Austrian passport of Richard A. Bermann (March 1938)
During the period of Austrofascism in Austria from 1933, the NSDAP and other Nazi organisations were fast to gain many new members. Vienna, the birthplace of journalist and writer Richard A. Bermann alias Arnold Höllriegel was still his main place of residence at this time, interrupted by periods of stay in Great Britain and the USA.
Benedikt Fred Dolbin: Drawings for The Eternal Road in the magazine Stage (1936)
In early 1936, newspaper illustrator and caricaturist Benedikt Fred Doblin was able to accept a large job for the first time during his period of exile in New York. The then prominent theatre magazine Stage published a two-page article by Max Reinhardt about the rehearsals for the oratorio The Eternal Road - Doblin produced drawings of almost everyone involved in the production for this article: The composer Kurt Weill wrote the music, writer Franz Werfel the libretto, Lotte Lenya played one of the main parts and Max Reinhardt directed it.
Benedikt Fred Dolbin: Kurt Weill (1936)
During the rehearsals for The Eternal Road in 1936, cartoonist Benedikt Fred Dolbin, along with creating portraits of the actors hired for the oratorio, also sketched its creative director, the composer Kurt Weill, of whom Dolbin created many portraits.Dolbin's “collection of heads” comprised around 100,000 drawings and drafts.
Benedikt Fred Dolbin: Letter to Stefan Ehrenzweig, 31 January 1936
In this letter to his colleague Stephan Ehrenzweig, the newspaper illustrator and caricaturist Benedikt Fred Doblin describes the crossing from Europe to the USA and his arrival in New York in 1936. Dolbin had prepared his step into exile carefully after Nazi banned him from carrying out his profession as an illustrator in spring 1935.
Benedikt Fred Dolbin: Thank-you card (9 December 1935)
On 9 December 1935, after attending a concert conducted by Otto Klemperer, the illustrator Benedikt Fred Dolbin wrote a card in which he expressed his thanks for the “finest music” performed there. The card was most likely addressed to the conductor himself.
Berthold Viertel’s film Little Friend (GB 1934)
Following the Reichstag Fire at the end of February 1933, theatre and film director Berthold Viertel fled via Prague to London. He was contracted there in 1934 by the Gaumont British Picture Corporation, which had just filmed the elaborate costume drama Jew Süss with another well-known Jewish refugee, the actor Conrad Veidt.
Bertolt Brecht before the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) (30 October 1947)
Audio tape recording On 19 September 1947, writer Bertolt Brecht, who had lived in the US since 1941, was summoned to appear before the “House Committee on Un-American Activities” (HUAC). Numerous artists and intellectuals such as Hanns Eisler and Thomas Mann were called before the committee during the McCarthy-era under suspicion of being members or sympathising with the communist party.
Bertolt Brecht: Auf der Flucht vor dem A., manuscript (1941)
This poem by the writer Bertolt Brecht was first discovered over 50 years after his death in the presumably last unknown partial bequest by Brecht, the collection of Victor N. Cohen.
Bertolt Brecht: Driven Out With Good Reason, typescript (1939)
In this poem, which was written in exile in Denmark in 1939, the writer Bertolt Brecht depicts himself as a political refugee who had been “driven out” of Nazi Germany “with good reason”.He describes the reasons why he was persecuted as follows:“and their informers told them that I sit with those who have been robbed when they / are planning the uprising.
Bertolt Brecht: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, production photograph (1938)
The world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich in the form of a selection entitled 99% was held on 21 May 1938 in the Salle d'Iéna in Paris. A year earlier Brecht had already explored the idea of a fallen aviator brother in the Svendborg poems upon hearing about the deployment of the German Condor Legion in 1937 in Spain.
