Curt Weller

Curt Weller (born April 17, 1895 in Montreux , † September 23, 1955 in Singen / Hohentwiel ) was a German publisher .

Weller comes from a wealthy hotelier family who emigrated from Württemberg. He had to give up his dream job as an actor and director after studying theater in Berlin when he lost a leg in a plane crash during the First World War. He then trained as a bookseller at Leipzig companies and, in addition to his training, founded a publisher himself (Curt Weller & Co), in which young European literature appeared in translations as well as contemporary German literature, including Theodor Plievier and Erich Kästner , the first of which Weller became publisher.

In 1930 he was forced to give up his publishing independence for economic reasons and to accept a position as an authorized signatory at the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt (Stuttgart), to which he brought some of his authors. When he refused to part with unpopular authors after 1933, he was fired. The years that followed were a time of difficult self-assertion which Weller hoped to survive more easily away from the centers. First from the island of Reichenau , then from the Höri , Weller tried to maintain a modest publishing independence (especially the "IRIS books of nature and art"). A painter himself, he found the friendship of Oskar Schlemmer and Willi Baumeister , Walter Kaesbach and Will Grohmann . In 1940 he took up a position in a distance learning institute in Constance , where he was responsible for teaching with 30,000 students. Due to a denunciation in 1941 he was sentenced to one year imprisonment for “ decomposing military strength ”.

Before the end of the war he was able to prepare his post-war production in secret; towards the end of 1945 his publishing house in Constance was re-licensed. Weller's plans went far: they included both beautiful (focus: exile authors) and specialist literature (regional literature on Constance and Lake Constance; Buddhist literature (Asoka edition), literary and regional historical journals). In 1948 he published Eugen Herrigel's influential book ZEN in the art of archery . Weller became important as the first publisher of the exile novel Transit by Anna Seghers , with whom he was friends.

Like many post-war publishers, Weller, who now saw his hour had come, had exaggerated hopes and ideas that largely failed due to the effects of the currency reform. Weller was also politically active and fought for his publishing opportunities until the end of his life.

literature

• Manfred Bosch , Jürgen Klöckler: The publisher Curt Weller. For his 100th birthday . In: Hegau , 53rd year 1997, pp. 179-198
• Manfred Bosch: Fighter by nature. Weller-Verlag (in the series of articles forgotten publishers ). In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel , 167th year 2000, issue 12, pp. 27–31
• Manfred Bosch: Weller, Curt . in: Baden-Württemberg biographies . Vol. III. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 448-450
• Manfred Bosch: Heart on the waist - Curt Weller, the discoverer of Erich Kästner in Horn on Lake Constance . (= Lanes 61). German Schiller Society, Marbach 2003, ISBN 3-933679-81-8

Web links

• Biogram at LEO-BW