Joseph Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein

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Josef Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein as a member of the OSS

Joseph Maria Casimir Konrad Michael Benedictus Maurus Placidus Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein (born September 30, 1910 at Traunegg Castle ( Thalheim near Wels ); † October 7, 1963 in San Francisco ) was a German-Austrian classical philologist , dissident and resistance fighter against the National Socialists .

Life

Franckenstein was the grandson of the landowner and lord of Traunegg Heinrich Maria Friedrich Karl Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein (1826-1883) and the Countess Helene von Arco -Zinneberg (1837-1897).

After studying classical philology and the subsequent doctorate, he hired himself as a casual journalist and mountaineer in Austria during the difficult economic times and political turmoil after the First World War . Shortly after the " Anschluss " in 1938, he began to oppose the regime openly as a determined opponent of the Nazis. This earned him internment in Mauthausen concentration camp , from which he was able to escape in 1939. His older brother Heinrich, who had left Germany in 1934 and emigrated to Turkey, and his cousin Georg Albert von und zu Franckenstein supported him in this.

In the autumn of 1940 he met the American writer Kay Boyle in Megève, France , whose children from his first marriage he taught as a tutor. After the divorce from her second husband, Franckenstein married Kay Boyle in 1943 and now worked as an American citizen in the US State Department as an intelligence officer. With the untiring support of his wife, he was finally transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1944 and, at his own request, was able to actively fight against the National Socialists as an agent in France in support of the Resistance . After being arrested by the Waffen SS and sentenced to death, he was able to flee again and make his way back to England.

As a press officer in the military government, he returned to Germany in 1946, while Kay Boyle was the foreign correspondent for The New Yorker , who wrote stories from Germany. However, she initially refused to live in Germany and initially went with the family to Paris, from where she went on research trips to Germany. It was not until May 1948 that she and her three youngest children moved to live with her husband in Marburg, Hesse. Another move followed at the end of 1948, this time to Frankfurt am Main, where Franckenstein published Die Neue Zeitung , a German-language newspaper for the Americans.

In 1953, in the middle of the Cold War , US Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for communists did not stop at highly decorated war heroes, and Franckenstein was questioned by a committee of inquiry into questions of loyalty and security. The charges remained vague, although Kay Boyle's human rights activities and literary commitment may have contributed to his subpoena. He was acquitted on all charges, but released shortly thereafter, and Kay Boyle's accreditation by the New Yorker revoked.

After their return to the USA the family settled in Connecticut and Joseph Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein taught at a girls' university. Like many unpopular American intellectuals of the time - including Nazi opponents and exiles such as Bertolt Brecht and Albert Einstein, but also Americans such as the actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson - they were suspected of un-American activities, monitored and boycotted in the 1950s, which is why Franckenstein left particularly deep financial and personal marks. In 1960 Joseph von Franckenstein became cultural attaché in Tehran, but had to return to the USA in 1963 due to the consequences of a serious illness, where he died on October 7th in San Francisco.

estate

  • Kay Boyle and Joseph Franckenstein correspondence, 1940-1963 ID: 1/1 / MSS 184 Repository: Manuscripts

Newspaper articles

literature
personal data
SURNAME Franckenstein, Joseph Freiherr von und zu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franckenstein, Joseph Maria Casimir Konrad Michael Benedictus Maurus Placidus Freiherr von und zu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian classical philologist, journalist and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Traunegg Castle
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1963
Place of death San Francisco