 and as an editor with the publishing house Suhrkamp Verlag.At Suhrkamp he became embroiled in controversy when he demanded that the author Anna Seghers should at least mention somewhere in her novel "" that German soldiers involved in the invasion of the Soviet Union had not been universally hostile to the civilian communities - there had been some who had befriended the population.In the dispute that ensued, the proprietor Peter Suhrkamp distanced himself from Birkenfeld's demands, and it was left to the company's publishing director to negotiate a solution with a determined author.