One never comes into embarrassment, if one is ready to balance. To ask oneself never in embarrassment, what have you in these decades made.

The Goethe Prize of Frankfurt am Main (Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt) was given to Lenz in 2000. Since 1951 Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg and was a member of the literature forum "Group 47". A year later Lenz was honored with the highest decoration of Hamburg the honorary citizenship.

He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth. Siegfried Lenz (born 17 March 1926) is a German writer who has written novels and produced several collections of short stories essays and plays for radio and the theatre.