Justin Steinfeld

Justin Steinfeld (born February 27, 1886 in Kiel , † May 15, 1970 in Baldock , England ) was a German writer .

Life

Justin Steinfeld spent his childhood in Kiel and since 1892 in Hamburg . He switched from commercial training to journalism and theater at an early age . In the 1920s Steinfeld worked in Hamburg as a magazine publisher , theater critic and dramaturge . In 1932 he was one of the founders of the group of actors called “Kollektiv Hamburger Demokratie” (collective Hamburg actors). He was close to the KPD and in 1932 headed a committee of inquiry into what happened on the so-called " Altona Blood Sunday ". After the National Socialist “ seizure of power ” Steinfeld was taken into “ protective custody ” in 1933 ; In 1934, however, he managed to escape to Prague via Trautenau .

In Prague, Steinfeld worked on various organs of the German exile press and was involved in the “ Bert Brecht Club ” for a popular front against the National Socialist regime . After the Munich Agreement in 1938, he fled to Great Britain via Poland and Sweden . At the beginning of the war he was interned with a number of German exiled authors in Australia , but was soon able to return to Great Britain, where he mainly worked as a journalist . He was a member of the German PEN Club in exile and lived in Baldock / North Hertfordshire until his death .

Justin Steinfeld's only novel “A man reads a newspaper” was published in 1984 from the author's estate . The work, which describes the fate of German emigrants in Prague in the 1930s, was recognized by critics as an important document in German-language exile literature .

Works

• A man reads a newspaper , Kiel 1984

Web links

• Walter Boehlich: Exile in the Prague coffee house . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1985 ( online review of "A man reads the newspaper").