Hermann Kesten

Hermann Kesten. Photo around 1935.

Hermann Kesten (* 28. January 1900 in Podwoloczyska , Kingdom of Galicia , Austria-Hungary , † 3. May 1996 in Basel ) was a writer one of the main representatives of the literary " New Objectivity " during the 1920 year in Germany .

Kesten went ( "friend of the poet") into a passionate promoter literary talent literary history one. Because of his Judaism and his political views, he fled to France in 1933 and to the United States in 1940 . There he appeared as a savior and supporter of numerous artists persecuted by the Nazi regime . In the post-war period, as a contentious, committed PEN president , Kesten stimulated heated debates and took an active part in the literary life of the Federal Republic .

Life

Origin and education

Hermann Kesten was the son of a Jewish businessman and grew up in Nuremberg . His father immigrated from the east and died in 1918 in the war hospital in Lublin ( Poland ). In 1919 Kesten passed his Abitur at the Humanist Royal Old High School in Nuremberg and then studied law and economics , as well as history , German studies and philosophy in Erlangen and Frankfurt am Main from 1919 to 1923 ; a doctoral project on Heinrich Mann remained unfinished.

In 1923 he broke off his studies. From 1923 to 1926 he worked in his mother's junk shop. In 1926 he published the novella in vain escape in the Frankfurter Zeitung . He later traveled through Europe and North Africa.

Writer and lecturer in Berlin

In 1927 Kesten moved to Berlin , where he worked first as an author, then as a lecturer together with Fritz H. Landshoff and Walter Landauer at Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag . His debut novel Josef sucht die Freiheit bei Kiepenheuer was published in 1928 , the first part of a tetralogy projected under the title The End of a Great Man and which Kesten completed with three other novels by 1932 - Ein Ausschweifender Mensch (Das Leben eines Tölpels) , 1928 ; Happy People , 1931; The Charlatan , 1932.

“But Hermann Kesten not only has wit and strength, but something very rare and valuable - humor. He also reconciles where he pulls back the cloak, the cover, where he shows the evil. It reveals people and their instincts and makes us laugh where we want to cry. […] In one sentence: Hermann Kester's work is one of the most valuable in new literature. "

- Review of “Der Scharlatan” in Der Wiener Tag on November 7, 1932

When the Kleist Prize was awarded in 1928, Josef sucht die Freiheit was mentioned with honor; the award of 1928, which was repeatedly attributed to Kesten, went to Anna Seghers .

Up until 1933, in addition to the novels, there were mainly short stories, some dramatic works (partly in collaboration with Ernst Toller ) and numerous journalistic texts in important political and cultural publications of the Weimar Republic ( Frankfurter Zeitung , Berliner Tageblatt , Die literäre Welt , Die Weltbühne ). Through his work as a writer and editor , Kesten made the acquaintance of many well-known writers: Bertolt Brecht , Erich Kästner , Joseph Roth , Anna Seghers, Heinrich , Thomas and Klaus Mann . He knew how to accommodate some of them in “his” publishing house.

As the editor of several anthologies and the author of novels typical of the time, Kesten is still a prominent representative of the New Objectivity - poetologically, however, this categorization does justice to the texts of Kesten only in places.

Flight and exile

Memorial plaque for the German and Austrian refugees in Sanary, among them Hermann Kesten

In 1933 he fled to France ; in the following period he lived in Paris and stayed in the exile center of Sanary-sur-Mer near Toulon , in London , Brussels , Ostend and Amsterdam . There he headed - again together with Walter Landauer - the German department of the Allert de Lange publishing house and published works by German emigrants in competition but also in cooperation with the second large Dutch exile publisher , Querido Verlag (where Fritz H. Landshoff was now publishing director) . In 1934 he lived for a short time in a household in Nice with Joseph Roth and Heinrich Mann. After Der Righteous (1934), the historical novels Ferdinand and Isabella (1936) and King Philip the Second (1938) as well as The Children of Gernika (1939) were published in the first years of exile .

After brief internment in 1939 in the French camps Colombes and Nièvres as an " enemy alien ", Kesten fled to the USA in 1940 on a visitor visa . There he lived mainly in New York . From 1940 to 1942 he was involved as an “honorary advisor” in the Emergency Rescue Committee for the rescue of mainly German-speaking authors and cultural workers from persecution by the Nazi regime. Stefan Zweig called him the "patron saint [...] of all those who were scattered around the world".

post war period

In 1949, Kesten became an American citizen . In the same year he took part in the international PEN congress in Venice and went on a trip to Europe, during which he saw Germany, Nuremberg and old friends again. In addition, numerous longer stays took him to Switzerland and New York.

In 1953 he moved to Rome , which was to remain his main residence until 1977. From 1972 to 1976 Kesten served as President of the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany. When his wife Toni Kesten died in 1977, Kesten moved to Basel and spent the last years of his life in the Jewish old people's home “La Charmille” (in Riehen near Basel).

In 1985, on the 85th birthday of its Honorary President, the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany donated the Hermann Kesten Medal (since 2008 under the title Hermann Kesten Prize ) for special services to persecuted authors within the meaning of the International PEN's Charter To the previous award winners belong among others Johannes Mario Simmel (1993), Günter Grass (1995), Harold Pinter (2001) and Anna Politkowskaja (2003).

In 1995, Kesten donated the prize money for the first presentation of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Prize .

Awards

• 1950 member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz
• 1952 Corresponding member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt
• 1954 City of Nuremberg Prize
• 1974 Georg Büchner Prize
• 1977 Nelly Sachs Culture Prize of the City of Dortmund
• 1978 honorary doctorate from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 1980 honorary citizen of the city of Nuremberg
• 1982 Honorary Doctorate from the Free University of Berlin (together with Fritz H. Landshoff)

Works

Novels

• Joseph seeks freedom. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag , Potsdam 1928.
• A dissolute person. The life of a booby. 1929.
• Happy people. 1931.
• The charlatan. 1932.
• The fair. 1934.
• Victory of the demons. Ferdinand and Isabella. 1936; again: 2006, ISBN 3-85535-978-4 .
• I, the king. King Philip II of Spain. 1938; again: Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-548-37112-4 .
• The children of Gernika. 1939: again: Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-548-37103-5 .
• The twins from Nuremberg. 1947; again: 2004, ISBN 3-921590-00-0 .
• The strange gods. 1949; again: Nimbus 2018, ISBN 978-3-03850-045-2 .
• A son of happiness. 1955.
• The adventures of a moralist. 1961; again: 2007, ISBN 3-85535-363-8 .
• The time of fools. 1966.
• A man of sixty. 1972, ISBN 3-423-01057-6 .

Novel collections

• Futile Escape and other short stories. 1949.
• The 30 stories by Hermann Kesten. 1962.
• Dialogue of love. 1981.
• The friend in the closet. 1983.

Biographies, essays

• Copernicus and his world. 1948. Paperback: dtv 1973, ISBN 3-423-00879-2 .
• Casanova. 1952.
• My friends the poets. 1953, again: 2006, ISBN 3-85535-977-6 .
• The spirit of unrest. 1959.
• Poet in the cafe. 1959; again: 2014, ISBN 978-3-86913-429-1 .
• Branches of Parnassus. 1961.
• Lots of writers. 1963.
• The lust for life. Boccaccio, Aretino, Casanova. 1968.
• An optimist. 1970.
• Anthem for Holland. 1970.
• Revolutionaries with patience. 1973.

Stage texts

• Bourgeois remains bourgeois . 1928 (chansons).
• Maud loves both. 1928.
• Admet. 1928.
• Babel or the way to power. 1929.
• Housing Shortage or The Holy Family. 1930.
• One is telling the truth. 1930.
• Miracles in america. (together with Ernst Toller) 1931.

Poems

• I am who I am. Verses of a contemporary. 1974.
• One year in New York
• Tom Riebe [Ed.]: Hermann Kesten. [Versensporn - booklet for lyrical charms; No. 34]. Edition POESIE SCHMECKT GUT, Jena 2018. 100 copies.

Essays

• Five years after we left. In: The new diary. Paris 1938
• We Nuremberg . First Nuremberg speech. 1961.
• Twenty years after that . Second Nuremberg speech. 1965.

Editions

• 24 new German storytellers. 1929.
• New French storytellers. together with Félix Bertaux . 1930.
• Novellas of contemporary German poets. 1933.
• Heinrich Heine . Masterpieces in verse and prose. 1939.
• Heart of Europe. together with Klaus Mann. 1943.
• The blue flower. The most beautiful romantic stories in world literature. 1955.
• Joseph Roth. Works. 1956.
• René Schickele . Works. 1959.
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . Works. 1962.
• I don't live in Germany. 1964.

Translations

• Julien Green : Leviathan. 1930
• Henri Michaux : My goods. 1930
• Emmanuel Bove : Tale of a Madman. 1930
• Jules Romains : The Capitalist. 1931
• Jean Giraudoux : The Adventures of Jérome Bardini. 1932
• John Gunther: That's how I see Asia. 1940

Letters from and to Hermann Kesten

• German literature in exile. Letters from European Authors 1933–1949. 1964
• Franz Schoenberner, Hermann Kesten: Correspondence in exile 1933–1945. 2008

literature

• Kesten, Hermann , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 617
• Kesten, Hermann , in: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors , Volume 14, 2006, pp. 3–29

Monographs and edited volumes

• Viviane Besson: La tradition de l'ironie littéraire - Son rôle de critique politique et sociale chez un écrivain de l'exil. Hermann Kesten. 2 vols. Bordeaux, Univ. III, UFR d'études germaniques et scandinaves, TER, 1989.
• Poet - man of letters - emigrant. About Hermann Kesten. Edited by Walter Fahnders, Hendrik Weber . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2005 ISBN 3-89528-401-7
• Andreas Winkler: Hermann Kesten in exile (1933–1940). His political and artistic self-image and his work as a lecturer in the German department of Albert de Lange Verlag. With an appendix to unpublished correspondence from and to Hermann Kesten. Lüdke, Hamburg 1977.
• Franz Schoenberner, Hermann Kesten: Correspondence in Exile 1933–1945 (= The Mainzer Series , NF Volume 6). Edited by Frank Berninger. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008 ISBN 978-3-8353-0252-5
• Albert M. Debrunner : At Home in the 20th Century. Hermann Kesten. Biography. Nimbus, art and books, Wädenswil 2017 ISBN 978-3-03850-032-2

University theses (not published independently)

• Anja Herrmann: Hermann Kesten as a journalist. University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Master's thesis, 1994
• Christine Ilmer: Hermann Kesten's image of man using the example of his early work. FU Berlin, state examination thesis, 1985
• Brigitte DC Keudel: The pacifist ideas in the work of Hermann Kesten. Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Diss., 1978
• Barbara Kürzer: The moralist Hermann Kesten. University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Master's thesis, 1994
• Hendrik Weber: Diagnosis of the times in Hermann Ktest's novel “The Charlatan” . University of Osnabrück, state examination thesis 2001

Essays

• Hans Altenhein: "Twenty-four German storytellers". Kesten anthology from 1929. In: From the antiquarian bookshop. Frankfurt am Main 1998, No. 5: pp. A341-a347.
• Robert F. Bell: Of terror, guilt and legacy. Hermann Kesten's family novel "The Children of Gernika". In: German and international perspectives on the Spanish Civil War. The aesthetics of partisanship. Ed. Luís Costa. Camden House, Columbia / SC 1992. pp. 79-95.
• Gerhard Brack. “In the echo of criticism”. In: 'I was lucky with people.' For the 100th birthday of the poet Hermann Kesten. Texts from him and about him. Edited by Wolfgang Buhl, Ulf von Dewitz. Nuremberg City Library 2000, pp. 107–122.
• Stephan Braese (Ed.): '... not belonging to us' - Hermann Kesten and the group 47. In: Inventory. Studies on group 47. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1999 ISBN 3-503-04936-3 pp. 175-207
• Klaus Huebner: Bombs and sibilants. A novel by Hermann Kesten . Zwischenwelt, Zs. Der Theodor Kramer Gesellschaft , 35, 3, Vienna November 2018, ISSN  1606-4321 p. 13f. (via Gernika's Children )
• Helga Karrenbrock: Mutual reflections: Kesten and Kästner. In: poet - man of letters - emigrant. About Hermann Kesten. Edited by Walter Fahnders, Hendrik Weber. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2005, pp. 69–85.
• Friedhelm Kröll: The writer. In: 'I was lucky with people.' For the 100th birthday of the poet Hermann Kesten. Texts from him and about him. Edited by Wolfgang Buhl, Ulf von Dewitz. Nuremberg City Library 2000, pp. 80–85
• Silke Schlawin: The anthology "Heart of Europe". An exile project by Hermann Kesten and Klaus Mann for LB Fischer Verlag (New York). In: Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens , 54 (2001): pp. 1–108.
• Jan T. Schlosser: Thoughts on the narrative prose Hermann Kestin . In: Nordlit. Employment literature and culture. (Tromsø) (2006) No. 19 (spring): pp. 65–74.
• Cornelius Schnauber . “Hermann Kesten. First people, then society ”. In: Time-critical novels of the 20th century. Society in the Critique of German Literature. Ed. Hans Wagener. Reclam Stuttgart 1975. pp. 146-166.
• Frank Schulze: Hermann Kesten: "The Children of Gernika" (1939) . In: Remembering and telling. The Spanish Civil War in German and Spanish Literature and the Visual Media. Edited by Bettina Bannasch, Christiane Holm. Narr, Tübingen 2005, pp. 253-264.
• Walter Seifert: Exile as a political act. The novelist Hermann Kesten. In: The German Exile Literature 1933–1945. Edited by Manfred Durzak. Reclam, Stuttgart 1973. pp. 464-472.
• Hans Wagener: With reason and humanity. Hermann Kesten's factual mind games in his 'Josef' novels. In: New Objectivity in the Novel. New interpretations of the novel of the Weimar Republic. Edited by Sabina Becker, Christoph Weiss. Metzler, Stuttgart et al. 1995. pp. 49-68.
• Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008 ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 . P. 129f.

See also

• Exile literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Hermann Kesten  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Hermann Kesten in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Hermann Kesten  in the German Digital Library
• Hermann Kesten in the Central Directory of Digitized Prints (zvdd)
• Homepage of the Hermann Kesten Museum
• Hermann Kesten in the Bavarian literature portal (project of the Bavarian State Library )
• Archive recordings with Hermann Kesten in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library (literature readings, interview)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Hermann Kesten in the Munzinger archive , accessed on March 1, 2015 ( beginning of the article freely accessible)
2. ↑ Hanns Margulies:  The Charlatan. In:  Der Tag / Der Wiener Tag , November 7, 1932, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ See The Kleist Prize 1912–1932. A documentation. Edited by Helmut Sembdner. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1968.
4. ^ The Kleist Prize 1928: Anna Seghers. In:  Der Tag / Der Wiener Tag , December 23, 1928, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).
5. ^ Letter to Kesten dated February 22, 1941, in: Deutsche Literatur im Exil. Letters from European Authors 1933–1949. Edited by H. Kesten. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, unchanged. Edition, p. 140.
6. ↑ Books. In:  Salzburger Wacht. Social democratic organ for Salzburg / Salzburger Wacht. Organ for the entire working people in the Kronlande / Lande Salzburg , April 23, 1928, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).
7. ^ The Molière-Toller-Hasenclever-Granowsky-Pallenbeg premiere in Berlin. In:  Der Tag / Der Wiener Tag , December 29, 1928, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).
8. ↑ Again in: Banishment. Records of German writers in exile. Christian Wegner, Hamburg 1964, p. 263ff.
   (The term emigration or exile literature should be avoided at all costs, as it is too summarized.)