Ruth Liepman

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Ruth Liepman , née Lilienstein, (born April 22, 1909 in Polch ; † May 29, 2001 in Zurich ) was a German lawyer and literary agent .

Live and act

Ruth Liepman was the daughter of the Jewish doctor Isidor Lilienstein. After the birth near Constance , she went to Hamburg before the outbreak of the First World War , where her father practiced. Ruth Lilienstein received a school education here at the Lyceum under the direction of Jakob Loewenberg and at her own request, despite protests from her parents, she switched to the Lichtwark School , where she found friends who accompanied her for life. This included Ruth Tassoni and NDR editor Gerhard Lüdtke . Ruth Lilienstein had a lasting impact on the modern upbringing of the educational reform institution. From 1928 she studied law at the University of Hamburg and the Humboldt University in Berlin .

Lilienstein, who became politically active early on and belonged to the KPD , was denounced for this reason in the spring of 1933. As a result, she was unable to complete her legal traineeship. The Hamburg state dismissed her from civil service in June 1933. Lilienstein herself stated that the reason for the dismissal was to be found more in her political activities and less in her religious affiliation. Nevertheless, she received her doctorate in 1934 under Rudolf Edler at Hamburg University. From October 5, 1934, at the instigation of the Hamburg public prosecutor, she was wanted in a wanted list on the basis of suspected "preparation for high treason".

Ruth Lilienstein managed to escape to the Netherlands, where she found a job in a weaving mill. She later worked as a secretary. Thanks to a marriage of convenience with the Swiss architect Oskar Stock, Lilienstein received Swiss citizenship and a Swiss passport, and she became a citizen of Mastrils . This enabled her further activities in the resistance, including illegal courier trips to Germany. In Holland she worked on the book The Legal Situation of German Citizens Abroad . However, her name could not be mentioned on the title of the work published in Haarlem in 1937 due to the fact that the man was wanted. After the German Reich occupied Holland as part of the western campaign , Lilienstein, who worked as the secretary of the Swiss consul, tried unsuccessfully to flee Holland. Lilienstein went underground, disguised herself as a housemaid and spent the time with a Calvinist working-class family until the end of the war.

After the war, Lilienstein did not leave Holland at first, but visited Hamburg several times. There she made the acquaintance of Heinz Liepman (actually Liepmann ), who had lived here since his return from American exile. In June 1949 she married the writer and journalist. In 1950 the couple opened a literature agency in Hamburg, which Ruth Liepman quickly took over. In Hamburg, Ruth and Heinz Liepman became friends with Gisela and Alfred Andersch , Ida Ehre , Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt , Hilde and Eugen Claassen , Elsbeth Weichmann and her husband Herbert and Günter Weisenborn and his wife Joy Weisenborn . In 1961 Ruth Liepman moved to Zurich with her husband. Heinz Liepman died in June 1966 in Aragone in Ticino. Ruth Liepman then accepted two business partners into "Liepman AG". The agency has looked after numerous renowned German and international authors such as Norman Mailer , Vladimir Nabokov and Stephen King for several decades . Liepman saw it as important to be able to serve international understanding by conveying literature. Liepman's portfolio also included the estates of Anne Frank , Erich Fromm , Robert Neumann and Norbert Elias .

Liepman, whose autobiography Perhaps happiness is not just coincidence appeared in 1993, was referred to as the “grande dame among literary agents” after her death in May 2001.

Honor

In November 1992, the city of Zurich was the first woman to award Ruth Liepman the gold medal of honor. She received the award because of her services to the international literature business and as a resistance fighter against National Socialism. Since 1998 Liepman was an honorary member of the Society for Exile Research .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Died: Ruth Liepman. In: Der Spiegel . 23, 2001, June 2, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Liepman, Ruth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lilienstein, Ruth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and literary agent
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Polch
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 2001
Place of death Zurich