Andrea Manga Bell

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Andrea Manga Bell (born January 27, 1902 in Hamburg , † October 10, 1985 in Paris ) was a German graphic artist and journalist . She was the wife of Alexander Douala-Bell and the partner of Joseph Roth .

biography

Andrea Manga Bell was born as Andrea Jimenez Berroa in Hamburg. She was the daughter of Emma Mina Filter from Hamburg and the Afro-Cuban classical pianist José Manuel Jiménez-Berroa (1855-1917). In 1919 she married Alexander Douala-Bell from the German colony of Cameroon , the son of the Douala king Rudolf Manga Bell, who was executed by the Germans . The marriage resulted in two children, son Jose Emmanuel (1920–1947) and daughter Andrea Tüke Ekedi (1921–2003).

After Cameroon became French through the Treaty of Versailles , the couple moved to Paris in mid-1919. The marriage failed but was not divorced. Alexander Douala-Bell went to Cameroon in 1922, but without his wife and children, who remained in Europe.

Andrea Manga Bell then returned with the children to Germany, arriving in Berlin as editor at the Ullstein -Magazine commercial art work, while the children lived with their grandmother in Hamburg. In August 1929 she met the writer Joseph Roth and became his partner. Soon the two of them moved into a shared apartment with the children. Andrea Manga Bell may have been the model for the character of Juliette Martens in Klaus Mann's key novel Mephisto .

When Roth had to emigrate in 1933, Andrea Manga Bell followed him to France with her children. Over time, tensions developed between the alcoholic Roth and Andrea Manga Bell. Financial problems were added, so that it broke in 1936. Andrea Manga Bell later wrote about this time in a letter to Karl Retzlaw that she had received money from her inheritance from her brother in Hamburg. "Roth drowned completely the money that he gave me via Holland, at risk of death."

Andrea Manga Bell lived in Paris again and had to go into hiding temporarily during the German occupation. After the war, her husband Alexander, now a member of the French National Assembly for Cameroon, made contact with the family again. During a visit by their son Jose Emmanuel to his father in Douala in 1947, an argument broke out between the two, in the course of which Alexander shot his son. The murder charge was put down. Efforts by Andrea Manga Bell to force a lawsuit after all failed.

In 1985 Andrea Manga Bell died in Paris at the age of 83.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Eichler: The dehumanization of Juliette Martens in Klaus Mann's novel "Mephisto" , a defense writing for Andrea Manga Bell, Huffington Post December 2, 2017; Text here too
  2. ↑ Alexandra Lübcke, Stefanie Michels: Theoretical considerations on memory concepts . In: Elisabeth Boesen, Fabienne Lentz (ed.): Migration and memory. Concepts and methods of research . Berlin 2010, pp. 205 and 208, ISBN 978-3-643-10341-3
  3. ↑ Richard Joseph: The Royal Pretender: Prince Douala Manga Bell in Paris, 1919-1922. in: Cahiers d'Études Africaines , Volume 14, No. 54, pp. 339-358, Paris 1974
  4. ↑ John Eichler: The dehumanization of Juliette Martens in Klaus Mann's novel "Mephisto"
  5. ↑ Alexandra Lübcke, Stefanie Michels: Theoretical considerations on memory concepts . In: Elisabeth Boesen, Fabienne Lentz (ed.): Migration and memory. Concepts and methods of research . Berlin 2010, p. 201, ISBN 978-3-643-10341-3
  6. ↑ White man always bad , Der Spiegel, August 24, 1950
  7. ↑ John Eichler: The dehumanization of Juliette Martens in Klaus Mann's novel "Mephisto"
personal data
SURNAME Manga Bell, Andrea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jimenez Berroa, Andrea (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German graphic artist and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1985
Place of death Paris