Bruno Kaiser

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Bruno Kaiser (born February 5, 1911 in Berlin ; † January 27, 1982 ibid) was a German resistance fighter, Marxist , librarian and Germanist .

youth

The son of a grammar school teacher, Bruno Kaiser grew up in an upper-class, liberal Jewish family. After graduating from high school, he studied literature and art history at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelms University . He completed a traineeship at the Vossische Zeitung and became an editor. As a member of the anti-fascist action , he was one of those intellectuals who accompanied Carl von Ossietzky on May 10, 1932, on his way to prison.

As a result of the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, the Vossische Zeitung was banned. Bruno Kaiser, who temporarily suffered from tuberculosis , distributed illegal leaflets with anti-fascist content. In 1938 he was arrested and tortured, but then, since there was no evidence of him, he was released under police supervision. He left Germany and emigrated via Belgium and France into Switzerland .

emigration

The exile took Emperor to study in Belgian, French and Dutch libraries and discovered unknown publications of the classics of the labor movement , including by Friedrich Engels . In Belgium, Kaiser was interned after the war began and transferred to the Gurs camp in France , where his tuberculosis broke out again. French communists in Marseille provided curative treatment in Switzerland , where Kaiser was interned again in the canton of Baselland . He was allowed to organize the estate of Georg and Emma Herwegh in the Liestal city ​​archives . In 1946, thanks to his inventory work, the Liestal Poet Museum (Liestal Poet and City Museum since 2001 ) was opened. From September 1943 he lived in Basel with a private supporter at a so-called open space. This was arranged by an evangelical aid organization for refugees.

From 1943 Kaiser was a member of the Free Germany Movement in Switzerland.

librarian

In the summer of 1947 Kaiser returned to Berlin with his wife Stascha (Stanislawa) and became department director at the German State Library , where he initially looked after the holdings of the workers' libraries that had been confiscated by the Nazis in 1933. His book collection, which he had already built up in his youth and in exile, made him one of the most important bibliophile collectors in the GDR. He had living space in the street in front of Schönholz, which together with street 201 formed the later Erich-Weinert-Siedlung .

The SED joined Kaiser in May 1948th In the same year he traveled to Moscow to study at the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute and succeeded in enabling the SED to found an institute of the same name in Berlin in March 1949. On October 1, 1949, Kaiser became the first librarian at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED . In 1950 he founded the International Bibliography of Marxist Magazine Literature ; in the same year a photo laboratory and a bookbindery were set up. Kaiser achieved particular merit by recovering most of the reference libraries of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In February 1961 Kaiser was appointed professor. In 1972 Bruno Kaiser resigned from the library.

Death and burial

tomb

Bruno Kaiser died on January 27, 1982, a week before he would turn 71. His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried where his wife Stasha is buried. His library, his collection of artistic ex-libris and his handwritten estate went to the Berlin State Library , now the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation .

Honors

Works

  • The painter Disteli and the refugees. The German Michel von 183 and the discovery of a portrait in 1944, Ähren-Verlag, Affoltern a. A. 1944-1945; that., Reprint with a comment by Werner Mittenzwei and a documentation by Markus Bürgi as well as an analytical bibliography by Barbara Voigt. Central antiquariat of the GDR, Leipzig 1987 (Over the borders 3).
  • The fate of Georg Herwegh's library. Municipality, Liestal 1945
  • Friedrich Engels 1820-1895 . Swiss Social Archive, Zurich 1945
  • About the relations between German and Russian literature in the 19th century . Publishing house culture and progress, Berlin 1948
  • Unknown documents from Marx and Engels. New discoveries about the life and work of the founders of scientific socialism . In: New Germany . (B) dated July 9, 1952
  • From the library of Karl Marx . A report on found treasures . In: Neues Deutschland , No. 104 (B) of May 5, 1953
  • Bruno Kaiser (Ed.): Georg Weerth . All works in five volumes . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1956–1957.
  • Ernst Toller : Selected Writings. Preface by Bodo Uhse and Bruno Kaiser . Edited by the German. Academy of Arts in Berlin. People and World, Berlin 1959
  • Horst Kunze on his 50th birthday . Berlin 1959
  • An unknown youth work by Friedrich Engels. (About "Modernes Literaturleben".) In: Contributions to the history of the German workers' movement . Berlin 1960, issue 1, pp. 97-122
  • Johann Hermann Detmold : Deeds and opinions of Mr. Piepmeyer ... With drawings by Adolf Schrödter. With an afterword by Bruno Kaiser . Book publisher Der Morgen, Berlin 1961
  • Jenny Marx as a theater critic. To a significant rediscovery . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . Berlin 1966, No. 6, pp. 1031-1042
  • Information about the fate of the personal books of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . In: Theory and Practice . 9 (12th) year, Berlin 1963, special issue p. 46 f.
  • Nice children's books from the GDR. With an introduction by Bruno Kaiser. Bibliographical information from Heinz Wegehaupt . Children's book publisher Berlin 1965
  • Klaus Bulling: Bibliography on the fruitful society . Preface by Bruno Kaiser . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1965
  • The Maitland Park Books . In: unity. Journal for Theory and Practice of Scientific Socialism ed. from the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. - Berlin 1968, Vol. 23.1968, 4/5, pp. 604-605
  • The library of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED. An anthology. Institute for Marxism-Leninism, Berlin 1969
  • Bruno Kaiser / Inge Werchan: Ex Libris Marx and Engels. The fate of the library of Marx and Engels . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1967
  • Alfred Meißner : Heinrich Heine . Memories . 2. unchangeable Edition Hoffmann u. Campe, Hamburg 1856. (Unchanged. Fotomechan. Reprint. With an afterword by Bruno Kaiser. Central antiquariat of the GDR), Leipzig 1972
  • Untitled books or the rind on the card . Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 1975
  • Karl Marx in the Bonn Bundestag. Information about surprising results of new research work . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. The work of Auguste Cornus dedicated . In: Meeting reports of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . 20. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1973, pp. 29–31
  • Thomas Schleusing : Once upon a time ... fairy tales for adults. With an afterword by Bruno Kaiser . Eulenspiegel-Verlag, Berlin 1979
  • About happy finding. Essays, reports, feature sections. Construction Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1981

editor

  • (under the pseudonym Oswald Mohr) The word of the persecuted. Mundus-Verlag, Basel 1945 (Legacy and Present, Vol. 5).
  • An alley for freedom. From the life and work of Georg Herwegh . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1948
  • The word of the persecuted . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1948
  • German legacy. Anthology of a century . Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1952
  • German legacy. Anthology of a century . Volk und Welt, Berlin 1952 (library of progressive German writers)
  • Karl Heinrich Ritter von Lang : Hammelburger Reisen. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1954
  • Johann Hermann Detmold : The art of becoming an art connoisseur in three hours. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1954
  • Real and false morities. From banter to Friederike Kempner. Foreword by Bruno Kaiser . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1955
  • The forty-eight. A reader for our time . Thüringer Volksverlag, Weimar 1955
  • Georg Weerth : All works in five volumes. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1956–1957
  • Tony Johannot . Henschelverlag, Berlin, 1956
  • Adolph Menzel . Henschelverlag, Berlin, 1956
  • The fake Don Quixote . Literary misdeeds from three centuries with four contemporary illustrations . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1957
  • From forbidden books. An unknown chapter in German literary history with two colored supplements . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1957
  • The Paris Commune in the German poem . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1958
  • Adolf Glassbrenner : Cupid as an ox and other really amazing things . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1960
  • Erich Weinert : Collected Works. The interlude. German Review from 1918–1933 introduced by Bruno Kaiser. Ed. On behalf of the German Academy of the Arts in Berlin by Li Weinert with collabor. by Ursula Münchow . Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin 1960
  • Theodor Heinrich Friedrich : Peter or the luck of stupidity. Satirical campaigns . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1962
  • Georg Weerth : Selected Works. People and World, Berlin (GDR) 1948; that., 2 volumes, Volksverlag, Weimar 1963.
  • The files Ferdinand Freiligrath and Georg Herwegh . Volksverlag, Weimar 1964 (from the archive of the German Schiller Foundation 5/6)
  • (with Ingrid Pepperle, Johanna Rosenberg and Agnes Ziegengeist) Georg Herwegh: Early Journalism 1837 - 1841. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1971.
  • Kaiser published the series Early Socialist Literature for the Academy of Sciences in the GDR and played a significant role in the edition of the Marx-Engels Complete Edition (MEGA).

literature

  • Kaiser, Bruno . In: SBZ biography . Edited by the Federal Ministry for All-German Issues . Bonn Berlin. 3rd ed., 1964, p. 169
  • Heinrich Gemkow et al.: Festschrift for Bruno Kaiser on the occasion of his 70th birthday on February 5, 1981. Published by the Pirckheimer Society in the GDR cultural association. Pirckheimer Society, Berlin (GDR) 1981
  • Heinrich Gemkow: Report on the honorary doctorate from Prof. Dr. Bruno Kaiser . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels Research 10, Berlin 1981, pp. 23–42
  • Obituary for Bruno Kaiser . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research 11. Berlin 1982, pp. 261–262. Digitized
  • Lothar Lang u. a. (Ed.): Bookmarks. A memory of Bruno Kaiser. Catalog for the exhibition from April 16 to May 30, 1983 in the Burgk Castle State Museum . State Museum Schloss Burgk, Burgk 1983 (Pirckheimer Kabinett H. 9).
  • Jürgen Stroech: The libraries of Marx and Engels. In: Z. Journal for Marxist Renewal Vol. 12 (2001), No. 45, pp. 154 ff.
  • Kaiser, Bruno . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. Special volume 5 , Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2006. p. 489
  • Hartmut Pätzke: Bruno Kaiser (1911-1982). Homme de lettres, journalist, writer . In: From the second-hand bookshop. Journal for Antiquarian and Book Collectors NF 6 (2008) 5. pp. 311–323
  • Jürgen Stroech: Bruno Kaiser (1911–1982) . In: Günter Benser, Michael Schneider (ed.): Preserving - Spreading - Enlightening: Archivists, librarians and collectors of the sources of the German-speaking labor movement . Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung 2009, pp. 144–150. as PDF
  • Bernd-Rainer Barth , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Kaiser, Bruno . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Stroech: Bruno Kaiser (1911-1982) , p. 144 f.
  2. ↑ State Archive Basel-Stadt Signature: PD-REG 3a 49487 ( [1] )
  3. ↑ Cf. Bruno Kaiser: Bibliophilia in Socialism. In: Neues Deutschland v. July 18, 1959, Supplement No. 28.
  4. ^ Page of the Max Lingner Archive in the Academy of the Arts
  5. ↑ Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Section IV. Vol. 32 Advance publication. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1999.
  6. ↑ See the website of the cemetery .
  7. ↑ See the website of the Pirckheimer Society .
  8. ↑ Neues Deutschland , October 5, 1971, p. 5
  9. ↑ Neues Deutschland, March 6, 1981, p. 2
  10. ^ Reprint In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode . Special volume 5, Hamburg 2006, pp. 259–262.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mohr, Oswald (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1982
Place of death Berlin