Simon Guttmann

Wilhelm Simon Guttmann (born November 15, 1891 in Vienna , † January 13, 1990 in London ) was a German writer, political author, manager of picture agencies and the inspirer of various groups of photographers.

Life

Simon Guttmann was active together with Walter Benjamin in the Free German youth movement. He was friends with the painters of the artist community "Brücke" , in particular with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , was the founder of the literary magazine Neue Weltbühne and himself wrote several literary articles in early expressionist magazines.

From 1909 to 1912 Guttmann participated in the New Club and the resulting Neopathetic Cabaret of the Berlin Expressionist scene, which was founded by Kurt Hiller in 1909 with a venue near Hackescher Markt . Guttmann ensured a connection between the Brücke artists and this group.

In 1912 he belonged together with David Baumgardt , Erwin Loewenson , Jakob van Hoddis and Robert Jentzsch to the editors of the posthumous poems by Georg Heym , whom he had introduced to the New Club in 1910 . Together with Franz Jung , he published the appeal “Save Otto Gross !” In the Munich magazine Revolution in 1913 and took part in the campaign to free him.

During the First World War he emigrated to Switzerland and was part of the Zurich Dadaist circle in the Grand Café Odeon ; together with Wieland Herzfelde he got involved with the Spartakists. In 1920 he was one of the founders of the Communist Workers' Party in Germany, along with Alexander Schwab , Karl Schröder , John Graudenz and Franz Jung . In 1923 he lived for two weeks with Ossip and Lilja Brik in Moscow, where he also met Mayakovsky , and then brought the first Soviet films to Berlin. In 1927 he was co-director of Curt Oertel for the film sequences for the world premiere of Ernst Toller's play Hoppla, wir Leben! Produced by Erwin Piscator in the Berlin theater . with Alexander Granach in the lead role. In 1928 he founded the Dephot press photo agency together with Alfred Marx as financier.

In 1933 he emigrated to France and later to London, where he ran his own press photo agency. In 1935, after emigrating to Paris, he sent his later famous photography student, Endre Friedmann, to Spain for a photo report. At the beginning of the 1950s, Inge Morath completed her final internship with him in London before she started working for the Magnum photo agency in 1953 . From 1961 to 1969 Guttmann worked with Romano Cagnoni on photo reports for major British daily newspapers and magazines.

literature

• Walter Benjamin - the address book of exile 1933–1940. "... how people are scattered everywhere ..." Edited and commented by Christine Fischer-Defoy . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-7338-0346-9 .
• Marion Claren-Hochfeld: From Robert Capa and Simon Guttmann to ABZ e. V. In: Jürgen Reulecke , Norbert Schwarte (Ed.): Snapshots. Companions remember. Diethart Kerbs on his 70th birthday. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-800-7 .
• Nicholas Jacobs, Diethart Kerbs: Wilhelm Simon Guttmann, 1891–1990. A Documentary Portrait. In: German Life and Letters. Vol. 62, No. 4, October 2009, ISSN  0016-8777 , pp. 401-414.
• Diethart Kerbs: Lifelines. German biographies from the 20th century. With an afterword by Arno Klönne . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-799-4 .
• Diethart Kerbs: From the bourgeois youth movement to left communism. The path of Simon Guttmann and his friends. In: Raimund Dehmlow, Ralf Rother, Alfred Springer (eds.): “… Freud's huge shadow is no longer on my way.” The rebellion of Otto Gross. 6th International Otto Gross Congress. Vienna, 8. – 10. September 2006. Verlag LiteraturWwissenschaft, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-936134-21-6 , pp. 288ff.

Web links

• Simon Guttmann in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• From the bourgeois youth movement to left communism - The path of Simon Guttmann and his friends
• Portrait drawing

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography Robert Capa ( Memento from March 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )