Konrad Merz, der Mann, der ,,fünf Minuten berühmt“ war. überlegungen zu einem winzigen Teil aus dem ausgedehnten Archiv des Kurt Lehmann

摘要

Kurt Lehmann, born in Berlin 1908, had to stop reading law in 1933 because of his Jewish descent. As a good friend of his was arrested, carrying a note with Lehmann’s name and address on it, he fled to Holland, where in the beginning he worked as an under gardener. Soon he started to write down his experiences in a foreign country. Through the famous Dutch critic Menno ter Braak this novel was published in German language by Querido Verlag in Amsterdam. From then Lehmann used the pen-name Konrad Merz. In the meantime he corresponded with his mother and his brother who still lived in Berlin. A few years before his death in 1999 Kurt Lehmann promised the German National Literature-Archives in Marbach, that they would have all his letters and other documents. One file is filled with letters from 1934 until 1936 he wrote to Berlin and letters which were sent by his mother and his brother. Especially Kurt Lehmann’s letters show his Werdegang as a novelist and a lyricist for the Hirsch Operetta in The Hague.