mecklenburg. In 1946, he became director of a Volkshochschule in Schwerin. In 1950, Welk moved to Bad Doberan and began with writing again. He received several awards of the GDR (e.g. the Nationalpreis in 1954), and became an honorary citizen of the towns Bad Doberan and Angermünde. At the University of Greifswald, he became an honorary doctor in 1956 and professor of the philosophy faculty in 1964. Welk died in 1966 in Bad Doberan. Censorship Before World War II Welk was often compared with the "hunger priest" Wilhelm Raabe and with Gustav Freytag. In the GDR Die Heiden von Kummerow and Die Gerechten von Kummerow were his most popular works; they were seen as a German pendant to Guareschi's narrations about Don Camillo and Peppone. The film Die Heiden von Kummerow und ihre lustigen Streiche was, in 1967, one of the rare co-productions of the GDR and West Germany. DEFA made another movie of the book in 1982. The rest of Welk's works were republished by the GDR after his death, but some of them were modified deeply. It is not clear whether Welk wanted to remove Nazi-adopted text or censored himself because of being influenced by upcoming new dictatorship or GDR editors made modifications. Compared to the first edition of Die Heiden von Kummerow, for instance, later releases were anti-military in nature. Several words ("König" instead of "General", "hottentotisch" instead of "polnisch") were changed, as were contents and motives. Christian and biblical elements were replaced by belief in revolution and class conflict. For instance, Krischan's humbleness when he is banished from the village is not Christian anymore, but self-accusing- he accuses himself of not having supported the revolt of the seamen. Selected works Gewitter über Gotland (drama, 1927) Kreuzabnahme (drama, 1927) Michael Knobbe oder Das Loch im Gesicht (comedy, 1931) Die schwarze Sonne (biography of Emin Pascha, 1933) Die Heiden von Kummerow (novel about a youth spent in a village, 1937) Die Lebensuhr des Gottlieb Grambauer (historic novel: „Ein Jahrhundert preußisch-deutscher Geschichte von einem fernen Dorfwinkel aus beobachtet" (according to the foreword), 1938) Der hohe Befehl (historic novel about World War I and German POWs in Russia,