Paul Amann

Paul Amann (until 1906 Amschelberg) (born March 6, 1884 in Prague , † February 24, 1958 in Fairfield County , Connecticut ) was an Austrian writer and translator.

Life

Paul Amschelberg studied German and Romance languages ​​in Vienna and Prague. From 1911 he taught as a secondary school professor in Vienna . From 1910 he published theoretical works of a biographical nature, on the German and French national character as well as on Jewish sensitivities and questions of assimilation. Amann was one of those few German-speaking intellectuals who did not share the enthusiasm for war at the outbreak of World War I , although he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army on several fronts.

From 1919 Amann translated works from French, including several by Romain Rolland . His biography of Goethe , written in French, was very popular in France . In 1934 Amann published his own major work, Tradition und Weltkrise , which was banned in Germany by the National Socialists the following year . In 1937 he was appointed "Officier de l'Académie Française" in Paris for his services to French literature.

After Austria's annexation in 1938, Amann was forced to retire due to his Jewish descent. In 1939 he and his family managed to emigrate to France. In 1941 Amann finally fled to the USA , where he received a professorship at Mohawk College (Utica, NY) from 1945 after financial difficulties in the initial phase. In 1948 he moved to Champlain College (Plattsburg, NY). After the war he stayed in the USA and was unable to gain a foothold in the German-language literary business there. Paul Amann died in 1958 after a heart attack, financially secured by an Austrian pension that was only awarded in 1955.

From 1915 onwards, Amann maintained an intensive correspondence with Thomas Mann, which - with interruptions - lasted for four decades. The publication of Mann's observations on a non-political in 1918 resulted in a temporary break with Mann. Amann accused man of plagiarism because he - without naming Amann - had taken passages and thoughts from an unpublished manuscript by Amann into the considerations . Mann's letters to Amann, published in 1959, are regarded as an instructive source for the emergence of considerations of an apolitical .

Works

• (Ed.) Napoléon: Documents / Discours / Lettres . Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1921 (" Bibliotheca Mundi " series)
• Goethe 1932
• Tradition and the world crisis in 1934
• Crystal of my time 1956
• A biography of Mr. Paul Amann, his wife Dora and his children Peter, Henry and Eva Maria Amann (Engl.), In: Institute for the History of Austrian Jews, archive, see [1]
• Into the meat grinder (memories), in English, French and German, ibid
• Survies d'un juif européen: correspondance de Paul Amann avec Romain Rolland et Jean-Richard Bloch / éd. établie, présentée et annotée par Claudine Delphis . Leipzig: Leipziger Univ.-Verl. 2009

literature

• Mann, Thomas: Letters to Paul Amann 1915-1952 Ed. Herbert Wegener, Series: Publications of the Lübeck City Library, Vol. 3, Max Schmidt-Römhild Verlag, Lübeck 1959
• Gangl, Robert: Paul Amann - Leben und Werk Diploma thesis, unpublished, Vienna 1995 (signature of the Austrian National Library: 1449920-C Neu Mag)
• Amann, Paul. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 1: A-Benc. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-598-22681-0 , pp. 141-147.

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Amann in the catalog of the German National Library
• First and so far only exhibition ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) about Paul Amann in the Hietzing Adult Education Center (Vienna)
• Article about Paul Amann in the daily newspaper Die Presse