Ferdinand Kahn

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Ferdinand Kahn (born September 6, 1886 in Augsburg , † March 26, 1951 in Hollywood ) was a German lawyer, writer and journalist. He practiced as a lawyer in Munich until 1939 and worked for Meggendorfer-Blätter and Fliegende Blätter from 1914 to 1933 . In 1939 he emigrated to Los Angeles . There he worked in a ceramics workshop and was a board member of the “ Jewish Club of 1933 ” and an editor for the exile magazine Aufbau .

Life

origin

Ferdinand Kahn was born in Augsburg on September 6, 1886. His parents were August Kahn (1852–1907), born in Germersheim , and Hedwig Kahn, born in Fürth . Klein (1862–1943), both of Jewish descent. The family lived first in Augsburg, after the transfer of the father in Landshut and from 1899 in Munich.

father

Memorial stone near Ismaning for the victims of the raft accident of 1907.

Kahn's father was a civil servant in the royal state building administration. After positions in Augsburg and Landshut, the government and district building assessor was transferred to the district building department in Munich in 1899 and in 1903 appointed as building officer to the road and river building department. During a business raft trip on the Isar, the father of twenty-year-old Ferdinand Kahn drowned together with the rest of the crew.

mother

After the death of her husband, Hedwig Kahn and her son moved to his birthplace in Augsburg at Schellingstrasse 3/4 r, where they lived until at least 1908. In 1913 at the latest, mother and son moved back to Munich. There they lived together, from 1926 at the latest, at Leopoldstrasse 56a. Henri Nannen , who later became the publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine “ Stern ”, began his studies in Munich in 1933 and was sub-tenant with the Kahns, who apparently lived in a middle-class family (Hedwig Kahn employed a housekeeper). It is not known whether Hedwig Kahn stayed in her old apartment after her son emigrated in 1939. At the age of almost eighty, Kahn's mother was deported from Munich to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on June 26, 1942 , where she was murdered on May 4, 1943.

Education

After graduating from high school in 1905 at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich, Kahn began studying law in the summer semester of 1906 in Munich, moved to Lausanne for the winter semester of 1908/1909 and then to Erlangen , where he received a doctorate in 1912 with a dissertation on copyright law jur. PhD and passed the state law examination.

Working life

Joachim Ringelnatz, before 1925.

In 1913 Kahn was admitted to the bar in Munich and opened a law firm at Maximiliansplatz 12b, and from 1938 at Theatinerstraße 32. He also accepted the position of in-house counsel at the Association of Bavarian Clothes Manufacturers. He also worked as a freelance writer for the Meggendorfer-Blätter and the Fliegende Blätter . He lived with his mother Hedwig Kahn at Leopoldstrasse 56a in Munich- Schwabing . “Twice around the corner, at Türkenstrasse 57, was the legendary Alter Simpl pub ”, where Kahn liked to hang out and “occasionally did cabaret performances”. There he got to know Joachim Ringelnatz during his studies , with whom he published “a funny fairy tale with pictures” in 1910. When Ringelnatz got married in 1920, he sent Kahn and his mother a note: "... I am trembling to announce that I will marry Miss LP on August 7th without money, without apartment and without understanding."

In 1910 the German film pioneer Peter Ostermayr made his first film, the short melodrama "The Truth". A manuscript, which Ferdinand Kahn and comedy author Wilhelm C. Stücklen developed from their play of the same name, served as the shooting template. However, Ostermayr could not find a distributor for the film, and so Kahn's first attempt to gain a foothold in the film failed. While emigrating to Hollywood three decades later, Kahn's attempt to establish himself as a screenwriter failed because of the different cultural mentalities of the Americans.

Erich Mühsam as a young man.

Kahn was probably not called up for military service, because between 1914 and 1916 he acted as a lawyer several times at the request of the anarchist publicist Erich Mühsam :

  • for the kleptomaniac writer and cabaret artist Emmy Hennings
  • for the dancer Margot Jung geb. Hader (1886-1981)
  • and for the seedy former Zurich trade union secretary Karl Erdmann, who turned out to be a gunsmith.

Mühsam noted in his diary on February 16, 1915:

“The lawyer Kahn is a very versatile personality. In addition to his jurisprudence, he also practices poetry and writes masses of easy-to-sing cuplets and operetta texts. He is also the editor of the Meggendorfer Blätter and is now establishing a men's fashion magazine ... The Schneiderzeitung will be original enough anyway, as Kahn wedged me into an article for the opening number ... "

The fashion magazine was supposed to appear under the title “Die Rundschau des Herr”, but all of Kahn's efforts to collect fees from the publisher of Mühsams magazine were in vain. Apparently the magazine never came out.

Nazi terror

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 "Flying leaves" were more published works by Kahn in. During the Reichskristallnacht from November 9th to 10th, 1938, Kahn's office at Theatinerstraße 32 was looted. From November 10 to December 19, 1938, he was interned in the Dachau concentration camp . Rabbi Jacob Sonderling reported at Ferdinand Kahn's grave in 1951: "Men who spent the terrible time with him in the concentration camp confirm that he was the cheerful comforter of his fellow sufferers there too." With effect from December 1, 1938, Kahn became like all other Jewish lawyers were deprived of their license.

The Beverly Hills-based writer Bruno Frank , whom Kahn had probably met in Alten Simpl in Schwabing , learned of his distress from the Nazis and sent him "the saving affidavit ". In his obituary for Bruno Frank in 1945, Kahn recalled:

“I had just come from the Dachau concentration camp. Still chased and tormented by the roar of the dismissing rage: "But now push from Germany - otherwise we will get you back and then you will not come out safely!" Yes - I wanted - but how - where? - He had hardly found out about my distress and the affidavit that saved me arrived in quick mail! And my old mother wept with emotion and gratitude: A real friend, Bruno Frank, a real friend! "

In July 1939 Kahn traveled to London, where he met his Munich friend Carl Rössler again and worked with him on a play. Finally he emigrated from England to the USA. In 1940 Kahn was stripped of his German citizenship.

exile

Ferdinand Kahn emigrated to Los Angeles in the second half of 1939 and settled there in Hollywood . His apartment was (from 1944 at the latest) in a bungalow on Hollywood Boulevard , where the actress Ilka Grüning also lived. The “rear-house” in the “park-like garden” was inhabited by “the world-famous Variété universal genius Sylvester Schäffer ”.

After arriving in his new home, Kahn was confronted with the problem of finding a suitable livelihood. As a German lawyer, he was initially left with nothing. In his obituary for Ferdinand Kahn, Friedrich Porges reported in 1951: “He came to Hollywood twelve years ago and initially tried to work in his“ sideline ”. But his European esprit proved, as in so many similar cases, to be incapable of adapting to the local mentality (especially in the film). He would have been a dazzling "gagman". But the studios didn't make use of his humor. ”So Kahn initially had no choice but to get by with auxiliary work. If you can take the gloss "Dishwasher" literally, Kahn was still a dishwasher in a hotel in autumn 1941. Even a few months later, he was still worried about looking for a job when, in another gloss, he recommended hobbies as the basis for a career.

He later worked as a worker in Hedi Schoop's (1906–1995) ceramic workshop . Born in Switzerland, the sculptor was originally a cabaret artist and dancer and emigrated from Berlin to the USA in 1933 with her first husband Friedrich Hollaender . After the failure of a cabaret project that she brought up with her husband, she turned to sculpture. She founded a ceramics workshop in Hollywood , which made her very famous and successful. In the late 1940s, the workshop employed over 50 people and produced 30,000 gift items annually. As a part-time job, Kahn worked as an editor for the exile magazine " Aufbau " and was actively involved in the " Jewish Club of 1933 ".

At the beginning of 1944, Felix Guggenheim, President of the Jewish Club of 1933, stated in a general meeting: "Most members of the club - including the older ones - now have fairly well-paid jobs that anyone - even an unskilled - can easily fill." probably also applied to Kahn, who was 60 years old at the time.

Gravestone of Ferdinand Kahn, 2012.

Retirement

A year before his death, Kahn had to undergo an operation for pancreatic cancer, which only gave him a brief respite. On Easter Monday, March 26, 1951, the unmarried Ferdinand Kahn died in Hollywood at the age of 64. He was buried on March 30, 1951 in Hollywood Forever Cemetery , Hollywood. In his funeral speech, Lothar Frank , a brother of the writer Bruno Frank , described the deceased "Ferdi" as a simple, modest person in whom a great soul lived. Rabbi Jacob Sonderling "emphasized in his speech that Ferdinand Kahn was a person who had the courage to be happy" and praised his willingness to help.

plant

Ferdinand Kahn, "one of the loveliest, most cheerful and finest intellectuals in immigration," was a humorist who wanted to please his fellow men with his poems and glosses. “He wrote a lot and excellent, although he only did it as a part-time job. His main occupation was a lawyer. In his heart he was a poet and artist. ”The unambitious writer never published a volume of poetry or a collection of his glosses; apparently it was enough for this master of the small form if he could entrust his works to the ephemeral medium of magazines.

Beginnings

Like almost all young poets, Ferdinand Kahn was initially looking for a publisher in vain. In 1902 the sixteen-year-old sent a sample of his first literary works to his role model Wilhelm Busch with a request for criticism. The established poet replied with a well-intentioned quatrain:

Not who is a lute player himself,
But the poem publisher
Is the right criticism
Because he has to pay.

He had "meanwhile fought out many a bouquet with the poem publishers, which usually ended either with my praiseworthy defeat or my honorable defeat," replied the stubborn young man and added a selection of poems. This time, however, he did not receive a replica, only his manuscript.

Magazine articles

"Meggendorfer-Blätter", title page 1926.
“Flying Leaves”, title page 1915.
Title head of "Aufbau", the supplement "The West Coast" and the page of the "Jewish Club of 1933", 1943.

More than a decade later, Erich Mühsam judged that Kahn wrote “tons of easy-to-sing cuplets and operetta texts”. Since 1914 at the latest, he has also found buyers for his gushing production in humorous weekly magazines. After Henri Nannen , who met Kahn in 1933, he knew how to use his poetry commercially: "He was already making money with slogans for advertising like this:" I don't care about the weather, my coat is from Loden-Frey "". From 1914 to 1918 Kahn published his articles in the " Meggendorfer-Blätter ", then until 1933 in the " Fliegende Blätter " and in exile from 1941 in the German-language exile magazine " Aufbau ".

Meggendorfer leaves

The " Meggendorfer-Blätter . Zeitschrift für Humor und Kunst "published several hundred articles by Kahn from 1914 until the merger of the magazine with the" Fliegende Blätter ", usually several dozen annually. The mostly humorous poems and little glosses, sometimes also in Upper Bavarian dialect, were characterized by their pleasant style and popular themes. During the war years, like most of his fellow writers, he too paid tribute to cheer patriotism , sometimes on the verge of embarrassment.

Flying leaves

In 1914 and 1921 Kahn published a poem each in the " Fliegende Blätter ". In 1929 the "flying sheets" were combined with the " Meggendorfer sheets " and were now called "flying sheets and Meggendorfer sheets". Published from 1929 until the Nazis came to power in 1933, often under the abbreviation “F. K. ”, 28 poems and glosses in the same style that had already proven itself in the“ Meggendorfer Blätter ”.

construction

In his second home, Kahn did not succeed in establishing himself as a writer or, what Hollywood offered, as a screenwriter. After his immigration, he joined the " Jewish Club of 1933 ", which published the heading " The West Coast " with the sub- heading " Jewish Club of 1933 " in the German-language exile magazine " Aufbau " . In 1944 and 1946 he was elected for two years as a member of the board of directors of the "Jewish Club of 1933" and assigned to the press committee, which was responsible for the club's "development" side.

A certain compensation for his earlier “sideline” as a writer offered him from 1941 the cooperation in “construction”. He began with glosses about the precarious employment situation of most immigrants and lively advice articles for a positive outlook on life. In addition to small everyday glosses, he also wrote a number of articles on prominent personalities ( Orson Welles , Felix Bressart , Alfred Neumann , André Previn , Carl Rössler , Hansi Share , Sylvester Schäffer ). From 1943 he acted as club editor and in this capacity regularly published club news and reports on lectures and events.

If one is to believe one of Kahn's glosses, he liked to wander from his apartment on Hollywood Boulevard to “ Schwab's Pharmacy ” on Sunset Boulevard , the famous meeting place for the film world, to go on a “dinner hunt” there, that is, to go around to get a seat at the counter. He himself had not managed to do business with Hollywood, but in 1946 he was able to experience that his co-editor Hans Kafka sold the film rights to a novel to Warner Bros. , which Kahn proudly proclaimed in “construction” (the film became , like so often in Hollywood, but never shot).

Note:

  • Online edition of "Aufbau": archive.org .
  • The list contains the columnist contributions by Ferdinand Kahn, not the club news or reports on lectures and events written by him. List of all contributions by Ferdinand Kahn for the "structure": Catalog of the German National Library .
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Seal Born No. date page title
Kahn 1941.1 7th 40 October 3, 1941 12 Dishwasher.
Kahn 1941.2 7th 52 December 26, 1941 16-17 Your hobbies. [Hobbies as the basis for a job].
Kahn 1942.1 8th 4th January 23, 1942 15th The great stranger. Not a utopia. [Use chance!].
Kahn 1942.2 8th 6th February 6, 1942 16 Don't speak German. A phone call. [Poem].
Kahn 1942.3 8th 8th February 20, 1942 17-18 Be happy!
Kahn 1942.4 8th 20th May 15, 1942 17, 19 The little horizon. [On the curfew for emigrants].
Kahn 1944.1 10 25th June 23, 1944 15th Experiences in the radio studio. Orson Welles at rehearsal.
Kahn 1944.2 10 29 July 21, 1944 28 Hand-picked. [Glossary on the cleaning woman problem].
Kahn 1944.3 10 37 September 15, 1944 16 600 seconds with Felix Bressart .
Kahn 1944.4 10 41 October 13, 1944 15th On the dinner hunt.
Kahn 1945.1 11 23 June 8, 1945 16-17 Hansi Share and her "Million DollarBabeDoll".
Kahn 1945.2 11 27 July 6, 1945 16 Memory. [Obituary for Bruno Frank ].
Kahn 1946.1 12 13 March 29, 1946 18th Story of a success.
[Review by Hans Kafka : The Apple Orchard].
Kahn 1947.1 13 19th May 9, 1947 24 Alfred Neumann reads.
Kahn 1947.2 13 48 November 28, 1947 21st Success. [About André Previn ].
Kahn 1948.1 14th 10 March 5, 1948 7th Roessler anecdotes.
Kahn 1948.2 14th 14th April 2, 1948 17th German Theater in Los Angeles.
For the premiere in the Ebell Theater on April 11th.
Kahn 1948.3 14th 52 December 24, 1948 19th All in 10 minutes. [Review of a quick cookbook].
Kahn 1949.1 15th 26th July 1, 1949 23 A great artist and a great person.
The wondrous life of Sylvester Schäffers .

Other works

  • Ludwig Heller; Ferdinand Kahn: The old youths. Comedy in 3 acts. Berlin: Drei Masken-Verlag, 1919.
  • Ferdinand Kahn; Hans Bötticher (= Joachim Ringelnatz); Franziska Schenkel (illustration): What a pot and a pan can tell. A funny fairy tale with pictures by Franziska Schenkel, poetry by F. Kahn and H. Bötticher. Fürth in Bavaria: G. Löwensohn, 1910. New edition 1925.
  • Ferdinand Kahn: Borrowings within the meaning of the law on copyright in works of literature and music of June 19, 1901, taking into account the law of May 22, 1910. Aschersleben: Haller, 1911, University of Erlangen, dissertation, 1912.

Memberships

  • from 1940 (?): Jewish Club of 1933.

literature

Life

  • Herbert Günther : Joachim Ringelnatz in personal reports and photo documents . Reinbek near Hamburg 1964, pages 34, 44-45, 108.
  • Chris Hirte (editor): Erich Mühsam. Diaries, Vol. 1–15. Berlin from 2011, online: .
  • Stephanie Nannen: Henri Nannen : A star and its cosmos. Munich 2013, pages 165–166, 308.
  • Friedrich Porges: Ferdinand Kahn. [Obituary]. In: Structure , Volume 17, Number 14, April 6, 1951, page 22, online: (PDF)
  • Hermann Schreiber : Henri Nannen : Three Lives. Munich 1999, page 46, 55-56.
  • Reinhard Weber: The fate of the Jewish lawyers in Bavaria after 1933. Munich 2006, page 175, 237.

swell

  • Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 19, Number 89, November 11, 1899, Page 537, online: (PDF) - About August Kahn.
  • Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 23, Number 25, March 28, 1903, Page 153, online: (PDF) - About August Kahn.
  • Jan Christopher Horak: Munich's First Fiction Feature: The Truth. In: Thomas Elsaesser (editor): A second life: German cinema's first decades. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 86-92.
  • Volker Kühn : Schoop, Hedi. In: New German Biography , Volume 23, 2007, page 469-470, online: .
  • Marta Mierendorff: German Jewish Club of 1933, Los Angeles, A forgotten chapter of emigration. Radio essay by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk . Stuttgart 1966, cjh.org .

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Kahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ #Weber 2006 .
  2. ^ Victims database holocaust.cz .
  3. ↑ From 1902, at the latest, the family lived at Kanalstrasse 30 (address book 1902 wiki-de.genealogy.net , Wilhelm Busch. ZVAB, Article No. 8205). For the summer semester 1905/1906, Kahn gave the address Herzog-Rudolfstraße 13/2 when enrolling, for the winter semester 1906/07 and the summer semester 1907 Pfarrstraße 3/3.
  4. ↑ #Centralblatt 1899 , #Centralblatt 1903 .
  5. ↑ Memorial stone for the victims of the raft disaster of May 21, 1907 .
  6. ↑ Kahn gave this address when enrolling for the winter semester 1907/08 epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de (PDF) and the summer semester 1908 epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de (PDF).
  7. ↑ Address books 1926 wiki-de.genealogy.net , 1935 wiki-de.genealogy.net and 1938 wiki-de.genealogy.net .
  8. ↑ #Nannen 2013 , pp. 165–166.
  9. ↑ The 1941 address book wiki-de.genealogy.net no longer contains an entry for Hedwig Kahn.
  10. ↑ #Weber 2006 , victim database holocaust.cz .
  11. ^ Annual report on the K. Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich 1904/05.
  12. ↑ #Kahn 1912 .
  13. ↑ Address Books 1935 wiki-de.genealogy.net and 1938 wiki-de.genealogy.net .
  14. ↑ #Nannen 2013 , p. 166.
  15. ↑ #Kahn 1925 , # Günther 1964 , page 34.
  16. ↑ # Günther 1964 , pages 44-45.
  17. ↑ #Horak 1996 , IMDb, “The Truth” .
  18. ↑ #Porges 1951 .
  19. ↑ # Shepherd 2011 . - In the paper newspaper , volume 40, part 2, 1915, page 1148, the note appeared: “Verlag Martens, Maurer & Müller, G. m. b. H. in Berlin. The object of the company is the publishing house and the publication of the magazine "Die Rundschau des Herr". The share capital is 21,000 M. The managing director is Mr. Alfred Maurer, owner of Rudolf Maurer's Berlin Schneider Academy. "
  20. ↑ An exception is that with “F. K. ”drawn poem“ Zwei Frauen ”from 1935.
  21. ↑ Address 1935 wiki-de.genealogy.net .
  22. ↑ #Porges 1951 .
  23. ↑ #Weber 2006 , rijo research (PDF)
  24. ↑ #Kahn 1945.2 .
  25. ↑ #Kahn 1948.1 .
  26. ↑ #Weber 2006 .
  27. ↑ #Kahn 1944.2 .
  28. ↑ #Porges 1951 .
  29. ↑ #Kahn 1941.1 .
  30. ↑ #Kahn 1941.2 .
  31. ↑ #Weber 2006 , #Porges 1951 . In Friedrich Porges 'obituary for Ferdinand Kahn it says: "He has been working in Hedi Schoops' ceramic workshop for a long time."
  32. ↑ Structure , Volume 10, Number 5, February 4, 1944, Page 18, online: (PDF)
  33. ↑ #Porges 1951 , Find A Grave Memorial # 99627838 .
  34. ↑ #Porges 1951 .
  35. ↑ ZVAB, Wilhelm Busch, Article No. 8205 .
  36. ↑ # Shepherd 2011 , February 16, 1915.
  37. ↑ #Schreiber 1999 , page 46th
  38. ↑ #Porges 1951 .
  39. ↑ Structure , Volume 10, Number 33, August 18, 1944, page 16, online: (PDF); Structure , Volume 12, Number 35, August 30, 1946, page 20, online: (PDF)
  40. ↑ #Kahn 1941.1 , #Kahn 1941.2 .
  41. ↑ #Kahn 1942.1 , #Kahn 1942.3 .
  42. ↑ #Kahn 1944.4 .
  43. ↑ #Kahn 1946.1 .
  44. ↑ Author abbreviation: Ferdinand.
  45. ↑ More about the radio play in the English Wikipedia: Orson Welles radio credits, Texarkana .
  46. ↑ # Günther 1964 , page 34.
personal data
SURNAME Kahn, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1951
Place of death Hollywood