Herman Bernstein

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Herman Bernstein (before 1903)

Herman Bernstein (born September 21, 1876 in Vladislavovas , Russian Empire ; died August 31, 1935 in Sheffield , Massachusetts ) was an American Jewish journalist , writer , translator, and diplomat .

Life

Hermann Bernstein was born in Neustadt-Schirwindt ( Russian : Vladislavovas) on the Lithuanian-German border, which was then part of the Russian Empire. His family moved to Mogilev in 1883 , and he attended the Jewish elementary school there. In 1893 the family emigrated to Chicago in the United States . From 1897 he gained a foothold as a man of letters in New York . Among other things, he translated Maxim Gorky from Russian and published his own poems. The New York Evening Post published reflections on the Eastern European ghettos, published as a book in 1902 under the title In the Gates of Israel . He was married to Sophie Friedman since 1901 and they had four children.

Between 1908 and 1912, Bernstein was a repeated correspondent for the New York Times in Europe and also in Russia. In 1914 he became the founder and editor-in-chief of The Day newspaper and the American Hebrew . As a correspondent for the New York Herald , he witnessed the various phases of the Russian Revolution between 1917 and 1920 . In 1918 he translated and published the secret telegram traffic between the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and the last Russian tsar Nicholas II , some of which he had found in Russia in 1917. He also reported on the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 .

He also traveled to Europe repeatedly as a correspondent in the 1920s. His interviews with celebrities such as Henri Bergson , Albert Einstein , Vladimir Jabotinsky to George Bernard Shaw , Lev Tolstoy and Chaim Weizmann ultimately comprised three printed volumes.

Bernstein translated literary works and plays from Russian and German, including works by Leonid Andrejew , Mendel Beilis , Maxim Gorki , Fritz Gottwald , Nikolaj Jewrenow , Georg Kaiser , Ludwig Thoma , Lev Tolstoy and Lev Urwantsow .

Bernstein himself wrote poetry, short stories - one in Esperanto -, a novel and plays that were performed on Broadway .

The International Jew , German translation, Volume 1, 1922. The quote from Bernstein on page 90

Bernstein explained the ongoing pogroms in post-war Russia and Poland. He worked as a secretary for the American Jewish Committee on Combating Anti-Semitism . In 1921, he wrote The History of a Lie, the first English monograph on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , the considerably expanded edition The Truth about the Protocols of Zion appeared in 1935. The automobile manufacturer Henry Ford financed the anti-Semitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent , which published a series of articles printed on the protocols, which Ford also sold under the title The International Jew with a circulation of half a million copies. In one of the articles, Bernstein was falsely quoted as to the origin of the logs , as if Bernstein was confirming that the logs were not a forgery. The libel lawsuit he had started against Ford failed because of Ford's legal superiority and dragged on. In order not to endanger the sales of its automobile production, Ford had to compare itself with Aaron Sapiro in another process in 1927 , destroy all remaining copies of the book The International Jew and apologize publicly. Sapiro and Bernstein received compensation from Ford for the legal costs.

Bernstein supported Republican Herbert Hoover's presidential campaign in 1928 . President Hoover made him Ambassador of the United States to the Kingdom of Albania in 1930 ; Bernstein left the post in 1933, bearing a diplomatic Grand Cross of the Order of Skanderbeg .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Flight of Time and Other Poems . 1899
  • In the Gates of Israel: Stories of the Jews . Short stories. Taylor, New York 1902
  • Contrite Hearts . Novel. A. Wessels Company, New York 1903
  • With Master Minds: Interviews by Herman Bernstein . Universal Series Publishing, New York 1913
  • La rekta Gibulo . Book in Esperanto . 1915
  • The Willy-Nicky Correspondence: Being the Secret and Intimate Telegrams Exchanged Between the Kaiser and the Tsar . Preface Theodore Roosevelt . Knopf, New York 1918
  • Celebrities of Our Time . Interviews. Joseph Lawren, New York 1924
  • History of a Lie. "The protocols of the wise men of Zion": a study. Ogilvie, New York 1921
  • Twenty-Five Years . Short autobiography. New York, 1924
  • The Road to Peace: Interviews With Famous Americans and Europeans . Frank-Maurice, New York 1926
  • Herbert Hoover: The Man Who Brought America to the World . Herald-Nathan Press, 1928
  • Can We Abolish War? Broadview, New York 1935
  • The Truth About the 'Protocols of Zion' - A Complete Exposure . Covici Friede, New York 1935
  • The League of Men . no year

literature

  • Michael Hagemeister : The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in court. The Bern Trial 1933–1937 and the «Anti-Semitic International» . Chronos, Zurich 2017. Short biography on page 513f.
  • Victoria Saker Woeste: Henry Ford's war on Jews and the legal battle against hate speech . Stanford, Calif .: Stanford Univ. Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-8047-7234-1

Web links

Commons : Herman Bernstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data in the short biography at the Center for Jewish History
  2. ^ Article in Dearborn Independent, July 10, 1920; Chapter 8 in: The International Jew . Translation Paul Lehmann. Leipzig; Hammer, 1922, p. 90. Original English version from Wikisource
predecessor Office successor
Charles Calmer Hart United States Envoy in Tirana
February 1930 – April 1933 		Post wheeler
personal data
SURNAME Bernstein, Herman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bernstein, Hermann (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Jewish journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Vladislavovas , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1935
Place of death Sheffield , Massachusetts , USA