Jonas Lesser

Jonas Lesser (born August 3, 1895 in Chernivtsi , Bukowina , † February 9, 1968 in London ) was an Austro-British editor , essayist and translator .

Life and activity

Jonas Lesser, the son of a Jewish Orthodox scholar, studied Classical Philology and German in Chernivtsi and Vienna. He received his doctorate with summa cum laude as Dr. phil. His role models include Goethe, Kant , Nietzsche and Schopenhauer .

In December 1925, Lesser was hired as an editor by the Paul Zsolnay Verlag in Vienna on the recommendation of Arthur Schnitzler . He held this position until June 1938. As a result of his position he met important authors of his time, such as Hermann Hesse , Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Werfel , John Galsworthy and Thomas Mann . With the latter he was in correspondence for many years.

After the annexation of Austria by the German Reich in March 1938, Lesser went to England. There he worked as a freelance writer and contributor to George T. Gooch's Contemporary Review in London. There was also extensive activity as a translator of works by Graham Greene ( Stambul Train ).

During the Second World War he was not interned in Great Britain because he had Romanian rather than Austrian or German citizenship. In Germany, meanwhile, he was classified by the National Socialists as an enemy of the state: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British island by the Wehrmacht, would be followed by special SS commandos should be identified and arrested with priority.

Lesser had already published a book Von deutscher Jugend in 1932 , which was banned in 1933. His other work mainly includes literary essays, book reviews and a treatise on JJ Bachhofen. In particular, Lesser was an intense reader and connoisseur of Thomas Mann's work. His thorough reading of Mann's writings led to the discovery of many details, allusions and quotations in Mann's late work. Its corresponding publications have been referenced frequently in the relevant specialist literature. Thomas Mann faced Lesser's meticulousness with skeptical benevolence, occasionally calling it “philological hard work that is a bit annoying to me, which I think is not worth the hard work” (letter to Lesser, October 15, 1951), but always answered his questions willingly and looked him occasionally as an informant who knows his work better than himself (letter of November 6, 1951).

Larger parts of Lesser's estate are kept in the Thomas Mann Archives in Zurich. Further partial estates are in the family's possession in London as well as (letter collections) in the literature archive in Marbach.

Fonts

• From German youth , Berlin 1932.
• Thomas Mann in the epoch of his completion , Munich 1952.
• "Thomas Mann: Die Betrogene", in: Neue Schweizer Rundschau 21, 1954, pp. 686f.
• “Thomas Mann and Wilhelm Raabe. Some about Germany's path to sin ”, in: Deutsche Rundschau 1959, pp. 518–523.
• "Thomas Mann and the Rationalism of the West", in: Encounter Cologne. 1963. Vol. 18, pp. 289-291
• "Deutsche Südsehnsucht", in: Deutsche Rundschau , vol. 89 (1963), pp. 37-50.
• Germany. The Symbol and Deed , New York 1965.
• “The literature of emigration”, in: Paul Schallück (Ed.): Germany. Cultural developments since 1945 , Munich 1969, pp. 47–61.

Unpublished:

• Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus and Theodor Adornos Philosophic of New Music. , Thomas Mann Archive, üurich.

literature

• Franz Zeder (Ed.): Thomas Mann. Letters to Jonas Lesser and Siegfried Trebitsch. 1939-1954 , Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2006.
• German Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 6, 2006, p. 383.
• Murray G. Hall / Gerhard Renner: Handbook of the Estates and Collections of Austrian Authors , 1995, p. 211.
• Serafien Lesser: Jonas Lesser 1895-1968 in memory , London 1978.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Lesser on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum, London) .