Emil Oprecht

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Emil Oprecht (born September 23, 1895 in Zurich ; † October 9, 1952 there ) was a Swiss publisher and bookseller .

Life

After graduating from high school and then studying economics at the University of Zurich , Emil Oprecht completed an apprenticeship in bookselling. In 1925 he opened the bookstore Oprecht & Helbling at Rämistrasse 5 in Zurich, later the bookstore Dr. Oprecht AG, which also had its own publishing house with a mainly literary program. He founded Europa Verlag , which specialized primarily in political literature, in 1933.

Between 1933 and 1945 Oprecht maintained a contact point in his apartment for German emigrants such as Hermann Mathias Görgen and Dora Schindel . During the Second World War , he and his wife Emmie (1899–1990) supported numerous persecuted artists from Germany and Italy with personal and financial commitment. Oprecht is regarded as an important Swiss publisher of exiled authors . Among others, he published Else Lasker-Schüler , Ernst Bloch , Hans Habe , Heinrich Mann , Golo Mann , Ignazio Silone , Bernard von Brentano and Konrad Heiden , who in 1933 wrote "Hitler" a clairvoyant research that was carried out in 1934 in exile at Oprechts Europa Publisher appeared.

In 1938 Oprecht founded Neue Schauspiel AG together with Kurt Hirschfeld and other friends , of which he was Chairman of the Board of Directors until 1952. Emil Oprecht died of cancer and was buried in the Fluntern cemetery. After his death, his wife took over the management of the Oprecht publishing house. In 1992, the Zurich Central Library received parts of the Oprecht and Europa Publishing Archives from the estate of Emmie and Emil Oprecht. The bookstore Oprecht had to cease operations in 2003 for economic reasons, and the publishing house was closed.

While Oprecht's public commitment is comparatively well documented, little is known about him as a private person: he was intent on discretion throughout his life, which also had to do with the fact that he and his wife were actually homosexual. Little is known about his youth either.

The street of the same name in Zurich's Oerlikon district has been a reminder of Emil Oprecht since 2003 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christoph Emanuel Dejung: Emil Oprecht. Publisher of the exiled authors. Rüffer & Rub, Zurich 2020, ISBN 978-3-906304-37-3 .
  2. ↑ Emil-Oprecht-Strasse on alt-zueri.ch (accessed on February 13, 2020).
personal data
SURNAME Oprecht, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss publisher and bookseller
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1952
Place of death Zurich