Borrow it
Coverart for item
The Resource Endpapers : a family story of books, war, escape, and home, Alexander Wolff

Endpapers : a family story of books, war, escape, and home, Alexander Wolff

Creator
Author
Summary
"A literary gem researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, Endpapers excavates the extraordinary histories of the author's grandfather and father: the renowned publisher Kurt Wolff, dubbed "perhaps the twentieth century's most discriminating publisher" by the New York Times Book Review, and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America. Kurt Wolff was born in Bonn into a highly cultured German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, among them Baron Moritz von Haber, who became famous for participating in a duel that led to bloody antisemitic riots. Always bookish, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, and many other authors whose books would soon be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife, Helen, sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York, where in a small Greenwich Village apartment they founded Pantheon Books. Pantheon would soon take its own place in literary history with the publication of Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and as the conduit that brought major European works to the States. But Kurt's taciturn son Niko, offspring of his first marriage to Elisabeth Merck, was left behind in Germany, where despite his Jewish heritage he served the Nazis on two fronts. As Alexander Wolff visits dusty archives and meets distant relatives, he discovers secrets that never made it to the land of fresh starts, including the connection between Hitler and the family pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, and the story of a half-brother Niko never knew. With surprising revelations from never-before-published family letters, diaries, and photographs, Endpapers is a moving and intimate family story, weaving a literary tapestry of the perils, triumphs, and secrets of history and exile"--
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
First edition.
Extent
pages cm
Contents
  • Bildung and books
  • Done with the war
  • Technical boy and the deposed
  • Mediterranean refuge
  • Surrender on demand
  • Into a dark room
  • a debt for rescue
  • An end with horror
  • Blood and shame
  • Chain migration
  • Late evening
  • Second exile
  • Schweinenest
  • Turtle Bay
  • Mr. Bitte Nicht Ansprechen
  • Shallow draft
  • Play on the Bones of the Dead
  • The end, come by itself
Isbn
9780802158253
Instance
Label
Endpapers : a family story of books, war, escape, and home
Title
Endpapers
Title remainder
a family story of books, war, escape, and home
Statement of responsibility
Alexander Wolff
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"A literary gem researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, Endpapers excavates the extraordinary histories of the author's grandfather and father: the renowned publisher Kurt Wolff, dubbed "perhaps the twentieth century's most discriminating publisher" by the New York Times Book Review, and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America. Kurt Wolff was born in Bonn into a highly cultured German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, among them Baron Moritz von Haber, who became famous for participating in a duel that led to bloody antisemitic riots. Always bookish, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, and many other authors whose books would soon be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife, Helen, sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York, where in a small Greenwich Village apartment they founded Pantheon Books. Pantheon would soon take its own place in literary history with the publication of Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and as the conduit that brought major European works to the States. But Kurt's taciturn son Niko, offspring of his first marriage to Elisabeth Merck, was left behind in Germany, where despite his Jewish heritage he served the Nazis on two fronts. As Alexander Wolff visits dusty archives and meets distant relatives, he discovers secrets that never made it to the land of fresh starts, including the connection between Hitler and the family pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, and the story of a half-brother Niko never knew. With surprising revelations from never-before-published family letters, diaries, and photographs, Endpapers is a moving and intimate family story, weaving a literary tapestry of the perils, triumphs, and secrets of history and exile"--
Assigning source
Provided by publisher
Biography type
collective biography
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Wolff, Alexander
Dewey number
325/.210973
Index
index present
LC call number
E184.G3
LC item number
W65 2021
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • German Americans
  • Wolfe family
  • Political refugees
  • Intellectuals
  • Wolff, Alexander
  • Wolff, Nicholas
  • Wolff, Kurt
  • Merk family
  • Jews, German
  • Germany
  • Germany
Label
Endpapers : a family story of books, war, escape, and home, Alexander Wolff
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Bildung and books -- Done with the war -- Technical boy and the deposed -- Mediterranean refuge -- Surrender on demand -- Into a dark room -- a debt for rescue -- An end with horror -- Blood and shame -- Chain migration -- Late evening -- Second exile -- Schweinenest -- Turtle Bay -- Mr. Bitte Nicht Ansprechen -- Shallow draft -- Play on the Bones of the Dead -- The end, come by itself
Control code
on1237652636
Edition
First edition.
Extent
pages cm
Isbn
9780802158253
Lccn
2020057035
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
(OCoLC)1237652636
Label
Endpapers : a family story of books, war, escape, and home, Alexander Wolff
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Bildung and books -- Done with the war -- Technical boy and the deposed -- Mediterranean refuge -- Surrender on demand -- Into a dark room -- a debt for rescue -- An end with horror -- Blood and shame -- Chain migration -- Late evening -- Second exile -- Schweinenest -- Turtle Bay -- Mr. Bitte Nicht Ansprechen -- Shallow draft -- Play on the Bones of the Dead -- The end, come by itself
Control code
on1237652636
Edition
First edition.
Extent
pages cm
Isbn
9780802158253
Lccn
2020057035
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
(OCoLC)1237652636

Subject

Genre

Library Locations

    • Lawrence Public LibraryBorrow it
      707 Vermont Street, Lawrence, KS, 66044, US
      38.9708416 -95.23765449999999

Library Links

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Lawrence Public Library. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.