Leo Matthias

Leo Matthias (born January 16, 1893 in Berlin , † September 8, 1970 in Ascona ; also Leo Lawrence Matthias and as an author LL Matthias ) was a German journalist and travel writer . He was married to Lisa Matthias for a time , who left him for Kurt Tucholsky . He emigrated in 1933, lived in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, from 1940 to 1950 in the USA, and from 1950 in Switzerland.

His main work, Die Kehrseite der USA , first published in 1964, went through several editions and helped establish a more critical image of the USA in the Federal Republic of Germany. Matthias attacked the glorification of the American constitution, the unequal distribution of income and wealth , the Cold War , which he interpreted as the economic subjugation of Europe, and criticized the organization of religion, education, justice and the military in the USA.

Works

• Judgment Day - a grotesque game . Leipzig, Wolff 1914.
• The score of the world . Berlin, Ernst Rowohlt 1921.
• Genius and madness in Russia. Spiritual elements of construction and danger elements of collapse . Berlin: Rowohlt 1921.
• Piano. Comedy in three acts . Berlin, Reiss 1922.
• Reach for the Orient, a trip and a little more . Leipzig, Bibliographical Institute 1931.
• Excursion to Mexico . Berlin: Die Schmiede publishing house, 1926.
• The Discovery of America in 1953 or The Orderly Chaos . Hamburg, Rowohlt 1953.
• China on its own way. Result of a trip . Hamburg, Rowohlt 1957.
• The downside of the USA . Reinbek b. Hamburg, Rowohlt 1963. (as paperback 1964 under ISBN 3499179180 )
• It hung by a thread . Reinbek b. Hamburg, Rowohlt 1970. ISBN 3 498 04227 0

literature

• Matthias, Leo. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 16: Lewi – Mehr. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-22696-0 , pp. 355-361.

Web links

• Literature by and about Leo Matthias in the catalog of the German National Library