Querido Publishing House

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Keizersgracht 333 in 2011

The Querido Verlag NV was a German-language exile publisher founded in 1933 by Emanuel Querido (1871-1943) with the publishing director Fritz Landshoff, who had fled from Germany, as a subsidiary of the Dutch Em. Querido's Uitgeverij NV. The Em. Querido's Uitgeverij-MIJ NV was a renowned Dutch publisher that had been founded in 1915. Both publishers resided at 333 Keizersgracht in Amsterdam .

history

The collection : first issue / September 1933
First edition of Klaus Mann's novel Mephisto by Querido Verlag, 1936
Dialectic of the Enlightenment (1947)

According to the Reichstag Fire Ordinance and the Enabling Act , almost all German authors and politicians who advocated democracy, who had fought or continued to fight the emerging National Socialism, as well as all authors of Jewish origin, had to flee Germany because they were persecuted by the National Socialists with brutal violence and in some cases already were threatened with death. Later these emigrants were also officially expatriated. They could no longer write in German newspapers or publish books in Germany. Some of their books were first ostracized when they were burned and were all banned in Germany. All of a sudden, these authors and politicians lacked the opportunity to express their views in publications and to fight against the growing Third Reich. Thereupon, on July 14, 1933, the German -speaking Querido Verlag was founded as a public limited company by Fritz Landshoff , the former director of the well-known Kiepenheuer publishing house in Berlin , who had emigrated from Germany, and Emanuel Querido, the politically active Dutch publisher, in Amsterdam . It was supposed to offer the persecuted and banned German authors the publication opportunity they needed.

Querido and Landshoff each had 50% of the shares. Querido made the publishing house available, made bookkeeping and sales, and agreed to provide any additional financial resources that may be necessary. The directors were Querido's assistant Alice van Nahuys and Fritz Landshoff, who was responsible for the literary direction. Since he knew all the authors from his time at Kiepenheuer, he had the connections to engage important authors for the new publisher and to ensure an attractive program.

The literary monthly Die Sammlung, edited by Klaus Mann, was published by Querido Verlag from September 1933 to August 1935 .

The publisher's books were not only sold in the Netherlands , but were also sent (under sometimes extremely difficult conditions) all over the world (outside the National Socialist sphere of influence). The Querido Verlag was one of the three most important exile publishers that published in the Netherlands during the Nazi era, along with Hein Kohn's Het Nederlandsch Boekengilde and Allert de Lange Verlag .

Immediately after the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, the publishing house was seized and destroyed by the Gestapo . Some employees of the publishing house managed to escape in time. When the Querido publishing house and the Allert de Lange publishing house were looted , the Nazi authorities were concerned not only with the confiscation of books, but also with access to correspondence with “anti-imperial” authors. It was hoped to get information about political activities and emigration plans in order to forestall them with arrests and deportations. On June 17, 1940, the publishing house was searched in the presence of Querido and his secretary. Much of the papers had meanwhile been brought to safety by the de Lange publishing house. Nevertheless, a large part of the archive was able to be transported to Berlin , where the correspondence was looked through for names and addresses and on the basis of which the special wanted list for West was created. In 1943 the documents were relocated to Schliersee , where they were transferred to the Red Army , and in 1957 they were officially handed over to the GDR . In May 1991 they were returned to the Allert de Lange publishing house in Amsterdam.

Landshoff, who happened to be in London, managed to escape to New York in 1943. Emanuel Querido fell into the hands of the Germans through treason in 1943. He was murdered together with his wife Jane Querido-Kozijn on July 23, 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp .

From 1948, Landshoff shared the management of the German department with Gottfried Bermann Fischer . In 1950, an anthology was published under the title Klaus Mann zum Gedächtnis with authors such as Thomas Mann , Gottfried Benn , Giuseppe Antonio Borgese , Lion Feuchtwanger , Hans Keilson , William L. Shirer , Upton Sinclair and many others. It was the last book of the exile publisher Querido.

The Dutch parent company flourished again after the Second World War and is currently one of the most renowned Dutch literary publishers. The new address is Weteringschans 259 in Amsterdam.

Appreciation

The Querido Verlag was the most important publication organ of the German literary and political exile . Around 137 books had been published by 1940, and another 41 after 1945. The publishing house was an important organ of cultural resistance against National Socialist Germany. On the occasion of the 2012 celebrations for Dutch Liberation Day , German President Joachim Gauck gave the central speech in which he also paid tribute to Emanuel Querido and his publishing activities.

Authors of the German-language Querido Verlag

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubben hub: Bannelingen . In: De Volkskrant , November 26, 1999, at: volkskrant.nl
  2. ↑ Peter Manasseh Boekenvrienden Solidariteit, turbulent jaren van een exiluitgeverij . Biblion Uitgeverij, Den Haag 1999. ISBN 9054831782 , pp. 9, 55, 58, 68, 70, 79, 94, 106.
  3. ↑ Aalders, stolen! , Pp. 102/103.
  4. ↑ Aalders, stolen! , P. 103.
  5. ↑ Website of the current publisher Querido , singeluitgeverijen.nl/querido, accessed on February 16, 2020
  6. ↑ Celebrating Liberation - Living Responsibly, speech by the Federal President on May 5, 2012 in Breda online
  7. ↑ Contains a description of Landshoff's role as well as a bibliography on the publishing house of Franz Pfäfflin, Franziska Sörgel