Peter de Mendelssohn

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Peter de Mendelssohn, 1945

Peter de Mendelssohn (born June 1, 1908 in Munich ; † August 10, 1982 there ; actually Peter Mendelssohn, pseudonym: Carl Johann Leuchtenberg ) was a German - British writer , historian and essayist .

Life

The son of the goldsmith Georg Mendelssohn from the Mendelssohn family from Jever grew up in Hellerau (a garden city near Dresden ), began a career as a journalist in Berlin in 1926 and published his first literary works from 1930. Because of his Jewish descent , he emigrated to Vienna after Hitler came to power in 1933 , then to Paris , and in 1936 to London . In mid-1936, Mendelssohn and Richard A. Bermann wrote a memorandum on the establishment of a German Academy in New York , which Hubertus Prinz zu Löwenstein needed for his American Guild for German Cultural Freedom . The merit that Mendelssohn earned for this organization was to have won Thomas Mann for the idea of ​​the “German Academy of Arts and Sciences in Exile”. He visited him at the end of a six-week advertising tour through half of Europe. Conversely, remuneration paid by the Guild made it easier for him to gain the goodwill of Hilde Spiel's father for the planned marriage. In addition, Löwenstein obtained permission from Francesco von Mendelssohn for Peter's acceptance of the nobility title, which otherwise could have led to protests from noble relatives.

Peter de Mendelssohn received British citizenship and worked in the British civil service during World War II . After the war he was press officer at the British Control Commission in Düsseldorf . He reported on the Nuremberg trials and played a key role in building a democratic press system in the British occupation zone . He was involved in founding newspapers such as Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt . In 1970 Peter de Mendelssohn moved back to his native Munich.

Since the 1930s he has published numerous novels, stories and essays - most of them on historical and political topics - in both English and German . He also worked as a translator from English and French .

His biographical works received the greatest attention:

  • Churchill - His way and his world
  • The Magician - The Life of the Writer Thomas Mann (2 volumes, unfinished)

In the essay volume The Conscience and Power , published in 1971, he described aspects and shapes of British history such as the Elizabethan Age or Oliver Cromwell for the German audience . In 1955 he also worked on the script for the feature film Marianne . Before his death he was able to publish the first volumes of both a work edition and Thomas Mann's diaries.

From 1936 to 1970 de Mendelssohn was married to the writer Hilde Spiel . With her he had the son Felix de Mendelssohn , who lived as a psychoanalyst in Vienna and Berlin.

His grave is in the Bogenhausen cemetery in Munich.

Grave of Peter de Mendelssohn.

Honors

Works (selection)

author

Fiction

  • Finished with Berlin? Novel. With an afterword by Katharina Rutschky. Ivory, Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3-932245-50-3 . (Reprint of the Leipzig 1930 edition.)
  • Sorrowful Arcadia. Novel. Krüger, ISBN 978-3-8105-1204-8 . (Reprint of the 1932 edition.) Translated into French: Douloureuse Arcadie 1935, éditions Stock; was shot as a film by Julien Duvivier in 1955: Marianne de ma jeunesse .
  • Fortress in the clouds. Narration (The hours and the centuries) . Amstutz, Zurich 1946. (exile edition)
  • All That Matters (exile edition; German :) The second life . Novel. Hamburg 1948
  • The Wizard. The life of the writer Thomas Mann . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main
  1. 1875-1918 . 1975, ISBN 978-3-10-049402-3 .
  2. Years of limbo . 1992, ISBN 978-3-10-049405-4 .

Non-fiction

  • The Nuremberg Documents - Studies on German War Policy 1937–45 . Wolfgang Krüger Verlag, Hamburg 1946; based on: The Nuremberg Documents / Some Aspects of German War Policy 1937–45, Allen & Unwin, London - translation from the English reviewed by the author by Dr. Walter Lenz.
  • Considerations. Mixed essays . Krüger, Hamburg 1948.
  • S. Fischer and his publishing house . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-10-049401-6 . (Reprinted from the Frankfurt am Main 1970 issue.)
  • Newspaper City Berlin. People and Powers in the History of the German Press. Revised u. exp. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-550-07496-4 . 2017 reissued by u. a. Lutz Hachmeister; Leif Kramp; Stephan Weichert at Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH. ISBN 978-3-550-08157-6

Essays

Translations

literature

  • Marcus Payk: The Spirit of Democracy. Intellectual attempts at orientation in the features pages of the early Federal Republic: Karl Korn and Peter de Mendelssohn (= systems of order. Studies on the history of ideas in the modern age , vol. 23). Oldenbourg, Munich 2008.
  • Harry Pross :  Mendelssohn, Peter de. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 63-65 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry Pross:  Mendelssohn, Peter de. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 63 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Klaus-Dieter Lehmann (Ed.): German intellectuals in exile. Her academy and the “American Guild for German Cultural Freedom” , KG Saur Verlag, Munich et al. 1993, pp. 77–85.
  3. ↑ Redaktionsbüro Harenberg: Knaurs Prominentenlexikon 1980. The personal data of celebrities from politics, economy, culture and society . With over 400 photos. Droemer Knaur, Munich / Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-426-07604-7 , Mendelssohn, de, Peter, S. 304 .
  4. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 31, No. 5, January 9, 1979.
personal data
SURNAME Mendelssohn, Peter de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mendelssohn, Peter von; Mendelssohn, Peter; Leuchtenberg, Carl Johann (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British writer, historian and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1982
Place of death Munich