Noa Kiepenheuer

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Noa (Elisabeth) Kiepenheuer (born February 24, 1893 in Fürth ; † November 7, 1971 in Weimar ) was a German publisher , translator and author (as Matthias Holnstein ).

Life

Noa Kiepenheuer was born as Elisabeth Emma Josephine Holnstein on February 24, 1893 in Fürth (Bavaria). The name addition "Noa" came about later and is derived from Paul Gauguin's records from the South Seas, which he titled with "Noa Noa". Noa Kiepenheuer attended the teacher training college as well as the commercial school in Munich and trained as a bookseller. She then worked as a secretary for Wilhelm Herzog , the editor of the magazine Das Forum . In 1917, the 24-year-old Elisabeth Holnstein married Alfred Karl Mayer , who was working as a theater critic for the Vossische Zeitung at the time. The marriage resulted in a daughter - the future actress Eva Mayer (born December 31, 1917 in Munich , † 2008 in Leipzig ). The marriage broke up after just a few years. On January 25, 1925, Elisabeth Holnstein married the publisher Gustav Kiepenheuer . She was already his third wife. When she got married, the trained bookseller also joined Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag , which at the time was in Potsdam.

Literary work

From 1925 to 1933, Noa Kiepenheuer worked as a translator in addition to her work at her husband's publishing house. She also writes short stories that have appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung and Berliner Tageblatt and radio broadcasts. In 1934 Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag published one of the publisher's most beautiful books, Die Sommerburg, with an edition of 6000 copies . A painter's book by Schaefer-Ast with a story by Matthias Holnstein . Matthias Holnstein was the pseudonym Noa Kiepenheuer. The Sommerburg is the only prose work by her that was published by Kiepenheuer Verlag. She translated works by Charles Dickens , Nathaniel Hawthorne , Marjorie Bowen , Frédéric Mistral , Marcel Aymé , Colette and others into German under one of her two names.

Noa Kiepenheuer as a publisher

Gustav Kiepenheuer died on April 6, 1949 in Weimar . The Kiepenheuer couple had actually intended to flee to the west, where a few months earlier Joseph Caspar Witsch had founded Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag GmbH in Hagen with the power of attorney from Gustav Kiepenheuer. Kiepenheuer and Witsch had planned to run the publishing house in the west together. However, Gustav Kiepenheuer held the majority with 51% in the newly founded publishing house. After the death of her husband, Noa Kiepenheuer decided not to join the western publishing house, but to continue the Gustav Kiepenheuer publishing house in Weimar in the spirit of her husband. Just two weeks after Kiepenheuer's death, on April 29, 1949, far-reaching changes were made to the partnership agreement for the branch in Hagen. Four new shareholders joined the company: Dr. Gerling (with 20 percent), Col. Alexander, Dr. Borgers, Dr. Breuer (with 10 percent each). The capital was increased to 150,000 DM. For Noa Kiepenheuer, these changes meant that she only held 24% of the West German publishing house. A legal dispute between Noa Kiepenheuer and Joseph Caspar Witsch that lasted for years was the result. Due to the division of Germany, legal processing between East and West became more and more complicated every day, which increasingly diminished Noa Kiepenheuer's chances. The legal dispute ended after two years in Cologne on May 21, 1951 with a settlement: the partnership agreement between Gustav Kiepenheuer and Joseph Caspar Witsch was canceled, Noa Kiepenheuer received an extremely low, one-off settlement of DM 3,750. From this point on, the Cologne publishing house operated as Kiepenheuer & Witsch Verlag . Noa Kiepenheuer continued the Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag until her death on November 7, 1971 with a small workforce consisting of three employees. The management of the publishing house was very informal, lunch with the employees and reading to each other were part of it. Since Noa Kiepenheuer's house also served as the publishing house, it is difficult to draw a line between private and professional life. The editor Jürgen Israel lived in the house with free board and lodging - in return he wrote lecturers' reports.

Noa Kiepenheuer commemorated her work with her husband in 1950 with the publication of an almanac for the 40th anniversary of the publishing house.

Together with Friedrich Minckwitz she published two volumes in 1958/59 with reflections on German poets of the 18th and 19th centuries. Century out to childhood and old age.

Public figure

From the end of the 1920s until the NSDAP came to power in 1933, Noa Kiepenheuer and her husband took part in the cultural life of the flourishing metropolis of Berlin . They published emerging authors of literary expressionism Bertolt Brecht and Anna Seghers , the authors also included Gottfried Benn , Heinrich Mann , Arnold Zweig , Carl Zuckmayer , Georg Bernhard Shaw and Upton Sinclair . Intensive contact with literary personalities made her a public figure. They also often gave their own parties at the publishing house. Her name affix “Noa” probably comes from this time. Noa Kiepenheuer withdrew increasingly from the public by 1951 at the latest, after the legal dispute with Witsch had ended.

Fonts

  • The summer castle. A painter's book . With 16 plates and numerous text illustrations by Albert Schaefer-Ast . Kiepenheuer, Berlin 1934.
  • Forty years of Kiepenheuer 1910–1950. An almanac . Edited by Noa Kiepenheuer. Kiepenheuer, Weimar 1951.
  • The realm of childhood. From German memoirs and poems of the XVIII. and XIX. Century . Selected and compiled by Noa Kiepenheuer and Friedrich Minckwitz. Kiepenheuer, Weimar 1958.
  • The world of old age. Letters, speeches, reflections from German poets and thinkers of the XVIII. and XIX. Century . Selected and compiled by Noa Kiepenheuer and Friedrich Minckwitz. Kiepenheuer, Weimar 1959.

literature

  • Wolfgang Tripmaker: Women around Gustav Kiepenheuer - Irmgard and Noa Kiepenheuer, Bettina Hürlimann-Kiepenheuer, Oda Weitbrecht, Charlotte Ehlers . In: Mark Lehmstedt, Lothar Poethe (Hrsg.): Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte . tape 7 , 1997, ISBN 3-447-03938-8 , pp. 169-188 .
  • Rüdiger Thomas: Literature Stories . Review of 100 years of Kiepenheuer publishers. ( online [accessed November 4, 2011]).
  • Siegfried Lokatis : The publisher's wand. Introduction . In: Siegfried Lokatis, Ingrid Sonntag (Ed.): 100 Years of Kiepenheuer Publishing . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86153-635-2 , p. 12-25 .
  • Jürgen Israel: Noa Kiepenheuer. An approximation . In: Lokatis, Siegfried / Sonntag, Ingrid (ed.): 100 years of Kiepenheuer publishers . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86153-635-2 , p. 182-188 .
  • Jürgen Israel: In Noa's niche. Jürgen Israel in conversation with Anna Hofmann . In: Lokatis, Siegfried / Sonntag, Ingrid (ed.): 100 years of Kiepenheuer publishers . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86153-635-2 , p. 189-193 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birgit Boge: The beginnings of Kiepenheuer & Witsch . Joseph Caspar Witsch and the establishment of the publishing house (1948–1959) (=  book studies . Volume 78 ). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-447-06001-1 , pp. 19-33 . ; Mr. Witsch from Weimar . In: Focus magazine . No. 13 , 1993, pp. 74-75 ( online [accessed May 4, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Kiepenheuer, Noa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holnstein, Elisabeth Emma Josephine (maiden name); Holnstein, Matthias (pseudonym); Kiepenheuer, Elisabeth (different first name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publisher and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH 7th November 1971
Place of death Weimar