Kurt Stern (writer)

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Kurt Stern (right, 1966)

Kurt Stern (born September 18, 1907 in Berlin ; † September 3, 1989 in East Berlin ) was a German journalist, communist, writer, screenwriter and translator. He was political commissioner in the Spanish Civil War . After 1949 he lived in the GDR , where he was friends with Johannes R. Becher , Anna Seghers and Christa Wolf .

origin

Kurt Stern came from a Jewish family in Berlin. His father, Siegfried Stern, was a manufacturer, his mother, Toni Stern (née Seckel; born February 10, 1881 - deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on December 9, 1942 ), also came from a family of manufacturers in Peine and was the second wife of the department store director Max Flatow (born May 4, 1875 in Stolp - deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on December 9, 1942, declared dead), who became Kurt Stern's foster father. Kurt's brother Walter and a sister who emigrated to the USA also belonged to the family, according to a letter from Gustav Regler to Kurt Stern. This is Emma Unger (* 1903 - † 1974 in New York), Emmusch , from whom several letters in the appendix of What will happen to us? are printed. On June 23, 1938, she traveled from Le Havre to the USA with her husband Fritz (* 1902) and their daughter Ruth (* 1929). It could not be verified whether there is another sister in Ilse Biro (née Flatow).

education

From 1924 to 1927 Kurt completed a commercial apprenticeship and passed the Abitur at evening school. He then studied literature, philosophy and history in Berlin and Paris . In 1927 he joined the KPD after coming into contact with the youth and labor movement through his brother Walter. 1930–1931 he was Reichsleiter of the communist student faction. In 1932, Stern went to France to study at the Sorbonne in Paris . There he married the French woman Jeanne Machin , whom he had met in Berlin. In April 1933 he emigrated to France.

Exile in France

Stern worked as a journalist and writer in France and worked as an editor of the political-literary monthly magazine Our Time . He was active in the protection association of German writers and worked as a translator, for example of Jean Cocteau's The Phantom of Marseille . The story was published in June 1934 in the exile magazine Die Sammlung , but without naming the translator.

In 1935 Stern participated in the First International Writers' Congress in Defense of Culture in Paris, and in the same year their daughter Lucienne, who was also called Nadine and is now known as Nadine Steinitz, was born.

Participation in the Spanish Civil War

From October 1936 to January 1938, Stern took part in the Spanish Civil War. He was political commissioner in the XI. International Brigade and editor-in-chief of the magazine Pasaremos , the magazine of the XI. Brigade. During this time he was also a member of the editorial team of El Voluntario de la Libertad . In July 1937 he took part in the in Valencia meeting participants Second International Writers Congress in Defense of Culture in part.

At the same time as Stern, Gustav Regulator was political commissioner in the XII. International Brigade. In his letter, already quoted above, in 1940, Regulator reported on his recently published book The Great Example. A novel by an international brigade in which Kurt Stern was also honored as a Spanish fighter: “Your long hair is now blowing from the Castilian wind over this country; the sister is very proud of the figure. "

Internment in France

After his return to France, Kurt Stern worked for the magazine Der Gegen-Attack and the Deutsche Volkszeitung . The title of the magazine Der Gegen-tackle , whose founders Alexander Abusch , Bruno Frei and Willi Munzenberg belonged, was chosen with a conscious allusion to the National Socialist propaganda newspaper The attack . The magazine appeared between April 1933 and March 1936 and was then replaced by the Deutsche Volkszeitung .

When the Second World War broke out, Stern actually wanted to volunteer for military service against the fascists, but instead he had to go to the Stade de Colombes internment camp in Paris on September 7, 1939 . On September 16, he and other internees were transferred from here to a camp near Blois , where around 750 people were housed in a circus tent. Despite all the desolation and helplessness: The internees can also leave the camp and receive visits. Stern's wife also comes by several times. Another relocation takes place on October 10th, this time to an abandoned farm near Villerbon .

Kurt Stern was released from Villerbon on December 19, 1939 and then lived with his wife in Paris. After the start of the German Wehrmacht's campaign in the west , the French authorities ordered all Germans, Austrians and stateless persons, suspected of being a fifth column of the German Reich , to go to assembly camps. For Stern, this was the Buffalo Stadium in Paris , where he went on the evening of May 14, 1940. On May 19, his daughter's birthday, he wrote in his diary:

"It's Sunday. Today Nadine is five years old. I settle down in a small box next to the stands; I stay there part of the day without speaking to anyone. I read my books and celebrate Nadine's birthday all alone with the coffee and the cupcake that Jeanne brought me. The news is still bad. "

- Kurt Stern : What will happen to us? , P. 124

That evening he was transferred to a detention center near Angoulême . Another transfer follows on June 1st, this time near Albi , where he and his comrades arrive on June 2nd. Here, after days of uncertainty about their future fate, they found out on June 23 that the Franco-German armistice was signed. On June 27, Stern and a group of men were allowed to leave the camp; they are quartered on a nearby farm, which gives them greater freedom. These “vacation days in complete freedom” end on July 1st: they have to go back to the camp. But even here, Stern and his fellow prisoners can now move more freely and go on excursions to Albi. On July 29, 1940, he was finally able to leave Albi and traveled to an uncle of his wife who ran a farm in Siarrouy near Tarbes . This uncle had previously sent Kurt Stern a certificate stating that he needed him for work on the farm. That had made Stern's release easier.

The diaries that Stern wrote between 1939 and 1940 during his two internments were published in 2006 under the title What will happen to us? Internment Diaries published in 1939 and 1940 .

“Documents like these diaries are rare, in any case seldom passed down and published. Which affected person has already demanded it, under very unfavorable external circumstances - to say the least! - to give these joyless, often "empty" days of writing duration in the face of psychological tension and depression? Who is it for? For themselves? His relatives, friends? The answer is in and between the lines: It was about not letting go of yourself, looking for any kind of intellectual challenge, taking up suggestions, staying awake, staying interested in everything that is going on around you and not stopping to deal with the problems of the Time to grapple. [..] Mood slumps are inevitable, there are worried, desperate hours. Last but not least, it may be this diary that helps him not to despair, to maintain his composure. "

- Chista Wolf : Foreword to What will happen to us? , P. 9

In the diaries, Stern raised doubts about the policy of the Soviet Union and also opposed the dictum that the party is always right . There is no mention of a break with the KPD there, but this is what is claimed elsewhere: "Stern resigned from the KPD in protest against the Hitler-Stalin Pact and the Soviet-Finnish war."

Exile in Mexico

On May 4, 1942, seven months before his parents were deported to Auschwitz, Kurt Stern, together with his wife and daughter, managed to escape to Mexico on a ship leaving Casablanca . This was preceded by countless attempts to obtain visas, in which Gustav Regulator was also involved, but which was mainly sought by Sister Emma from New York, who worked there in a glove factory. The main problem was getting money, all the more so since Emma Unger also tried to get papers and tickets for her parents. On March 30, 1941, she wrote desperately to her brother, whom she called Pepo, and to Jeanette: “Oh, my friends, in our time you have to be a millionaire to help everyone you love, and you have to have the skin of one Rhinos have not to worry. ”She could no longer help her parents, her brother's family still managed to get out of Europe.

About the arrival of the Stern family in the port of Veracruz , Stern's old friend Gustav Regulator wrote:

“The ships brought hundreds of threatened Jews and Communists from Marseille. Again and again the Liga pro cultura alemana, of which I was a chairman, sent me to Vera Cruz to receive those who had been saved. I saw Kurt and Jeanne standing high up on board, I waved, they didn't recognize me. I looked for them on the ship, they could not be found. When the ship was empty I looked for her in the city; they had already gone to Mexico. In the capital I asked for their address, but the committee of the refugees informed me that they had received orders to break with me; they asked not to give me their address. "

- Gustav Regulator : The Ear of Malchus , p. 489

This does not even match the exit from the KPD quoted above, for which there are no further sources beyond the manual of the German Communists .

Kurt Stern worked in Mexico in the Free Germany movement . In 1944 he became secretary of the Heinrich Heine Club and editor of the magazine “Free Germany”, which represented the KPD line in exile policy and denounced other socialist exile groups such as the committee Das Andere Deutschland as sectarian.

Writer in the GDR

In 1946 the Sterns returned to Germany via France and Kurt Stern became a member of the SED . As a member of the SED he came to the federal management of the Kulturbund in Berlin and worked as a correspondent for French newspapers and as a translator for the Aufbau-Verlag. In October 1947 he fell ill with tuberculosis , which required a longer stay in a sanatorium. From 1949 Kurt Stern worked as a freelance writer, translator and editor in East Berlin. In 1950 he wrote reports from France for the New Germany under a pseudonym and worked as an author for DEFA before falling ill again. From 1951 he was again active as a writer, often together with his wife Jeanne, with whom he also wrote scripts.

In 1976/77 Kurt Stern was one of the critics of Biermann's expatriation , but did not take part in the protest petition. He resigned from the Presidium of the Writers' Union in 1978, but remained a member of the board.

The Sterns lived at street 201 in the so-called intelligence settlement. Kurt Stern was buried in the Pankow III cemetery.

Honors and memberships

Stern belonged to several GDR organizations that maintained contacts abroad, such as the solidarity campaign of the German Writers' Association for the Cuban School System and the Soldarity Committee for the Spanish People . He traveled abroad to Cuba (1962) and Vietnam (1966–67, 1968). From 1970 he spent several study stays in France.

Film scripts

Works

  • Rice fields, battlefields , 1967 (report)
  • Before dawn , 1969 (report)
  • Paris scene . He wrote the book together with his wife Jeanne. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1972.
  • What will happen to us? Diaries of internment in 1939 and 1940 , foreword by Christa Wolf. Structure, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-351-02624-2 (Attachment: Letters from Anna Seghers, Gustav Regulator et al.) An extract from the diary, which was originally written in French and covers the period from May 9th to July 29th, 1940 , can be viewed online: Kurt Stern, Diary (9 May – 29 June 1940) (French)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Commemorative book victims of the persecution of the Jews under the National Socialist tyranny in Germany 1933-1945: Toni Flatow
  2. ^ Commemorative book victims of the persecution of Jews under the National Socialist tyranny in Germany 1933-1945: Max Flatow
  3. ↑ Unless other sources are named below, all biographical information comes from the section on life data in the work What will happen to us? (Pp. 225–228)
  4. ↑ a b Letter from Gustav Regeler dated September 2, 1942 in the appendix to What will happen to us? , Pp. 155-158
  5. ^ Ellis Island Passenger Search
  6. ^ The Collection, Issue 10, June 1934, contents
  7. ↑ On this congress see: Arts in Exile: FIRST INTERNATIONAL WRITERS 'CONGRESS FOR THE DEFENSE OF CULTURE, PARIS 1935
  8. ↑ For her life story see: Letter hidden in a doll. The woman who saved Heinrich Heine for Berlin , Berliner Kurier , 25 May 2018
  9. ^ Peter Rau: Reports from Spain's trenches
  10. ↑ On this congress see: Lecture by the British historian Paul Preston at the commemoration event for the 80th anniversary of the "Second International Writers' Congress in Defense of Culture" in Valencia on July 4, 2017
  11. ^ The Great Crusade , 1940, translated into English by Whittaker Chambers with an introduction by Ernest Hemingway. Published in German in 1976.
  12. ↑ Interview with the literary scholar Silvia Schlenstedt , Neues Deutschland , June 6, 1998
  13. ↑ Several newspapers have appeared under this name since 1866. This is about the weekly newspaper of the KPD, which was published until 1939.
  14. ↑ What will happen to us? , P. 22
  15. ↑ What will happen to us? , P. 39
  16. ↑ a b c d e f g Biographical information from the Handbook of the German Communists
  17. ^ Letter from Emma Unger dated March 30, 1941 in the appendix to What will happen to us? , P. 181
  18. ↑ Gustav Regulator: The ear of Malchus. A life story , Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 293, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-518-06793-1
  19. ^ Gert Eisenbürger: The other Germany. Anti-fascist struggle in Latin America
  20. ^ Max Lingner Foundation: Intelligence settlement
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, communist, writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 3rd September 1989
Place of death Berlin