Hermann Kesten and Walter Landauer probably knew each other since the late 1920s. At the instigation of Fritz H. Landshoff, Kesten's classmate, both joined the Gustav Kiepenheuer publishing house in Berlin in 1928. Kesten joined the company primarily as an editor and literary consultant, while Landauer looked after business and was given power of attorney. This photo also stems from the Berlin time, probably at the beginning of the 1930s, and is one of the few surviving portraits of Walter Landauer.

When Hermann Kesten was approached in late May 1933 to take over the German Department of Allert de Lange publishing house in Amsterdam in addition to his work as an editor, he initially refused because he was reluctant to commit himself to the city. At Kesten's suggestion, Walter Landauer assumed the management.

While Kesten spent only three or four months a year in Amsterdam, Walter Landauer relocated there permanently in September 1934, and took care of much of the daily publishing business of the department alone. As an external editor, Hermann Kesten used his contacts in the exile centres, in Paris and on the French Riviera. Such cooperation became increasingly complicated from late 1938 as a result of the visa and immigration difficulties which Kesten encountered. Kesten and Landauer exchanged three to four letters a week to compare notes on manuscripts, sales figures and developments - on some days they wrote several letters to each other.