Elisabeth Jungmann

Elisabeth Jungmann (married Beerbohm , born in Lublinitz in 1894 ; died on December 28, 1958 in Rapallo ) was a German translator and secretary .

Life

The daughter of the Jewish couple Adolf and Agnes Jungmann was born in Upper Silesia . Her siblings were Otto and Eva Gabriele , later a historian and sociologist .

During the First World War Jungmann served as a nurse in the German Army . From 1922 to 1933 she was Gerhart Hauptmann's “helper” in his “Wiesenstein” house: she translated his works into English, recorded his dictations, read aloud, managed his household, carried out correspondence and accompanied the family on their travels.

In Hiddensee , Hauptmann's summer residence, she met Rudolf G. Binding . Captain realized that his secretary was attracted to him and released her into his service. She moved to him on Lake Starnberg . Binding hoped to be able to marry her, but this was made impossible by the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935. Despite her endangerment, he did not part with her until his death and dedicated the cycle of poems Nordic Calypso to her . His celebrities protected the beloved, who became penniless after his death. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II , Jungmann managed to emigrate to England with the help of HG Fiedler, professor of German literature and language at Oxford University and an acquaintance of Gerhart Hauptmann.

Jungmann had already met Max Beerbohm as a translator in Rapallo in 1927 when they met in the service of Hauptmann and was now able to speak to him. He also condoled her on her mother's death in Auschwitz . During the war she worked as an assistant in the Jewish Central Information Office in London , then for the Political Intelligence Department . After the war she stayed in London and worked for the Control Commission for Germany and Austria . In this role she helped rebuild the education system in post-war Germany . Beerbohm advocated her British citizenship. She visited him every summer in his Italian summer house in Rapallo.

In 1951 Florence Kahn , Beerbohm's wife, died. Jungmann took over the funeral ceremony and became Beerbohm's confidante. As a hostess, she received numerous guests at his side, including the nearby Ezra Pound as well as Somerset Maugham , John Gielgud , Laurence Olivier and Truman Capote .

Shortly before his death, Jungmann married Beerbohm on April 20, 1956, so that she was allowed to inherit him under Italian law. He died a month later and she became his administrator. After her own death, she was succeeded by her sister two years later.

She was also briefly TS Eliot's secretary .

literature

• Corry Nethery: The Second Lady Beerbohm . Dawson's Book Shop, Los Angeles, 1987

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Different life data in lux: 1903–1959. Different life dates according to DNB also: 1895–1958 or 1895–1959.
2. ^ ^{A b} N. John Hall: Max Beerbohm. A Kind of a Life , Yale University Press (2002), pages 238 and 241 ISBN 0-300-09705-0
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 251
4. ↑ Max Beerbohm: Wit, Elegance and Caricature (2005)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Center of Jewish History Digital Collections