Felix Stössinger

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Felix Stössinger (born August 25, 1889 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † August 31, 1954 in Zurich ) was an Austrian journalist and publisher.

Life

Stössinger grew up in Vienna and was initially a music critic, later he also wrote about literature, theater, art and religious questions. In Vienna he belonged to the circle of friends around Ernst Weiß , Albert Ehrenstein and Otto Pick , in which he made the acquaintance of Franz Kafka in September 1913 .

Around 1914 he moved from Vienna to Berlin , joined the SPD and switched to political journalism. Like the majority of his party, Stössinger initially supported the First World War . An anecdote often circulated from this period is his appearance in the Berlin Café des Westens , when he brought the writers and journalists present there on May 7, 1915, the news that the British RMS Lusitania had been sunk by a German torpedo, and the death of almost 1200 People enthusiastically called “the greatest feat in human history”. The pacifist writer Leonhard Frank , who was also present, slapped him wordlessly (and then emigrated headlong to Switzerland to avoid prosecution). From 1916 Stössinger was the editor of the Socialist Monthly Bulletin (SM), the editor of which Joseph Bloch was regarded by Stössinger as a political mentor.

After 1917 Stössinger joined the USPD . From 1918 to 1922 he was editor of the Berlin USPD central organ Freedom and publisher of the weekly illustrated freedom supplement Die Freie Welt . In the revolutionary winter of 1918/19 Stössinger was head of the press, propaganda and news office of the Executive Council of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils in Greater Berlin (VR). He also published an “independent social democratic yearbook for politics and proletarian culture” under the title The Revolution , which was also responsible for the USPD , although it only appeared once, in 1920.

Around 1920 Stössinger was a member of the Federation for Proletarian Culture , which was founded in 1919 by Ludwig Rubiner , Arthur Holitscher , Rudolf Leonhard , Franz Jung and Alfons Goldschmidt and in which communists participated alongside anarchists and syndicalists. Other members of the league, which broke up again in 1921, were Hermann Schüller (1893–1948), Max Barthel , the actresses Elsbeth Bruck (1874–1970) and Gertrud Eysoldt , the painters and graphic artists Hans Baluschek , Heinrich Vogeler and Heinrich Zille and the architect Bruno Taut .

Stössinger had been running an antiquarian bookshop since the mid-1920s; in Felix Stöss Inger Publishing and Antiquarian appeared among others 1925/26 some works of the composer and poet Arno Nadel and 1933, a bibliophile book of poems by Nell Walden Heimann . In addition, Stössinger supported his friend Bloch as editor of the SM until 1933 and wrote some programmatic texts there, such as a plea for the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1925 and an indictment of "Anglo-Saxon imperialism", which used its "cultural ideology as an instrument of world domination" .

Stössinger also worked as a journalist for the Weltbühne and the Tages-Buch . In 1930 he worked for the "culture-critical magazine" Clique , which appeared only three times , together with Theodor Lessing , Hans José Rehfisch , Anton Kuh , Erich Knauf , Erich Ohser and Erich Mühsam . In the same year he wrote for the Jüdische Rundschau on "Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union". In 1931 he campaigned for “active anti-Bolshevism” in the SPD discussion organ, The Free Word .

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Joseph Bloch moved to Prague , and Stössinger followed him in early 1934. Until Bloch's death on December 14, 1936, they worked together on a text that was understood as Bloch's political legacy, which Stössinger then completed together with Bloch's widow Hélène Published in France in 1938/39 ( Revolution in world politics , 8 volumes).

After the occupation of Prague by the German Wehrmacht on March 15, 1939, Stössinger's wife Charlotte and her son from their first marriage, the later graphic artist and painter Hans Michael Freisager (1924-2014), fled to Nice. Stössinger followed them a little later. In September 1942 the family fled from France to Switzerland . Stössinger and his wife were interned there in the Oberhelfenschwil sick camp from October 1942 to August 1943 . They then lived in Zurich , where Stössinger worked as a translator and editor and wrote mainly for the Neue Schweizer Rundschau . He was also the Swiss correspondent for the New York weekly newspaper Aufbau . In 1950 he published a critically acclaimed Heine selection volume; In 1953, however, his editing work for Volume 4 of Hermann Broch's Collected Works was heavily criticized . Stössinger's last manuscript, Between Tell and Geßler , is in the family's possession; the diary contained therein from the Swiss internment camp was published in 2011.

Fonts

  • with Karl Holtz : The Noske system . A political and satyrical reckoning. Freedom, Berlin 1920.
  • Simon Erlanger, Peter-Jakob Kelting (Ed.): Interned in Swiss refugee camps. Diary of the Jewish author Felix Stössinger 1942/43 . Christoph Merian Verlag, Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-85616-529-1 .

as editor

as translator

literature

  • Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 3: S – Z, Register. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 1332.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The anecdote is z. B. reproduced in: Hermann Müller-Franken : The November Revolution. Memories . Der Bücherkreis , Berlin 1928, p. 112
  2. ↑ In the case of Strohmeyr, Alfred Kerr is given, probably erroneously, as the recipient of the slap. Cf. Armin Strohmeyr : Lost Generation. Thirty forgotten poets from the “other Germany” . Atrium, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-85535-721-5
  3. ↑ As press chief of the Executive Council, Stössinger succeeded Colin Ross , later known as a travel writer , who left the VR on November 26, 1918. Cf. Gerhard Engel , Bärbel Holtz, Gaby Huch: Greater Berlin Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils in the Revolution 1918/19. Vol. 2: From the 1st Reich Councilor Congress to the general strike resolution on March 3, 1919 . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-05-003061-5 , p. 58 ( GBS )
  4. ↑ Dances and Incantations of the prophetic Dionysus (1925); The tone: The teaching of God and life. Religious poetry (1926); The fall of man. Seven Biblical Scenes (1926). Arno Nadel was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943.
  5. ↑ Under the stars. Poems (1933). The Swedish musician and painter Nell Roslund was married to Herwarth Walden from 1912 until the divorce in 1924 , later to the doctor Dr. Hans Heimann.
  6. ^ Felix Stössinger: For the connection of German Austria . In: Sozialistische Monatshefte , Vol. 31, Issue 6, June 1925, pp. 333–339 ( online )
  7. ^ Felix Stössinger: The Anglicization of Germany . In: Sozialistische Monatshefte , vol. 35, issue 8, August 1929, pp. 695–707 ( online )
  8. ↑ See also: Alf Lüdtke, Inge Marßolek, Adelheid von Saldern (Ed.): Americanization: Dream and Nightmare in Germany in the 20th Century . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06952-6 , p. 159 ( GBS )
  9. ^ Felix Stössinger: Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union . In: Jüdische Rundschau , March 21, 1930, p. 157.
  10. ^ Felix Stössinger: Active anti-Bolshevism . In: The free word , No. 27 of July 5, 1931. Cf. Jürgen Zarusky: The German Social Democrats and the Soviet Model: Ideological Debate and Foreign Policy Concepts 1917–1933 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-486-55928-1 , p. 281 ( GBS )
  11. ↑ a b Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jewishstudies.unibas.ch
  12. ^ Hermann Broch's Collected Works were published from 1952 to 1961 by the Zurich Rhein-Verlag. The editors of the 10-volume edition included Stössinger Robert Pick , Hannah Arendt , Erich Kahler , Wolfgang Rothe , Ernst Schönwiese and Hermann John Weigand . Broch's posthumous mountain novel was published as Volume 4 ; Stössinger had compiled it, philologically unclean, from three different versions and also invented the title The Tempter.
  13. ↑ http://www.unilu.ch/files/stoessinger.pdf
  14. ↑ See review by Ignaz Wrobel , Weltbühne from August 5, 1920.
personal data
SURNAME Stössinger, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1954
Place of death Zurich