In 1951 , Lenz used the money he had earned from his first novel '' Habichte in der Luft '' ( " Hawks in the air " ) to finance a trip to Kenya . During his time there , he wrote about the Mau Mau Uprising in his short story " '' Lukas , sanftmütiger Knecht '' " ( " Luke , gentle servant " ) . After 1951 Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg , where he joined the Group 47 group of writers . Together with Günter Grass , he became engaged with the Social Democratic Party and championed the '' Ostpolitik '' of Willy Brandt . As a supporter of rapprochement with Eastern Europe he was invited to the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw ( 1970 ) . In October 2011 he was made an honorary citizen of his home town Ełk , which had become Polish as a result of the border changes promulgated at the 1945 Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
Siegfried Lenz