After 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. In 1924 she married the author Kurt Kläber. The couple lived in Berlin and Switzerland and moved in leftist artist circles.

In 1927, Tetzner took over the children's programming for the Berliner Rundfunk radio broadcaster and began, in addition to publishing international fairly tales, to write her own children's books. As her husband, a communist, was suspected of being involved in the Reichstag fire, he was arrested in late February, 1933. Tetzner managed to have him released and Kläber fled immediately to Switzerland via Czechoslovakia. She followed some days later by a direct route.

Tetzner's fairy tale books continued to appear in German; only her first book Hans Urian was banned due to its socio-critical content. After the publication of … was am See geschah (1935), the writer faced attacks in the Nazi press for her life in exile. Sales of the book were stopped and Tetzner was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Literature. In Switzerland, she and her husband initially faced professional bans. When only her ban was lifted in 1934, Tetzner earned a livelihood for herself and her husband as a speech training instructor until 1953. She also wrote further volumes of her nine-volume children's book series Erlebnisse und Abenteuer der Kinder aus Nr. 67 [The Children From No. 67], which was successful internationally as well. In 1948, the couple received Swiss citizenship ten years after being stripped of German citizenship.

Selected works:
Hans Urian oder Die Geschichte einer Weltreise (1929)
Erlebnisse und Abenteuer der Kinder aus Nr. 67. Odyssee einer Jugend. 9 Bände (1933-1949)
… was am See geschah (1935)
Die schwarzen Brüder (in collaboration with Kurt Kläber, 1940/41)

Further reading:
Bolius, Gisela: Lisa Tetzner. Leben und Werk. Frankfurt am Main: dipa-Verlag 1997
Geus, Elena: „Die Überzeugung ist das einzige, was nicht geopfert werden darf“, Lisa Tetzner (1894-1963): Lebensstationen – Arbeitsfelder. Frankfurt am Main: Univ. Diss. 1999
Schulz, Kristina: Die Schweiz und die literarischen Flüchtlinge (1933 - 1945). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 2012