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From 1933 onwards he visited the Johanneum in Hamburg. After graduating from high school, which he passed in 1941 due to the war, he studied German and classical philology, first in his hometown of Hamburg and then in Freiburg. Because of his severe asthma, he was spared from serving in the war. He received his doctorate in 1944. phil. Four years later he completed his habilitation in Tübingen. From 1950 he taught classical philology there. In 1956 he was appointed professor of classical philology in Tübingen. In 1957 he published the stories "The Testament of Odysseus" and "Instead of a Literary History". From 1963 he headed the newly established Chair of General Rhetoric until his retirement.
From 1950, Walter Jens was a member of the writers' association "Group 47". Jens has published numerous philological papers. He became known to a wider audience as an editor, novelist, critic, radio and television author, speaker and as an editor and translator of ancient and biblical texts. For example, he translated a Bible. Well-known novels from the 1950s and early 1960s are the utopia "No - The World of the Accused" and the fictional correspondence about failure entitled "Mr. Meier". Walter Jens' novels often contain reflections on literature. He also created numerous literary-critical writings. A large part of his oeuvre is the adaptation of biblical and ancient pieces and materials.
From 1947 to 1955, numerous works with anti-fascist themes were published, with which Walter Jens opposed the restorative politics of the Federal Republic. In the turbulent times of the late 1960s, Walter Jens expressed his radical democratic commitment to Germany's development. From 1963 to 1985 he worked under the pseudonym Momos as a television critic for the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit". From 1976 to 1982 and after the death of Martin Gregor Dellin until 1989, Walter Jens was President of the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany. His title "Republican Speeches" was published in 1976. Between 1989 and 1997 he headed the Academy of Arts in Berlin as its president. In October 1998, Walter Jens was honored with the Ernst Reuter plaque.
In his narrative work, Walter Jens describes the present with a style that approaches the abstract while remaining rational. Even in old age, Walter Jens retained his democratic views and argumentative nature. So he intervened in the choice of the bad word of the year 2000 and suggested the term "German dominant culture" used by Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz. For him, this brings with it memories of National Socialism. On the other hand, he rejected this term because culture cannot be directed and because it is open and contradictory. Jens recalled that many foreigners spoke the German language more "elegantly" than many Germans themselves. He advocated that foreigners in Germany should retain their cultural identity.
In his literary-critical texts he advocates a type of modern novel that combines philosophy, poetry and science. His utopian play "No - The World of the Accused" about a totalitarian state is in the tradition of Franz Kafka. Walter Jens then developed his own material about the changing world and the turmoil of reality. Together with his wife, Walter Jens wrote the biography "Frau Thomas Mann. The Life of Katharina Pringsheim" about Thomas Mann's wife, Katharina Mann. For this purpose, the author couple evaluated Katharina Mann's correspondence with her mother and her children for the first time.
They came to the conclusion that Katharina Mann by no means lived a life determined by her husband in his shadow, but always lived her own will. Walter Jens also published the works "A German University" in 2004 and "Katia's Mother" in 2005 with his wife Inge.
Walter Jens died on June 9, 2013 in Tübingen.
