Paul Mayer (editor)

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Paul Mayer ( January 1, 1889 , Cologne - March 8, 1970 , Zurich ) was a German-speaking editor , writer and translator .

Live and act

Paul Mayer was born in 1889 as the son of the shoe manufacturer David Mayer and his wife Paula Mayer, b. Mirror, born. The family was of Jewish faith . After graduating from high school in Cologne in 1908, he studied law at various German universities. After working as a trainee including Berlin and philosophical and historical studies, he earned his Dr. iur. 1915 in Greifswald . In the First World War from 1916 to 1918 he was a Landsturmmann. Contributions were made to the magazines Die Aktion and Die Weltbühne, among others .

After the war, from 1919 onwards, Mayer was the first editor of the second Rowohlt publishing house founded by Ernst Rowohlt . In July 1935, the publisher in National Socialist Germany was ultimately asked to dismiss his editors Paul Mayer and Franz Hessel , both of whom were of Jewish origin. Paul Mayer had to leave the publishing house in March 1936, and Franz Hessel continued to work for a while as a translator and illegally as an editor on behalf of the Foreign Office . In July 1938 Ernst Rowohlt was expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer for "camouflaging Jewish writers" ; this meant a professional ban .

In 1938 Mayer emigrated with his wife Elisabeth Charlotte, b. Leveson, whom he married in 1934, went to Mexico . In 1941 he was a co-founder of the Heinrich Heine Club . He worked with the authors Anna Seghers , Egon Erwin Kisch and Bodo Uhse , among others . From 1942 he was editor and author of the publishing house El libro libre and in 1943 a member of the movement “Free Germany” . In 1955 he left Mexico and returned to Europe. He lived in Zurich until his death in 1970.

In addition to his editing activities, Mayer wrote poems, short stories, literary essays and translations, including works by Honoré de Balzac . Mayer's biography of the publisher Ernst Rowohlt was published in 1967 on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Publications (selection)

El libro negro del terror nazi en Europa , Mexico 1943
  • Ernst Rowohlt . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1967 (special edition); 1968 as rowohlt monograph No. 139; New edition Rowohlt, Reinbek 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-50707-6 .
  • Honoré de Balzac: Representatives of the people: The deputy from Arcis , translated by Paul Mayer. In: Honoré de Balzac: Collected works . Rowohlt, Hamburg 1954
  • Exile. Poems . Ed. El Libro Libre, Mexico 1944.
  • El libro negro del terror nazi en Europe (collaboration). Ed. El Libro Libre, Mexico 1943.
  • Clemenceau speaks. Conversations with his secretary, Jean Martet. German by Franz Hessel and Paul Mayer, illustrations by Olaf Gulbransson . Rowohlt, Berlin 1930.
  • The awakening. Novella . Salm, Cologne 1919.
  • Masks and tortures. Verses . Hyperion, Berlin 1914.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b According to the dictionary of German-Jewish authors
  2. ^ Rowohlt Verlagschronik ( Memento from April 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 1, 2014
  3. ↑ The Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors states 1939, but the Rowohlt Verlagschronik and Mayer's biography about Rowohlt mention 1938 (p. 198).
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-speaking editor, writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1970
Place of death Zurich