Walter Mehring
| Walter Mehring | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born |
29 April 1896 Berlin, Germany |
| Died |
6 October 1981 Zurich, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Poet, Writer |
| Nationality | German, American |
| Period | Weimar Republic, Exile |
| Literary movement | Dada |
| Spouse | Marie-Paule Tessier |
Walter Mehring (29 April 1896 – 3 October 1981) was a German author and one of the most prominent satirical authors in the Weimar Republic. He was banned during the Third Reich, and fled the country.
Biographical
Walter Mehring was the son of the translator and writer Sigmar Mehring. His literary career began with the Sturm and Berliner Dada movements. Beginning in the 1920s he published lyric poetry and satirical prose in various magazines and newspapers, for example the famous Weltbühne or the Tage-Buch. He fought against militarism and antisemitism and considered himself an anarchist. He also wrote songs for some of the best cabarets in Berlin: Max Reinhardt's Schall und Rauch, Rosa Valetti's Café Größenwahn and for Trude Hesterberg's Wilde Bühne. Artists like George Grosz became close friends. From 1921 to 1928 he lived and worked in Paris. He was persecuted by the Nazis, particularly by Joseph Goebbels, and consequently fled the country. On 10 May 1933 his books were burnt during the Nazi book burnings.[1]
Mehring emigrated to Vienna, where he met the actress and writer Hertha Pauli. She was his companion during his escape from the Nazis through France. He dedicated his "Briefe zur Mitternacht" to her. The period spent in France he also described in No Road Back.[2] When the Nazis occupied France he was briefly imprisoned in an internment camp. He managed to escape and together with Hertha Pauli he wandered around France, meeting many other people on the run from the Nazis: Franz Werfel, Alma Mahler-Werfel, Heinrich Mann, Leonhard Frank, Emil Gumbel.[3] In Marseilles they met Varian Fry (Emergency Rescue Committee), who helped them to escape.[4]
He emigrated to the United States. With the aid of the European Film Fund he got employment with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He also wrote articles for Aufbau and became a naturalized US citizen, but never really managed to settle in the United States and returned to Europe after the war.
In Europe he was unable to replicate his earlier successes. In 1981 he died in Zurich.
Selected works
- The lost library: The autobiography of a culture. Secker & Warburg, 1951.
- Timoshenko,: Marshal of the Red army. A. Unger, 1942.
- No road back. S. Curl, 1944.
See also
References
Critics
- Boyle, Kay: The Poetry of Walter Mehring; NO ROAD BACK, Poems by Walter Mehring, in the German text as well as English translation by S.A. de Witt. In: New York Times, 03.09.1944.
- Walter Mehring, 85, Writer; His Sarcasm Enraged Nazis. In: New York Times, 06.10.1981. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE6DF1239F935A35753C1A967948260&scp=1&sq=mehring&st=cse
- Politzer, Heinz: The Lost Library, by Walter Mehring. In Commentary Magazine, Septembre 1951. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-lost-library--by-walter-mehring-1343
Literature
- Allen, Roy F.: Literary Life in German Expressionism and the Berlin Circles. UMI Research Press, 1983.
- Thomson, Philip John: The Grotesque in German Poetry, 1880-1933.Hawthorn Press, 1975.
- Spalek, John M./Bell, Robert F.: Exile, the Writer's Experience, University of North Carolina Press, 1982.