Kurt Pinthus

[5] Like his friends Walter Hasenclever and Oskar Kokoschka, in the early summer of 1919 Kurt Pinthus moved to Berlin where he was involved in the postwar refounding of the Rowohlt Publishing Firm.

His contributions appeared regularly in a range of German and international publications, most particularly in "Das Tage-Buch", "Die literarische Welt" and the newly (in 1922) founded "8 Uhr-Abendblatt)".

Pinthus was hugely productive and also, it appears, happy and fulfilled during thin period, attending virtually every new play, film and variety show, a frequent presence at social events, and always surrounded by friends.

Kurt Pinthus was included on it, and received a "Berufsverbot" (professional ban) which prevented him from public writing, other than for expressly Jewish newspapers and magazines.

For several more years, despite the urgent warnings and offers of help from Walter Hasenclever, he persisted with his determination to pursue his career in Nazi Germany under the auspices of the "Jüdischer Kulturbund" ("Jewish Arts and Culture Association"), though his letters to friends indicate that he was becoming ever more lonely and depressed.

[6] Due to the number of Jewish exiles from Nazi Germany who had already gravitated to the city he found himself with a ready made network of contacts in the literary arts world.

Kurt Pinthus settled at Marbach, known to literary scholars as the birthtown of Friedrich Schiller, and located along the Neckar, the river between Stuttgart and Mannheim.

[8] On 27 April 1971 Pinthus marked his eighty-fifth birthday by formally transferring his very considerable personal library to the German Schiller Society.

Reflecting his work as a literary reviewer during the "Weimar years", it includes numerous first editions of volumes that had become very rare thanks to their inclusion in the Nazi book burnings.