Martin Breslauer

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Martin Breslauer (born December 16, 1871 in Berlin ; died October 16, 1940 in London ) was a German book antiquarian .

Life

Breslauer studied palaeography at the University of Rostock and then did traineeships at booksellers in Paris, London, Rome and Florence as well as in Germany at Joseph Baer & Co. in Frankfurt am Main and Ludwig Rosenthal in Munich . Hans Fürstenberg describes him in later years: He was of a rather small stature, only the small mustache of his hair was recognizable ... The slightly protruding eyes were clear and far-sighted ... Above the "plastron" a constant smile.

Catalog I Valuable and Rare Books 1905

In 1896 he bought the rarity from the Karl Biltz collection and in 1907 published the catalog Das deutsche Lied . In 1898 he and his school friend from the Werderschool Edmund Meyer founded the “Assortment Bookstore and Antiquarian Bookstore Breslauer & Meyer”; from 1904 he went his own way with his shop on Leipziger Strasse and later on Französische Strasse in Berlin. His antiquarian bookshop became the center of Berlin's bibliophile society, including bibliophiles such as Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen and Fedor von Zobeltitz . Breslauer was an important business partner of the Prussian State Library and was appointed by it as an expert. He brokered Erich Schmidt's library to Rudolf Mosse and auctioned the 2826 book collection of Carl Schüddekopf (1918) as well as the Werner Wolffheim (1928) and Eduard Grisebach (1930) libraries , which u. a. also contained 70 books from Arthur Schopenhauer's library with his own handwritten notes and drawings. In 1919 he was commissioned to evaluate the private library of Frederick the Great in Sanssouci Palace , which had fallen to the state of Prussia after democratization, for which the House of Hohenzollern was to be compensated. In addition to Joseph Baer & Co. , Jacques Rosenthal , Ludwig Rosenthal, Karl Wilhelm Hiersemann and Paul Graupe , the Breslauer company was also involved in organizing the replacement of the holdings of the Löwen University Library, which was destroyed in the First World War . During the Great Depression , some of the 120,000 volumes in the Stolbergische Bibliothek passed through his hands. Breslauer took part in the expansion of the book business through book auctions, even if he considered the price development, which was quieter in the warehouse business, to be problematic.

Using his reference library of 21,000 volumes, he had published fifty warehouse catalogs by 1933. Breslauer made a number of bibliophile discoveries, such as the 6,000-volume private library of Marie Louise , Napoleon Bonaparte's wife , in the Palais Archduke Rainer in Vienna in 1929 , which an English millionaire bought for a few million francs in 1933 and then donated to the French state .

Breslauer was a founding member of the Society of Bibliophiles in 1899 , co-founded the Maximilian Society in 1911 and became a member in 1907 and treasurer of the Society for German Literature in 1912 .

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, his business activities were restricted by anti-Semitic acts of violence and anti-Semitic laws. He had to give up his house in Lichterfelde in 1934 and move with his family to an apartment on Meinekestrasse . In order to be able to emigrate, he had to sell two thirds of his reference library, which Martin Bodmer was able to hold together. With the proceeds he had to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer and was able to emigrate to Great Britain on July 1, 1937 with a remaining library and the household effects. The art collector Robert von Hirsch , a customer and friend of the family, who had emigrated from Frankfurt to Switzerland in 1933, helped rebuild the second-hand bookshop with a loan.

Breslauer died of a heart attack after the block of flats in Bloomsbury , London , where he lived with his family, was hit in a German bombing .

After the Second World War, the son Bernd Breslauer was able to bring the Breslauer second-hand bookshop back among the leading antiquarian booksellers. He donated the Martin Breslauer Archive to the State Library in Berlin.

Fonts (selection)

  • The German song: spiritual and secular up to the 18th century . Berlin 1908
  • Memories, essays, dedications , Society of Bibliophiles, Frankfurt am Main 1966

literature

  • Hans Fürstenberg : Foreword. In: Martin Breslauer. Memories, essays, dedications , Society of Bibliophiles, Frankfurt am Main 1966.
  • Fritz Homeyer: German Jews as Bibiophiles and Antiquaries , 2nd Edition, Tübingen: Mohr 1966, pp. 16-17.
  • Breslauer, Martin. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 4: Brech-Carle. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-22684-5 , pp. 15-19.
  • Exile in London . In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel , Frankfurt am Main 2002, vol. 169, no. 43: A250 – A265
  • Georg Jäger (Hrsg.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 1. The Empire: 1871–1918 : Part 3 De Gruyter, Berlin 2010
  • Breslauer, Martin . In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Volume 2. Saur, Munich 2005, p. 65
  • Ernst Fischer : Publishers, booksellers & antiquarians from Germany and Austria in emigration after 1933: A biographical handbook . Verb. Dt. Antiquarian e. V., Elbingen 2011
  • Jürgen Holstein, Waltraud Holstein (Eds.): Goldrausch & Werther: Antiquarian book catalogs as a special case of cover design . Berlin: Holstein, 2014 ISBN 978-3-00-043240-8 , pp. 22-23

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ^ Georg Jäger (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 1. Das Kaiserreich: 1918–1933 : Part 3. De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, p. 254.
  3. ↑ a b c Hans Fürstenberg: Foreword , 1966, pp. 7-16.
  4. ^ Georg Jäger (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 1. The German Empire: 1918–1933 : Part 3 De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, p. 211.
  5. ↑ Martin Breslauer: Recollections of an Antiquarian (1927), in: Recollections, Essays, Dedications , Society of Bibliophiles, Frankfurt am Main 1966, pp. 17–62.
  6. ↑ a b c Georg Jäger (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 1. The Empire: 1918–1933 : Part 3 De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, p. 224f.
  7. ↑ Schopenhauer's library will be auctioned. In:  Neues Wiener Journal , April 15, 1930, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwj
  8. ↑ Ernst Fischer; Stephan Füssel (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 2. The Weimar Republic: 1918–1933 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, p. 418.
  9. ^ Publishing news .. In:  Zeitschrift für Musik , year 1931, 98, vol., April 1931 issue No. 4, p. 356 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nzm
  10. ↑ Ernst Fischer; Stephan Füssel (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 2. The Weimar Republic: 1918–1933 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, p. 439.
  11. ↑ Ernst Fischer; Stephan Füssel (Ed.): History of the German book trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. Vol. 2. The Weimar Republic: 1918–1933 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, p. 435f.
  12. ↑ Sensational art sales in Vienna. In:  The morning. Wiener Montagblatt , March 13, 1933, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dmo
  13. ↑ Hans-Harald Müller; Mirko Nottscheid: Sources and research on literary and cultural history: Science without a university, research without a state: The Berlin Society for German Literature (1888–1938) . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2011, p. 100; P. 130ff .; P. 411ff.
  14. ↑ Nicolas Barker: Book dealer and collector across two continents , The Independent , September 25 of 2004.
personal data
SURNAME Breslauer, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German book antiquarian
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1940
Place of death London