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Subject Guide: Literature

Books and documents, Leo Baeck Institute, New York : Exhibitions. Undated. Photographer unknown. F 36391. LBI.

Photograph of assorted German language books and documents.

Archival Highlights

Martin Buber Collection (AR 9) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Martin Buber was born in Vienna, he studied philosophy and art history at various European universities, became active in the Zionist movement, and worked as an author, editor, and publisher. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature ten times, and the Nobel Peace Prize seven times. This collection focuses on Buber's work, with more than half the collection consisting of his letters to Franz Rosenzweig, including a number of them devoted to their collaborative translation of the Bible.

Efraim Frisch Collection (AR 1034) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Efraim Frisch's career started in Berlin where he worked as an editor and freelance writer. There, he befriended Martin Buber and Christian Morgenstern and became involved with the magazine "Das Theater in Berlin", which lead to a career as a dramaturg at the Deutsches Theater. Frisch again worked as editoed after moving to Munich, where he would help found "Der Neue Merkur" [The New Mercury], a cultural magazine.

Clara Michelson Collection (AR 25196) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

The Clara Michelson Collection documents the life and work of the writer and graphologist, Clara Michelson. The main subjects of the collection are her life as a Latvian Jew from Riga, her writings and her publications. She primarily wrote in German.

Fritz Mauthner Collection (AR 3392) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Mauthner was an author, journalist, theatrical critic, and philosopher, known for his work on the philosophy of language. This collection represents the complete literary estate of Fritz Mauthner and contains correspondence with family members, newspapers, publishing houses, translators, and many prominent writers, philosophers, historians, politicians, actors, musicians, and other individuals. Also Included diaries and notebooks of Mauthner, including a diary from the first years of World War I; as well as photos and photo albums of Mauthner's friends and of his family. Additionally, there is the Fritz Mauthner Addenda Collection that has also been digitized and made available online. 

Moses Rosenkranz Collection (AR 25087) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Moses Rosenkranz was born in Romania but chose German as his primary language, having grown up in a household with a broad range of languages spoken. His family suffered greatly during the first World War, during which he put his writing career on hold. After WWI he found work as a translator and ghostwriter, but in 1941 he was first sent to the Ghetto of Czernowitz and then to a labor camp, where he was interned until his escape in 1944. This collection focuses on his life and work, largely through extensive correspondence as well as his manuscripts and personal documents relating to him and his first wife Anna Ruebner-Rosenkranz.

Joseph Roth Collection (AR 1764) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Joseph Roth was born in Brody in Galicia, then part of the Habsburg Monarchy (now Ukraine). His started his career as a writer after serving in WWI, serving as a journalist first in Vienna and later in Berlin. By the early 30s he had moved to Paris where he contributed to German exile publications. However, it was not for his journalistic work Joseph Roth gained most of his acclaim, but for his novels and short stories. Joseph Roth wrote thirteen novels, eight short stories, volumes of essays and numerous articles. The larger part of the Joseph Roth Collection originates from material saved by his French translator, Blanche Gidon. It mostly contains Joseph Roth's manuscripts, drafts and copies of his newspaper articles and essays. 

Margarete Susman Collection (AR 1166) [Collection is digitized and available online.]

Margarete Susman was born in Germany and raised in Switzerland. She began as a poet, releasing her first book of poetry in 1901. As her career developed, she began to write philosophical essays and eventually books. This collection contains material pertaining to Susman's professional life and her personal life, including documentation of some of her closest friendships. Among the documents in this collection are letters and postcards, drafts of her memoir, newspaper clippings and other articles about her, a few articles by her, and photographs.

Fritz Mauthner, 1874. Photographer unkown. F 3615A. LBI.

Portrait photograph of Fritz Mauthner.

Library Highlights

Felix Salten : man of many faces / by Beverley Driver Eddy. Ariadne Press, 2010.

The Jews as German men of letters / by Albert Marx Friedenberg. [publisher not identified], 1905.

Making German Jewish literature anew : authorship, memory, and place / by Katja Garloff. Indiana University Press, 2022.

Juden in der deutschen Literatur: eine deutsch-juedische Literaturgeschichte im Ueberblick / by Hans J. Schuetz. Piper, 1992.

Journey to oblivion : the end of the East European Yiddish and German worlds in the mirror of literature / by Peter Stenberg. University of Toronto Press, 1991.

A bibliography of novels and short stories by German Jewish authors, 1800-1914 / compiled by Jacob Walter. Cincinnati Hebrew Union College, 1963.