Paul Abraham
Geboren on 2 November 1892Gestorben on 6 May 1960Dirigent, KomponistThe Hungarian composer Paul Abraham had an enthusiastic following in Berlin from September 1930. His breakthrough came with the operetta Viktoria und ihr Husar (Victoria and her Hussar) at the Metropol Theater, known today as the Komische Oper.
Erna Adler
Geboren on 25 March 1913Gestorben on 7 March 2007FotografinErna Adler was just 23 years and an assistant in the photography studio of Trude Geiringer and Dora Horovitz in Vienna when she went into exile. In late 1936 the young photographer had initially planned only a work stay in Antwerp.
Josef Albers
Geboren on 19 March 1888Gestorben on 25 March 1976Maler, GrafikerJosef and Anni Albers lost their jobs when the Bauhaus was closed in the summer of 1933. Alarmed by the anti-Semitism, the couple never hesitated in following the call to the United States.
Erich Arendt
Geboren on 15 April 1903Gestorben on 25 September 1984SchriftstellerErich Arendt began as a teacher at a reform school in the Berlin district of Neukölln, now the Rütli school. In 1926 his first poems appeared in Der Sturm, the Expressionist journal headed by Herwart Walden.
Ellen Auerbach
Geboren on 20 May 1906Gestorben on 30 July 2004FotografinEllen Auerbach first of all studied sculpting in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart from 1924 until she went to Berlin in 1929 to learn photography under Walter Peterhans. It was there that she met the photographer Grete Stern with whom she worked and lived together from then on.
Theo Balden
Geboren 6 February 1904Gestorben 30 September 1995Bildhauer, GrafikerThe sculptor Theo Balden was born Otto Koehler in Brazil, the child of an expatriate couple. His father's death prompted his mother to return to Germany with her children.
Albert Bassermann
Geboren on 7 September 1867Gestorben on 15 May 1952SchauspielerAlbert Bassermann began his career at the age of 20 in his home city of Mannheim. For a number of years he formed part of the renowned Meininger Hoftheater ensemble. In 1895 he moved to Berlin, where he performed first under Otto Brahm, and from 1909 under Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater.
Vicki Baum
Geboren on 24 January 1888Gestorben on 29 August 1960SchriftstellerinThe novels of Vicki Baum were popular throughout Europe in the 1920s. Grand Hotel (Menschen im Hotel) (1929) ultimately made her famous in the USA.
Herbert Bayer
Geboren on April 5, 1900Gestorben on September 30 1985MalerIt was in 1938 that Herbert Bayer took the decision to leave Germany. The Austrian had arrived in the country in 1920 to work alongside Emanuel Margold at the Mathildenhöhe artist’s colony in Darmstadt. From there he journeyed to Weimar and studied at the Bauhaus, before moving on to Dessau.
Johannes R. Becher
Geboren on 22 May 1891Gestorben on 11 October 1958Lyriker, Dramatiker, SchriftstellerThe sonnet Windflüchter by the poet Johannes R. Becher not only describes the storm-battered trees on the coast of the Baltic Sea, it also reveals something of the life of the poet and emigrant in a turbulent story.
Ulrich Becher
Geboren 2 January 1910Gestorben 15 April 1990Schriftsteller*** Please also visit the special exhibition Ulrich Becher *** When the Nazis took power in Germany in the spring of 1933, Ulrich Becher was at the beginning of a promising career as a writer. He was just 23 years young when – according to his own recollections – his first published work, the well-received collection of novellas Männer machen Fehler (Men Make Mistakes), published in 1932 by Rowohlt, fell victim to the Nazi book burnings of 10 May 1933.
Max Beckmann
Geboren on 12 February 1884Gestorben on 27 December 1950Maler*** Visit the special exhibition Max Beckmann ***The ten years that the painter spent mainly in Amsterdam make up a separate, important era in his life and creativity. Immediately before this, there were five years in Berlin.
Akbar Behkalam
Geboren on 16. September 1944MalerAkbar Behkalam achieved his school qualifications at an art school in the Iranian town of Tabriz and also completed his degree in art there from 1961 to 1964. After doing his military service in the Iranian part of Kurdistan, he studied art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Istanbul between 1967 and 1972.
Elisabeth Bergner
Geboren on 22 August 1897Gestorben on 12 May 1986SchauspielerinElisabeth Bergner's success on the stage began with Max Reinhardt’s production of As You Like It on 25 April 1923: “Bergner! Bergner! cheered the gallery. And those of us who were there bowed our heads and blessed her and wished her all the best.
Richard Arnold Bermann
Geboren on 27 April 1883Gestorben on 5 September 1939Journalist, SchriftstellerViennese writer and journalist Richard A. Bermann came to fame under the pseudonym Arnold Höllriegel. One of the leading journalists in the German-speaking world, he published articles in the Theater-Courier, Die Woche, the Berliner Tageblatt, the Vossische Zeitung and, particularly after 1918, Der Friede and Der Neue Tag.
Wolf Biermann
Geboren 15 November 1936Musiker, SchriftstellerWolf Biermann already moved to the GDR of his own volition as a young man and, in the early 1960s began to write songs and poems which also dealt critically with the political and social situation in socialist East Germany. For this reason, the artist found himself increasingly subjected to restrictions by the authorities.
Ilse Bing
Geboren on 23 March 1899Gestorben on 30 March 1998FotografinIlse Bing found her way to photography while she was studying art history. Her early works included photographs of the avant-garde buildings constructed for the urban development programme Das neue Frankfurt (The New Frankfurt), which got under way in the mid-1920s under the direction of architect Ernst May.
David Ludwig Bloch
Geboren on 25 March 1910Gestorben on 16 September 2002Maler, GrafikerAs a deaf painter, Bloch had an exceptionally keen eye. He made the new world, which he experienced as an emigrant in Shanghai his own by unlocking its imagery.
Rainer Bonar
Geboren on 29 February 1956Gestorben on 27 November 1996Maler, GrafikerRainer Bonar (real name Rainer Lietzke) often caused offence, deliberately. He was arrested for the first time by the GDR authorities in 1973, when he painted his triptych Schießbefehl.
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
Geboren on 19 April 1915Gestorben on 29 October 1942SchriftstellerOnly a little is known about the life of writer Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, due not least to the circumstances of his exile. His childhood was largely Protestant.
Bertolt Brecht
Geboren on 10 February 1898Gestorben on 14 August 1956Schriftsteller, Drehbuchautor, TheaterregisseurWas Bertolt Brecht an emigrant? He didn’t see himself as such. Brecht constantly fought against the use of the term, which implies a freedom of choice that expellees were not given.
Hermann Broch
Geboren on 1 November 1886Gestorben on 30 May 1951SchriftstellerHermann Broch studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. The trilogy of novels “Die Schlafwandler” (The Sleepwalkers) (1930–32) established him as an author.
Paul Celan
Geboren on 23 November 1920Gestorben on 20 April 1970SchriftstellerPaul Celan grew up in a German-speaking, Jewish family in Czernowitz in Romania. His childhood in the Bukovina region was shaped by a multicultural, multi-ethnic state. The later nom de plume Celan is a Romanianised anagram of his actual surname Antschel.
Paul Dessau
Geboren on 19 December 1894Gestorben on 28 June 1979Komponist, DirigentPaul Dessau had lived in Berlin since the end of the 1920s. Initially he worked as a conductor at the Städtische Oper Berlin under the direction of general musical director Bruno Walter.
Marlene Dietrich
Geboren on 27 December 1901Gestorben on 6 May 1992Schauspielerin, SängerinMarlene Dietrich was never a political artist, nor did she flee the Nazis to the American continent. And yet she was consistent in her opposition to Hitler’s Germany and her support for the United States.
Alfred Döblin
Geboren on 10 August 1878Gestorben on 26 June 1957SchriftstellerAlfred Döblin was interested in literature at an early age and already wrote his first novel in his early twenties. He studied medicine and worked as a doctor, but remained true to his writing and was also successful as an author.
Fred Dolbin
Geboren on 1 August 1883Gestorben on 31 March 1971GrafikerBenedikt Fred Dolbin, real name: Fred Pollack, was a member of Vienna’s art and coffeehouse circles. Although he initially trained and qualified as an engineer, Dolbin went on to study composition with Arnold Schönberg and was active as a member of the Vienna art group Die Bewegung.
Angelica Domröse
Berlin theatre actress and DEFA film starSchauspielerinTogether with her second husband Hilmar Thate, the actress Angelica Domröse joined the circle of those artists who left East Germany in protest against the 1976 deportation of Wolf Biermann. Finding her work increasingly hindered, she emigrated permanently to the Federal Republic in 1980.
Albert Ehrenstein
Geboren December 23, 1886,Gestorben April 8, 1950,Schriftsteller, LyrikerAlbert Ehrenstein was a prominent representative of Expressionist literature. His poetry resonated in the time before, during, and after World War I.
Hanns Eisler
Geboren on 6 July 1898Gestorben on 6 September 1962KomponistFrom 1919 to 1923, Hanns Eisler was a pupil of the composer Arnold Schönberg. He was closely affiliated to the Communist Party of Germany and wrote for workers’ choirs and agitprop groups.
Lyonel Feininger
Geboren on July 17, 1871Gestorben on January 13, 1956MalerLeaving Germany was hard for Lyonel Feininger. On June 11, 1937, shortly before his 66th birthday, the painter boarded the Europa steam ship with his wife Julia.
Lion Feuchtwanger
Geboren on 7 July 1884Gestorben on 21 December 1958Schriftsteller, PublizistLion Feuchtwanger heard about the Nazi assumption of power while he was in the USA for a lecture tour. He decided not to return to Germany.
Herbert Fiedler
Geboren on 17 September 1891Gestorben on 27 February 1962MalerHerbert Fiedler fled the Nazi tyranny from Berlin to Amsterdam with the Swiss painter, and his future wife, Amrey (Annemarie) Balsiger, at the end of 1934 which took him up to the invasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940.Being German in a foreign country, artistic freedom, mental solitude in the bygone artist village of Laren from the beginning of February 1935 until he was forced to move to Amsterdam in early November 1940, was all expressed in his journal and letters to his friend from the Dresden Art Academy 1910-1912, George Grosz in New York.
Hans Günter Flieg
Geboren on 3 July 1923Gestorben on 4 September 2024FotografAfter Jews were almost completely deprived of rights within the German Reich, Hans Günter Flieg, just 16 years old, left Chemnitz with his family in 1939 and headed for Brazil.
Bruno Frank
Geboren on 13 June 1887Gestorben on 20 June 1945SchriftstellerWriter Bruno Frank left Germany immediately after the Reichstag fire of February 1933. As a Jew and a democrat, he abhorred National Socialism.
Chanan Frenkel
Geboren on 22 July 1905Gestorben on 30 April 1957ArchitektAfter breaking off his apprenticeship as a sales clerk in Leipzig and ending an unfinished training course in a Berlin second-hand book store, Chanan Frenkel went for three years on Hakhshara (English “preparation”) at the age of 20. He was becoming increasingly interested in Zionism and was preparing to emigrate to Palestine.
Gisèle Freund
Geboren on 19 December 1908Gestorben on 31 March 2000FotografinGrowing up in the home of an art collector, Gisèle Freund began to take an interest in photography early on. She received her first camera from her father at the age of 15, thus laying the foundations for a career as a famous photographer.
Alexander Moritz Frey
Geboren on 29 March 1881Gestorben on 24 January 1957SchriftstellerAlexander Moritz Frey became well known in the 1910s and 1920s for his ghost stories and the novel Solneman der Unsichtbare [Solneman the Invisible] (1914), another example of the fantasy genre. He later enjoyed greater success with the anti-war novel Die Pflasterkästen [The Cross Bearers] (1929), which appeared as part of a series with Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neues [All Quiet on the Western Front] and is based on Frey’s experiences in the battlefield during World War I.
Kurt Gerron
Geboren on 11 May 1897Gestorben on 28 October 1944SchauspielerThe multi-faceted actor and director Kurt Gerron was a much-lauded film, theatre and cabaret star of the Weimar Republic. In 1928 he sang the song Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (The Ballad of Mack the Knife) in the first performance of Bertolt Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera).
Valeska Gert
Geboren on 11 January 1892Gestorben between 15 and 18 March 1978Schauspielerin, TänzerinIn 1936, when Valeska Gert went into exile in London, she could look back on an impressive career. She came from a Jewish family in Berlin, received her training in theatre from Maria Moissi, and was engaged in the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Münchner Kammerspiel.
Oskar Maria Graf
Geboren on 22 July 1894Gestorben on 28 June 1967SchriftstellerAn important event at the beginning of Oskar Maria Graf’s exile was his angry protest “burn me!” against the book burnings of 10 May 1933. Yet Graf’s exile had already begun with the burning of the Reichstag on 27 February. At this time Graf was in Vienna and never returned to Germany.
Alexander Granach
Geboren on 18 April 1890Gestorben on 14 March 1945Schauspieler, SchriftstellerWhen Alexander Granach emigrated from Germany on 29 March 1933, he was one of the most successful expressionist actors in Germany. In the political theatre of Berlin – in the ensemble of director Erwin Piscator, among others – he was a popular actor.
Olga Grjasnowa
Geboren 14 November 1984SchriftstellerinOlga Grjasnowa spent the first years of her life in Baku, Azerbaijan. When she was eleven, she and her family left the Soviet Union.
Walter Gropius
Geboren on 18 May 1883Gestorben on 5 July 1969Architekt, DesignerWhen Walter Gropius went to England in October 1934, he did not think that he would spend the next two and a half years living there. His planned stay in England was connected to a project that he was working on.
George Grosz
Geboren on 26 July 1893Gestorben on 6 July 1959Maler, GrafikerIn 1932, the painter George Grosz received an invitation to teach at New York’s Art School, the Art Students League, upon which he embarked on his journey to the USA without delay. The attitude towards art held by the one-time communist, member of Berlin’s DADA scene and critic of German bourgeois society had already begun to change at that time and he no longer saw art first and foremost as an instrument for improving people and society.
Lea Grundig
Geboren on 23 March 1906Gestorben on 10 October 1977Malerin, GrafikerinAs a Jew, a communist and an artist, Lea Grundig was persecuted and vilified by the Nazis. From 1933 she was an active member of the anti-fascist resistance and saw herself – until her expulsion from Germany – as an artist in domestic exile.
Martin Gumpert
Geboren on 13 November 1897Gestorben on 18 April 1958Publizist, SchriftstellerIn his autobiography Hölle im Paradies (Hell in Paradise), Martin Gumpert describes a walk through the suburb of Wedding in his hometown of Berlin. He had moved into a guesthouse and behaved as if he were a foreigner. Shortly afterwards, this became a reality: in 1936 the Jewish doctor and writer emigrated to America.
Joseph Hahn
Geboren on 20 July 1917Gestorben on 31 October 2007Grafiker, SchriftstellerAt first Hahn wanted to be an art teacher in his native Bohemia, but he broke off his studies in order to dedicate himself entirely to art. In 1937 he went to Prague to study painting at the academy of arts.
Jakob Haringer
Geboren on 16 March 1898Gestorben on 3 April 1948SchriftstellerAlthough little other than a cover address in Breslau is known of Jakob Haringer’s life in exile in the years from 1933 to 1935, his exile work opens in spectacular fashion. In his Deutschland-Ode [Ode to Germany] published in 1934 in the exile publication Neuen Tage-Buch, Haringer strikes the tone of sharp, emotional indignation typical of this early period of anti-Fascist exile poetry and pours condemnation on the new rulers: “The brown plague has crept in and suffocated you, / In cowardice they have gagged and bedevilled you - / My most beautiful country.
John Heartfield
Geboren on 19 June 1891Gestorben on 26 April 1968Maler, Grafiker, Illustrator“We noticed, or maybe I noticed in particular, that the pencil was too weak to convincingly hammer it home to people what one had to say at the time.” (ed. trans.) (John Heartfield, radio interview, 1966) Heartfield saw his art as a tool in the fight for what was right.
Iwan Heilbut
Geboren on 15 July 1898Gestorben on 15 April 1972Schriftsteller, JournalistAfter a brief internment, during which his manuscripts were also confiscated, the author and journalist Iwan Heilbut fled Berlin in 1933, going into exile in France via Czechoslovakia.
Manfred Henninger
Geboren on 2 December 1894Gestorben on 5 October 1986Maler, KeramikerManfred Henninger, who had studied under Oskar Kokoschka among others, had become an established part of the Stuttgart arts scene at the beginning of the 1930s. His figurative painting was fed by his pantheistic worldview.
Eva Herrmann
Geboren on 8 February 1901Gestorben on 7 September 1978Malerin, Illustratorin, GrafikerinA cosmopolitan spirit, Eva Herrmann never really settled anywhere. She grew up in Munich as the third of five children, her father an American painter with German-Jewish roots and her mother a Romanian Jew.
Paul Hindemith
Geboren on 16 November 1895Gestorben on 18 December 1963Komponist, DirigentFollowing the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, the works of Paul Hindemith were defamed as “culturally Bolshevist” and removed from concert programmes; as a violist, he was increasingly restricted to performing abroad. However, as no general ban on his work was declared, Hindemith remained in Germany on the assumption that the situation could not endure for long.
Kurt Hirschfeld
Geboren on 10 March 1902Gestorben on 8 November 1964TheaterregisseurIn 1930, after completing his studies in German and Philosophy,In Kurt Hirschfeld took up the post of dramaturge at the Hessisches Landestheater (Hessian State Theatre) in Darmstadt under its director Gustav Hartung. He also worked as an artistic director there.
Paul Oscar Huldschinsky
Geboren on 18 August 1889Gestorben on 1 February 1947Architekt, Illustrator, SammlerPaul Huldschinsky was the son of industrial magnate Oscar Huldschinsky. He initially worked as an illustrator but went on to make a name for himself as an interior designer in the Weimar Republic.
Eric Isenburger
Berlin – Paris – New YorkGeboren on 17 May 1902Gestorben on 26 March 1994MalerA solo exhibition at the prestigious Berlin gallery of Wolfgang Gurlitt should have been a breakthrough for the painter Eric Isenburger in early 1933. The public response was great and the press was full of praise.
Jula Isenburger
Geboren on 9 January 1908Gestorben on 17 April 2000TänzerinJula Elenbogen came to Frankfurt as a 16-year-old to become a dancer. In order to continue her dance training she moved in 1928 with her husband, the painter Eric Isenburger, to Vienna.
Paul Walter Jacob
Geboren on 26 January 1905Gestorben on 20 July 1977Dirigent, Dirigent, Schauspieler, SchriftstellerAfter working in Koblenz, Lübeck and Wuppertal, Paul Walter Jacob was appointed Director of Opera and Operetta at Essen’s Städtische Bühnen (Civic Theatres) in 1931. He had already experienced hostility in Wuppertal for being a Social Democrat.
Uwe Johnson
Geboren on 20 July 1934Gestorben on 23 February 1984SchriftstellerUwe Johnson was born in Pomerania and, as an 11-year-old, was forced to flee with his family from the advancing Red Army. His father was arrested after the war and did not return from Soviet internment. In 1945 Johnson lived with his mother and his sister first of all in the Mecklenburg toen of Reckwitz and then in Güstrow.
Kurt Jooss
Around the world with the Folkwang dance companyGeboren on 12 January 1901Gestorben on 22 May 1979Tänzer, ChoreografParallel to studying music in Stuttgart, Kurt Jooss discovered his enthusiasm for the art of dance through his acquaintance with the Hungarian choreographer Rudolf von Laban. In 1927 he founded the Folkwang experimental dance theatre studio in Essen. He became internationally known for the expressionist choreography of the piece Der grüne Tisch (The Green Table) (1932).
Georg Kaiser
Geboren on 25 November 1878Gestorben on 4 June 1945SchriftstellerGeorg Kaiser went into exile comparatively late, especially considering his rejection of Nazism had been discovered some years previously and he had been excluded from the Prussian Academy of Arts as early as May 1933.
Mascha Kaléko
Poet of the New ObjectivityGeboren born on 7 June 1907Gestorben died on 21 January 1975SchriftstellerinThe work of poet Mascha Kaléko was marked by the experience of homelessness and rootlessness. Born the child of a Russian Jewish businessman in Western Galicia (now Poland), she moved to Germany with her family after the outbreak of the First World War to escape anti-Semitic pogroms and military entanglements.
Ossip Kalenter
Geboren on 15 November 1900Gestorben on 14 January 1976SchriftstellerDresden-born writer Ossip Kalenter, whose real name –according to his German passport of 1939 – was actually Johannes Burckhardt, first came to public attention in 1920 with his poetry anthology Der seriöse Spaziergang (“The Sedate Stroll”). However, after moving to Italy in 1924, he mainly made a name for himself as a newspaper author and features writer for publications such as the Frankfurter Zeitung, Weltbühne, the Berliner Tagblatt and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Gina Kaus
Geboren on 21 October 1893Gestorben on 23 December 1985SchriftstellerinIn addition to dramas, poetry and short stories, Gina Kaus also wrote for various newspapers, magazines and literary journals in the 1920s. In Vienna and Berlin, she was well-established in the respective city’s artist networks.
Alfred Kerr
Geboren on 25 December 1867Gestorben on 12 October 1948Schriftsteller, Kritiker, DramatikerThe Berlin theatre critic and writer Alfred Kerr had publicly warned of the threat of national socialism in the years before 1933. For this reason in February 1933 he already lived in fear for his life and had to flee Germany.
Hermann Kesten
Geboren on 28 January 1900Gestorben on 3 May 1996Schriftsteller, PublizistWhen Hermann Kesten left Berlin hastily in March 1933 and went into exile in France, he had already published four novels, a book of short stories and seven plays. He belonged to a generation of younger writers who had a significant influence on the literature of the Weimar Republic from the late 1920s.
Irmgard Keun
Geboren on 6 Februar 1905Gestorben on 5 Mai 1982SchriftstellerinIrmgard Keun enjoyed great public acclaim for her first two novels Gilgi, eine von uns [Gilgi, One of Us] (1931) and Das kunstseidene Mädchen [The Artificial Silk Girl] (1932) during the last few years of the Weimar Republic. In 1933, the Nazis banned both works, condemning them as “asphalt literature with anti-German tendencies”.
Paul Klee
Geboren on 18 December 1879Gestorben on 12 January 1940MalerAfter being dismissed from the Art Academy in Düsseldorf in autumn 1933, the painter Paul Klee lived in Berne for six years. The son of a German father and Swiss mother, Klee was born in Switzerland yet had obtained the citizenship of his father.
Otto Klemperer
Geboren on 14 May 1885Gestorben on 6 July 1973Dirigent, KomponistIn the Weimar Republic, Otto Klemperer was regarded as a conductor of the modern age: Among others, he championed works by Arnold Schönberg and Kurt Weill. The numerous pieces he composed himself are largely unknown.
Oskar Kokoschka
Geboren 1 March 1886Gestorben 22 February 1980MalerOskar Kokoschka enjoyed great esteem as a painter in the Weimar Republic. In the years from 1919 to 1926 he held a post as a professor at the Dresden Art Academy.
Fritz Kortner
Geboren on 12 May 1892Gestorben on 22 July 1970Schauspieler, Filmregisseur, TheaterregisseurFritz Nathan Kohn already wanted to become an actor when he was a teenager. He studied dramatic arts in Vienna and changed his name to Fritz Kortner.
Ernst Krenek
Geboren on 23 August 1900Gestorben on 22 December 1991Komponist, Dirigent, MusikerErnst Krenek had considered leaving Austria as early as 1935, when his play Karl V. failed to open in Vienna for political reasons. However Krenek remained in Austria and in 1937 he had the chance to travel to the USA at the invitation of the Salzburg Opera Guild.
Helmut Krommer
Lord Cromer-Peniless of GuildfordGeboren on 17 September 1891Gestorben on 6 June 1973Maler, GrafikerHelmut Krommer initially followed in his father’s footsteps and pursued studies in law. It was some time later that he changed career paths and took up fine arts.
Lola Landau
Geboren on 3 December 1892Gestorben on 3 February 1990SchriftstellerinLola Landau – a successful author, poet and dramatist – suffered under arbitrary despotism of the Nazis. Her publications were banned, thereby prohibiting her from working, which caused financial problems for her.
Hermann Landshoff
Geboren on 2 March 1905Gestorben 1986FotografThe son of the renowned musicologist Ludwig Landshoff, Hermann Landshoff was born in a Jewish home. He studied to be a typographer and book illustrator.
Fritz Lang
Geboren 5 December 1890Gestorben 2 August 1976Filmregisseur, DrehbuchautorIn 1908, the 18 year-old Fritz Lang switched from architecture to art. He wanted to be a painter, and in 1913 moved to Paris.
Wolfgang Langhoff
The "peat bog soldier" flees to SwitzerlandGeboren on 06 October 1901Gestorben on 25 August 1966Schauspieler, TheaterregisseurWolfgang Langhoff worked as an actor from 1928 in Dusseldorf and was politically active for the KPD. In 1933 he was charged with "preparing a coup d'état".
Else Lasker-Schüler
Geboren on 11 February 1869Gestorben on 22 January 1945SchriftstellerinElse Lasker-Schüler was exotic – both as a writer and as a person. She constantly reinvented herself, assuming invented identities such as that of Prince Yussuf of Thebes. Exile hit her hard and abruptly.
Maria Lazar
Geboren on 22 November 1895Gestorben on 30 March 1948Schriftstellerin, JournalistinMaria Lazar came from an assimilated Jewish family; children’s book author Auguste Lazar was her older sister. She published her first novel, “Die Vergiftung” (The Poisoning), in 1920 and also made a name for herself as a theatre author.
Maria Leitner
Geboren on 19 January 1892Gestorben on 14 March 1942Schriftstellerin, JournalistinMaria Leitner first had to flee into exile at the beginning of the 1920s. After the abolition of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, she emigrated via Vienna to Berlin.
Lotte Lenya
Geboren on 18 October 1898Gestorben on 27 November 1981Schauspielerin, SängerinLotte Lenya began her acting and dancing career under her birth name of Karoline Blamauer in Zurich. There she shared the stage with Elisabeth Bergner.
Jean Leppien
Geboren on 8 April 1910Gestorben on 19 October 1991MalerThe former Bauhaus student, born Kurt Leppien, left Berlin under the name Kurt Leppien in 1933. The painter's circle of friends included many communists and Jews who had already left Berlin.
Heinz Liepman
Geboren 27.08.1905Gestorben 06.06.1966Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, JournalistAs a young man, Heinz Liepman was already working as a journalist, playwright and writer. Some of his novels such as Die Hilflosen or Der Frieden brach aus, both published in 1930, were translated into English and French and gained international recognition.
Hilde Loewe-Flatter
Henry LoveGeboren on 8 July 1895Gestorben on 15 April 1976KomponistinIn 1920s Vienna, Hilde Loewe-Flatter was much in demand as a pianist who was able to switch effortlessly between classical music and light entertainment. As a composer, she wrote numerous ballads and popular songs under the pseudonym Henry Love.
Peter Lorre
Geboren on 26 June 1904Gestorben on 23 March 1964Schauspieler, Drehbuchautor, FilmregisseurUntil 1931, when the film director Fritz Lang gave him his signature role in M, except for two small supporting roles in silent films, Peter Lorre had only acted in the theatre. He had contracts in theatres in Wroclaw, Zurich, Vienna and Bertolt Brecht's theatre on the Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin.
Peter Lotar
Geboren on 12 February 1910Gestorben on 12 July 1986Schauspieler, Dirigent, SchriftstellerPrague-born actor and writer Peter Lotar left his native city during the German annexation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and fled through German territory to Switzerland, where he lived until his death in 1986. Lotar was raised bilingually in a Jewish home in Prague under his real name Lotar Chitz.
Emil Ludwig
Geboren on 25 January 1881Gestorben on 17 September 1948SchriftstellerOne figure who featured largely in the history of exile literature was Emil Ludwig, who achieved worldwide fame and enjoyed huge print runs of his psychologically and psychopathologically accentuated historical biographies of Bismarck, Goethe, Wilhelm II and Napoleon. These were written for a fashionable readership during the years of the Weimar Republic.
Leo Maillet
Geboren on 29 March 1902Gestorben on 8. März 1990MalerAfter completing a commercial apprenticeship and working in his father’s business in Frankfurt am Main for several years, Leopold Mayer began studying art in 1923. In 1930, he was admitted to Max Beckmann’s masterclass at the Städelschule academy of art.
Erika Mann
Geboren on 9 November 1905Gestorben on 27 August 1969Journalistin, Schauspielerin, SchriftstellerinIn exile, Erika Mann, the oldest daughter of Thomas Mann, became an eloquent, tireless campaigner against the ideology and crimes of National Socialism. As a drama pupil of Max Reinhardt, Erika Mann enjoyed numerous engagements at theatres in the Weimar Republic from the mid-1920s.
Heinrich Mann
Geboren on 27 March 1871Gestorben on 11 March 1950SchriftstellerAfter starting his career as editor of the conservative monthly Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert [The twentieth century], Heinrich Mann advanced from his beginnings in an upper middle class merchant family from Lübeck to become one of the most influential critics of Wilhelmine Germany.
Klaus Mann
An Autobiographical Chronicler of his TimeGeboren on 18 November 1906Gestorben on 21 Mai 1949SchriftstellerOf Thomas Mann’s six children, all of whom were active as writers, his eldest son, Klaus, left behind the most extensive work – and the most important from a literary standpoint. He published his first novel Der fromme Tanz [The Pious Dance] at the age of 19.
Thomas Mann
Power and Ineffectuality of the Nobel Laureate for LiteratureGeboren on 6 June 1875Gestorben on 12 August 1955SchriftstellerWith widely read novels like Buddenbrooks (1901) [Buddenbrooks (1924/1993)], Königliche Hoheit (1909) [Royal Highness (1916)] and Der Zauberberg (1924) [The Magic Mountain (1927/2005)], the later Nobel laureate Thomas Mann had gained a reputation in the first three decades of the 20th century as being, in the view of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, "the greatest stylist of German since Goethe’s death". The son of a merchant and senator from Lübeck, for a long time he presented himself as an apolitical writer, but transformed in the 1920s, moving away from conservatism by increasingly becoming an advocate of the Weimar Republic.
Ernst May
Geboren on 27 July 1886Gestorben on 11 September 1970ArchitektErnst May's emigration to East Africa was a marked turning point in his career. The architect and town planner had previously worked in Silesia, Frankfurt am Main and the Soviet Union with great success. After his work in Russia, his way home was barred because the Nazis disparaged May's modern architecture.
Carl Meffert
“Profession: Émigré”Geboren on 26 March 1903Gestorben on 27 December 1988GrafikerCarl Meffert and his sister were born out of wedlock. When their mother died giving birth to a third child, the eleven-year-old Carl was sent to a state care institution where the young inmates had both to attend school and work.
Walter Mehring
Geboren on 29 April 1896 in Berlin, GermanyGestorben on 3 October 1981 in Zurich, SwitzerlandLyriker, SchriftstellerAfter starting out in Dadaism, Walter Mehring rose at the beginning of the 1920s to become one of the most popular cabaret, song and lyric writers in Berlin. His lyrics were set to music, his satirical songs and chansons recited and sung on the famous stages.
Ludwig Meidner
Geboren 18. April 1884Gestorben 14. Mai 1966Maler*** Please also visit the special exhibition Ludwig Meidner ***Ludwig Meidner achieved his artistic breakthrough in November 1912 with the exhibition of the Die Pathetiker artist group in Herwarth Walden's Berlin gallery Der Sturm. Meidner was consequently closely associated with literary expressionism: he created illustrations for all the renowned expressionist magazines, published his own texts and painted portraits of countless poets.
Erich Mendelsohn
Geboren on 21 March 1887Gestorben on 15 September 1953ArchitektAfter some detours, Erich Mendelsohn eventually pursued his own career path despite the wishes of his parents. In 1912 he finished his studies in architecture in Munich.
Konrad Merz
Geboren on 2 April 1908Gestorben on 3 December 1999SchriftstellerKurt Lehmann alias Konrad Merz came from a working class family; his father already died in 1914, the first year of World War One. Forced to earn his own living, he left school early.
Helga Michie
Geboren on 1 November 1921Schauspielerin, Malerin, SchriftstellerinHelga Michie was born in Linz on 1 November 1921. Her twin sister is the author Ilse Aichinger. Following their parents’ divorce, the girls moved with their mother to Vienna.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Geboren on 27 March 1886Gestorben on 17 August 1969Architekt, DesignerIn Germany the number of viable jobs for him had declined since the assumption of power by the National Socialists and the closure of the Bauhaus, which Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was director of between 1932 and 1933. He could no longer equal his former successes such as the exhibition pavilion for the World Expo in 1929 in Barcelona.
Jo Mihaly
Geboren on 25 April 1902Gestorben on 29 March 1989Tänzerin, SchriftstellerinJo Mihaly: This name was given to the then 10-year-old Elfriede Alice Kuhr by a presumably Hungarian Romany family. In reference to the archangel Michael, it means "good angel" in Hungarian.
Lucia Moholy
Geboren on 18 January 1894Gestorben on 17 May 1989FotografinLucia Moholy left Germany in August 1933 after her partner Theodor Neubauer was arrested in her apartment. She left her entire oeuvre to that date – 500 to 600 glass negatives – in the care of her ex-husband László Moholy-Nagy.
László Moholy-Nagy
Geboren on 20 July 1895Gestorben on 24 November 1946Fotograf, Designer, MalerDuring his 51 years of life, László Moholy-Nagy lived in six different countries. As a citizen of Hungary of Jewish descent, he never saw himself as an emigrant despite the fact that he emigrated to Vienna in 1919 following the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Soma Morgenstern
Geboren on 3 May 1890Gestorben on 17 April 1976Schriftsteller, JournalistThe author Soma Morgenstern was already interested in literature, theatre, music and art as a child. He grew up in East Galicia, lived from on 1912 in Vienna, studied Law there and in Lviv and was a Lieutenant in the First World War.
Massi Mrowat
Geboren 31 August 1993SchauspielerAt the time when Berlin-based actor Massi Mrowat accepted the offer to play a young Taliban soldier in the film The Stone of Patience there was no way he could know what far-reaching consequences the role would have for him and his entire family. Mrowat had come to Germany early in 2010 because his father was a diplomat in the Afghan Embassy.
Herta Müller
Geboren on 17 August 1953SchriftstellerinAfter her studies in German and Romanian Philology, the writer Herta Müller worked as a translator in a machine works. As she refused to cooperate with the Securitate secret service, she was fired in 1979.
Robert Musil
Geboren on 6 November 1880Gestorben on 15 April 1942SchriftstellerIn 1906, Robert Musil published his first novel, “Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless” (The Confusions of Young Törless). Although it met with an appreciative reception, Musil was unable to earn a living from his writing.
Hans Natonek
Geboren on 28 October 1892Gestorben on 23 October 1963Schriftsteller, JournalistIn 1940, Hans Natonek was at the height of his powers as a writer and journalist. When he arrived in the US on 20 January 1941, he had been through some tumultuous years, from the loss of his job and German citizenship, to denunciations by his first wife and exclusion from the Reich Chamber of Culture.
Otto Nebel
Geboren on 25 December 1892Gestorben on 12 September 1973Schriftsteller, Maler, SchauspielerBerlin-based writer and painter Otto Nebel and his wife Hilda Nebel emigrated to Bern, Switzerland, on 15 May 1933, shortly after the National Socialists came to power. He remained there until his death in 1973.
Alfred Neumann
Geboren on 15 October 1895Gestorben on 3 October 1952Schriftsteller, DrehbuchautorOn account of his success, Alfred Neumann is regarded as the great exception among the numerous German exile writers who tried their luck as a film-author in Hollywood after emigrating to the United States. His script for the war movie None Shall Escape was nominated for an Academy Award in 1944.
Alfred Neumeyer
Geboren on 7 January 1901Gestorben on 21 January 1973SchriftstellerAlfred Neumeyer, who later completed a doctorate in art history, felt a calling as an author during his youth. In the beginning he felt drawn to both fields in which he had talents and devoted himself to them in parallel: In 1931 he started work as a private tutor for art history in Berlin.
Felix Nussbaum
Geboren on 11 December 1904Gestorben Date of death unknown,MalerThrough art, Felix Nussbaum assured himself of his identity, which had been repeatedly thrown into question for him through his years of exile. He dealt with the experiences of losing his homeland and persecution directly in his pictures.
Max Ophüls
Geboren on 6 May 1902Gestorben on 26 March 1957Schauspieler, Theaterregisseur, FilmregisseurSaarbrücken-born Max Ophüls was regarded as a poet among directors on the strength of his sensitive literary adaptations. He began his career as a 19 year-old theatre actor and gained experience in directing and in broadcasting from an early stage.
Gerhard Ortinau
Geboren on 18 March 1953SchriftstellerGerhard Ortinau was a part of the Romanian-German minority and grew up in the Banat. He was born in the Baragan steppe in southeastern Romania, to which his parents had been deported in 1951.
Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Geboren 10. August 1946Schriftstellerin, Schauspielerin, TheaterregisseurinEmine Sevgi Özdamar grew up in various places in Turkey and attended drama school in Istanbul between 1967 and 1970. Following the military coup in 1971, she was able to continue working as an actress in Turkey until 1976 despite her membership of the Turkish workers’ party.
Oskar Pastior
Geboren on 20 October 1927Gestorben on 4 October 2006SchriftstellerThe experimental poet Oskar Pastior belonged to the German minority in the Romanian Hermannstadt (Sibiu). In January 1945, the then 17-year-old student was kidnapped and taken to a Russian labour camp, where he survived hunger, cold, disease and hard labour.
Richard Paulick
Geboren on 7 November 1903Gestorben on 4 March 1979 in Berlin, GDRArchitektIn June 1933, architect Richard Paulick reached Shanghai, where he would spend the next sixteen years of his life. He had already been able to gather his first experiences of modern, rational and experimental architecture during his studies under Hans Poelzig, as well as in the architectural bureau of Walter Gropius and in his cooperation with Georg Muche in the design the Steel House in Dessau.
Leo Perutz
Bestselling author in Vienna, almost forgotten in Tel AvivGeboren on 2 November 1882Gestorben on 25 August 1957SchriftstellerLeo Perutz was one of the most popular German-language novelists in the period between the World Wars and already published his first literary works while still a trainee actuary. His circle of friends in Vienna included Franz Werfel, Alfred Polgar, Richard A. Bermann and Rudolf Olden.
Jacob (also: Jakob) Picard
Chronicler of rural German Jews Geboren on 11 January 1883Gestorben on 1 October 1967SchriftstellerJacob Picard, a lawyer with a doctorate, is regarded as the chronicler of rural German Jews on account of his literary works. He was born in 1883 as the son of Jewish parents in Wangen on the Höri peninsula of Lake Constance where ostracised artists such as Otto Dix or Max Ackermann went into "inner emigration" during the Nazi dictatorship in Germany.
Erna Pinner
Geboren on 27 January 1890Gestorben on 5 March 1987Malerin, IllustratorinErna Pinner came from a Jewish family in Frankfurt. She studied art in Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris.
Erwin Piscator
Geboren on 17 December 1893Gestorben on 30 March 1966Theaterregisseur, FilmregisseurAs a producer in the theatres of Berlin, Erwin Piscator made intensive use of materials. He used large iron structures, projected films or motorised bridges.
Friedrich Polnauer
Geboren on 4 July 1905Gestorben on 22 November 1974Ingenieur, MusikerFriedrich Polnauer was gifted both musically and technically. After losing his job as an engineer in Berlin in 1930 as a result of the Depression and subsequently setting up as a freelance inventor, he began private violin studies at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory.
Hans Marsilius Purrmann
Geboren 10. April 1880Gestorben 17. April 1966Maler, Grafiker, Kunstschriftsteller, SammlerBy the time he went into exile in 1933, Hans Marsilius Purrmann was already a well-travelled, experienced painter. In 1905, he met Max Liebermann, Max Slevogt, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse in Berlin.
Carl Rabus
Geboren on 30 May 1898Gestorben on 28 July 1983Grafiker, MalerCarl Rabus first made a name for himself with graphic art in the 1920s: lino- and woodcuts and illustrations influenced by expressionism. Later came watercolours and oil paintings of landscapes, cities and people.
Max Reinhardt
Geboren on 9 September 1873Gestorben on 31 October 1943Schauspieler, TheaterregisseurThe actor and director Max Reinhardt founded the theatre Salzburger Festspiele in 1920, ran several theatres in Berlin and was artistic director of Vienna’s Theater in der Josefstadt from 1924 to 1933. A great many actors performed there after 1933 who, like Max Reinhardt himself, no longer wanted to or were allowed to perform in Germany.
Walter Reisch
Geboren on 23 May 1903Gestorben on 28 March 1983Drehbuchautor, FilmregisseurVienna-born Walter Reisch established his first contacts in the film industry while still a student. At 17 he was Director's Assistant to Alexander Korda and wrote his first comedy; later he made screenwriting his profession.
Erich Maria Remarque
Geboren on 22 June 1898Gestorben on 25 September 1970SchriftstellerWriter Erich Maria Remarque left Germany and settled in Switzerland as early as April 1932. This was to escape an order of punishment for a monetary offence.
Emy Roeder
Geboren on 30 January 1890Gestorben on 7 February 1971BildhauerinThe sculptor Emy Roeder learned her craft in her hometown of Würzburg, as well as in Munich and Darmstadt. In the 1920s she successfully established herself in Berlin as an expressionist artist.
Khalil Rostamkhani
Geboren on 11 September 1953SchriftstellerAlready as a 16-year-old, the Iranian writer Khalil Rostamkhani took part in the 1969 protests against the Shah's regime. Three years later he went to study in England.
Joseph Roth
Geboren on 2 September 1894Gestorben on 27 May 1939Schriftsteller, JournalistJoseph Roth was a storyteller and the story he narrated most often was his own biography. Reality was what he wrote about.
Nelly Sachs
Geboren on 10 December 1891Gestorben on 12 May 1970Lyrikerin, SchriftstellerinA native of Berlin, Nelly Sachs already secretly wrote poems and stories as a child. 1921 saw the publication of her first book Legenden und Erzählungen (Legends and Tales) with eight pieces of prose, which she sent to Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf, whom she very much admired.
Hans Sahl
Geboren on 20 May 1902Gestorben on 27 April 1993Schriftsteller, JournalistAlready as a child Hans Sahl wanted to be a writer. He wrote expressionist poetry and short stories, some of which were also published.
Sasha Marianna Salzmann
Geboren 21. August 1985Schriftstellerin, Theaterautorin, Dramaturgin, EssayistinSasha Marianna Salzmann was born in Volgograd, grew up in Moscow, and emigrated with her family to Germany in 1995 as a so-called Jewish quota refugee. “The teachers at school asked us who we were, and we said Volga Germans, German Russians, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews (naturally without gendering, since we were still a long way from even having heard of it),” wrote Sasha Marianna Salzmann in an article for taz published in 2018.
Eric Schaal
Portrayer of artistsGeboren on 18 August 1905Gestorben on 26 April 1994FotografEric Schaal had been interested in everything to do with art since his childhood. He was given his first camera for his Bar Mitzvah and learned how to use it at a nearby photo studio.
Josef Scharl
Geboren on 9 December 1896Gestorben on 6 December 1954Maler, GrafikerIn 1938, the painter and graphic artist Josef Scharl, who painted in the style of the New Objectivity, could only paint in secret in Germany. In the eyes of the Nazis his paintings were “degenerate art”.
René Schickele
Pacifist in second exileGeboren on 4 August 1883Gestorben on 31 January 1940SchriftstellerWhen René Schickele left Germany in September 1932, he was of the opinion that the Nazis’ coming to power was only a matter of time. He rented out his house in Badenweiler and settled with his family in Sanary-sur-Mer. What he initially planned as a temporary stay turned into an exile without return.
Arnold Schönberg
Composer as a calling – teacher out of passionGeboren on 13 September 1874Gestorben on 13 July 1951KomponistArnold Schönberg had his first successes as a composer in Berlin from 1902 onwards. He earned a modest living as a teacher of music theory.
Roberto Schopflocher
Geboren on 14 April 1923Gestorben on 23 January 2016SchriftstellerRobert Schopflocher was born into an assimilated German-Jewish family. After the Nazis seized power, he was excluded from attending the humanistic grammar school in Fürth and instead attended a Jewish boarding school.
Lili Schultz
Geboren on 21 June 1895Gestorben on 18 June 1970EmailkünstlerinUntil she fled the GDR in March 1958, the life of enamel artist Lili Schultz was very closely tied up with Burg Giebichenstein Art Academy in Halle (Saale). With the exception of a few years, which included a period at Bauhaus under Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, she studied and taught there for four decades.
Heinz Schwerin
Bauhaus toys for PalestineGeboren on 4 February 1910Gestorben on 3 February 1948DesignerAfter finishing high school and completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, Heinz Schwerin started studying at the Dessau Bauhaus school in summer 1931. He spent two semesters at the workshop for buildings and extensions and was also active as a student representative.
Ricarda Schwerin
A non-Jewish atheist in PalestineGeboren on 30 January 1912Gestorben on 29 July 1999FotografinAt the age of 18, Ricarda Meltzer took up her studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau in the summer semester of 1930 with the goal of becoming a photographer. After finishing the preliminary course, she continued her education in the photo class of Walter Peterhans, among others.
Kurt Schwitters
Geboren on 20 June 1887Gestorben on 8 January 1948Maler, SchriftstellerUntil autumn 1936, the painter Kurt Schwitters had tried to reassure himself, but in those November days in Amsterdam he seriously considered fleeing abroad, or at least considered a lengthy absence. In his hometown of Hanover, leftist artists were increasingly being spied on and arrested by the Gestapo.
Anna Seghers
Geboren on 19 November 1900Gestorben on 1 June 1983SchriftstellerinThe student of art history at Heidelberg soon became aware that her calling was in fact writing. After receiving her doctorate with a work on Rembrandt she published under the name Seghers in the Frankfurter Zeitung.
Wilhelm Speyer
Geboren on 21 February 1887Gestorben on 1 December 1952SchriftstellerIn the days of the Weimar Republic, Wilhelm Speyer was a popular author whose works sold exceptionally well, were translated into several languages and in some cases made into films. "His humanism, his openness to foreign influences, his rejection of nationalism and German jingoism [set] the basic tone for his texts.
Steffie Spira
Geboren on 2 June 1908,Gestorben on 10 May 1995Schauspielerin, TheaterregisseurinSteffie Spira came from a German-Austrian theatre family. Her father was the actor Fritz Jacob Spira, her mother Lotte Spira-Andresen, stage and film actor.
Saša Stanišić
The coincidence of originsGeboren 7 March 1978Schriftsteller, Hörspielautor“I was born on 7 March 1978 in Višegrad on the river Drina. In the days before I was born, it had been raining non-stop.
Leonard Steckel
Geboren on 8 January 1901Gestorben on 9 February 1971Schauspieler, TheaterregisseurBefore 1933, Leonard Steckel was a successful actor in contemporary plays performing alongside well-known colleagues like Helene Weigel or Alexander Granach. He was one of the most important actors on the avant-garde stage of Piscator.
Margarete Steffin
Geboren am 21. März 1908Gestorben am 4. Juni 1941SchriftstellerinMargarete Steffin went on a convalescence trip in Agra, Switzerland in the spring of 1933, and was never to see Germany again. In the elegant villa where she put on theatre shows with the other patients, she wrote stories and poems about her years as an adolescent in the working-class milieu of the 1920s; friends brought these writings to the Berlin resistance movement.
Fred Stein
Geboren on 3 July 1909Gestorben on 22 September 1967FotografFred Stein came from an intellectual family, his father a rabbi and his mother a teacher of religion. He was already politically active against the emerging fascism in Germany as a youth. After finishing his law studies, in 1933 the Nazis prevented him from finishing his thesis.
Hans Wilhelm Steinberg
Geboren on 1 August 1899Gestorben on 16 May 1978DirigentIn 1929, following engagements in Cologne and Prague, Hans Wilhelm Steinberg was appointed General Music Director at the opera house in Frankfurt am Main. He was dismissed from this post in May 1933 because he was Jewish.
Hugo Steiner-Prag
Leipzig book illustrator and graphic artist of international reputeGeboren 12 December 1880Gestorben on 10 September 1945Grafiker, IllustratorAt the time the Nazis seized power, Hugo Steiner-Prag - since 1910 professor at the renowned Leipzig Academy for Graphic Art and the Book Trade - was one of Germany’s most famous illustrators and book designers. His reputation was founded particularly on the illustrations he did for an entire series in the fantasy genre which appeared in book form after the turn of the century.
Gerda Taro
Geboren on 1 August 1910Gestorben on 26 July 1937FotografinThe war photographer known to us today as Gerda Taro was born as Gerta Pohorylle in Stuttgart, the daughter of Jewish-Galician immigrants. Her active opposition to the Nazis forced her into French exile in 1933.
Richard Tauber
Geboren on 16 May 1891Gestorben on 8 January 1948Sänger, Dirigent, KomponistOn 9 March 1933, four days after the Reichstag elections, the performance by singer Richard Tauber in Berlin’s Admiralspalast theatre was disrupted by ante-Semitic heckling. The star tenor, who was Jewish from his father’s side, only sang in German and had become famous performing operettas by Franz Léhar.
Bruno Taut
Geboren on 4 May 1880Gestorben on 24 December 1938ArchitektAfter the Nazis came to power, architect Bruno Taut was threatened with persecution as a “cultural Bolshevist”: in the First World War he designed peace monuments, wrote a pacifist manifesto and, during the November Revolution of 1918, established the “Workers’ Council for Art”.As the head of municipal planning and construction in Magdeburg and from 1924 as an architect with his own office in Berlin, he designed and built several avant-garde residential construction projects, among these the Hufeisensiedlung in the Berlin district of Britz, which now belongs to the UN World Cultural Heritage.
Silvia Tennenbaum
Geboren on 10 March 1928Gestorben on 27 June 2016SchriftstellerinSilvia Tennenbaum grew up in a liberal Jewish family in Frankfurt. Though she was initially enrolled at a private girls’ school in Frankfurt, the family went into exile in December 1936, initially settling in Switzerland, a step which the parents disguised to their daughter as a visit to relatives.
Lisa Tetzner
Geboren on 10 November 1894Gestorben on 2 July 1963SchriftstellerinAfter the First World War, Lisa Tetzner, who had begun making up stories as a child, travelled around the villages of central and southern Germany telling fairy tales.
Ernst Toller
Geboren on 1 December 1893Gestorben on 22 May 1939Schriftsteller, DramatikerIn his speech from 1 April 1933 on the boycott of Jewish businesses, Joseph Goebbels pronounced Ernst Toller to be one of the main enemies of Nazi ideology. During the night of the Reichstag fire on 27 February, the SA stormed Toller’s residence in Berlin to arrest him.
Walter Trier
Geboren on 25 June 1890Gestorben on 8 July1951Illustrator, KarikaturistIn the Weimar Republic, Walter Trier was a popular caricaturist and illustrator. In 1929, his book created collaboratively with author Erich Kästner was published: “Emil und die Detektive” (Emil and the die Detectives).
Heinz Trökes
Geboren on 15 August 1913Gestorben on 22 April 1997Grafiker, MalerThe Nazi repression against a contemporary art that they did not accept hit Heinz Trökes during an important phase in his life. In 1938, the 25-year-old wanted more than ever to dedicate himself to painting.
Bodo Uhse
Geboren on 12 March 1904Gestorben on 2 July 1963SchriftstellerBodo Uhse began to write stories and poems from early on, before turning mainly to journalism from 1927. In his youth in southern Germany he underwent a political transformation.
Amir Valle
Geboren on 6 January 1967SchriftstellerThe Cuban writer Amir Valle was not allowed to return to his home country following a lecture tour in Spain. He had already been subject to a publishing ban and Fidel Castro personally named Valle’s book Habana Babilonia, which made the rounds on the Internet, a disgrace for Cuba.
Conrad Veidt
Geboren on 22 January 1893Gestorben on 3 April 1943SchauspielerConrad Veidt was on stage for the first time at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1913. He starred in numerous productions by Max Reinhardt over the following years.
Berthold Viertel
Geboren on 28 June 1885Gestorben on 24 September 1953Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Theaterregisseur, FilmregisseurViennese native Berthold Viertel was initially known as a writer of poems, essays and articles published in the magazine Die Fackel issued by Karl Kraus. In 1912 he became dramatic adviser and director at Vienna’s Freien Volksbühne theatre.
Fritz von Unruh
Geboren on 10 May 1885Gestorben on 28 November 1970SchriftstellerFritz von Unruh began his career in the military, which shaped his pacifist beliefs. During the Weimar Republic, he was not only an author but also a popular speaker.
Konrad Wachsmann
Pioneer of Industrial ConstructionGeboren on 16 May 1901Gestorben on 25 November 1980ArchitektThe architect Konrad Wachsmann wanted to bring about a "watershed in construction". As chief architect of a timber factory, he designed prefabricated wooden houses and made a name for himself in the 1920s as a pioneer of industrial construction.
Bruno Walter
Geboren on 15 September 1876Gestorben on 17 Februar 1962Dirigent, Komponist“You absolutely have to leave Germany today.” With these words, Elsa Walter convinced her husband, the conductor Bruno Walter, to flee from the Nazis in March 1933.
Helene Weigel
Geboren on 12 May 1900Gestorben on 6 May 1971SchauspielerinFor the actress Helene Weigel, whose worked was strongly tied up with the German language and Germany’s theatrical traditions, exile was a major turning point in life. Weigel only gave very few performances during the 15 years she spent in exile.
Grete Weil
Geboren on 18 July 1906Gestorben on 14 May 1999Grete Weil found broad public recognition as a writer only in old age. Inspired by the reception and recognition that she enjoyed since the beginning of the 1980s, for example, after being awarded the Geschwister-Scholl-Prize, she published several novels and volumes of short stories.
Kurt Weill
A cantor’s son composes for BroadwayGeboren on 2 March 1900Gestorben on 3 April 1950KomponistKurt Weill’s musical beginnings were closely bound up to his home town of Dessau. He grew up in a Jewish family and his father was cantor at the local synagogue.
Peter Weiss
Geboren on 8 November 1916Gestorben on 10 May 1982Schriftsteller, Maler, Filmregisseur, DramatikerFor the young Peter Weiss the years of emigration from 1933 to 1945 represented his years of development as a writer and painter. He left Germany in 1934 as an 18-year-old with a Czechoslovakian passport on account of his Jewish father's nationality.
Hellmuth Weissenborn
From Leipzig to LondonGeboren on 29 December 1898Gestorben on 2 September 1982Maler, GrafikerThe November pogrom of 1938 and losing his job at the Leipzig Academy because he was married to a Jew prompted painter Hellmuth Weissenborn to flee into exile. At the start of 1939 he arrived in London where he was financially supported by his wife, who had remained in Germany.
Franz Werfel
Geboren on 10 September 1890Gestorben on 26 August 1945Schriftsteller, DramatikerWith his expressionistic verse, which dealt with the deliverance and fraternisation of humanity, Franz Werfel celebrated great success in 1911. Humanity and grappling with an ethically-grounded form of Christianity remained – even while in exile – recurring themes for Werfel.
Gustav Wolf
Geboren on 26 June 1887Gestorben on 18 December 1947Maler, GrafikerThe painter and graphic artist Gustav Wolf taught at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe for one year starting in 1920. He then worked as a freelancer and in addition to commercial graphics, created art works, including self-contained graphic series that did not portray the visible world but were rather visionary creations.
Liao Yiwu
Geboren on 4 August 1958Schriftsteller, MusikerIn poems and prose texts, Liao Yiwu has repeatedly criticised the Chinese government since the 1980s. Today in the west, the writer and musician is one of the most prominent critical Chinese voices.
Erich Zeisl
Geboren 18 May 1905Gestorben 18 February 1959Komponist, MusikerEric Zeisl was a representative of the moderate Viennese Modern Age. Art songs, instrumental and chamber music pieces, choir and orchestra works as well as pieces for musical dramas were characteristic of his oeuvre.
Richard Ziegler
Geboren on 3 May 1891Gestorben on 23 February 1992Grafiker, MalerRichard Ziegler was born in Pforzheim. He completed his doctorate in German Philology in Heidelberg, after which he became a self-taught artist.
Oscar Zügel
Fleeing from one dictatorship to another.Geboren on 18 October 1892Gestorben on 5 March 1968MalerAfter studying at the Stuttgart Art Academy, Oscar Zügel’s work developed from New Objectivity towards abstraction, with the themes of his paintings increasingly reflecting a critical view of his era. Works of Zügel’s were included in the exhibition “Drawings and Paintings” which was closed in spring 1933 on the grounds that it contained “degenerate” art.
Hermynia zur Mühlen
Geboren on 12 December 1883Gestorben on 20 March 1951Schriftstellerin, ÜbersetzerinAustrian writer Hermynia zur Mühlen had been living in Germany since 1919. She was known as the "Red Countess" because of her commitment to Communism, from which she subsequently dissociated herself while in exile.
Arnold Zweig
Geboren on 10 November 1887Gestorben on 26 November 1968SchriftstellerA modest upbringing as the son of a Jewish settler in Katowice in Silesia, a committed Prussian soldier during World War I, then a pacifist, a Zionist, a socialist: the life of Arnold Zweig appears to be full of contradictions. However, these supposed contrasts describe his lifelong confrontation with his own identity.
Stefan Zweig
Geboren on 28 November 1881Gestorben on 23 February 1942SchriftstellerStefan Zweig came from a prosperous merchant family and spent his childhood in Vienna in an upper-middle class environment. During his philosophy studies he published his first poems and feuilleton texts in the Neue Freie Presse, and also made his name as an author of stories, novellas and essays, and as a translator from the French language.
