As far as your work is concerned, it’s my feeling that quite soon—and who knows for how long, if Hitlerism persists—the Insel Verlag will renounce it. You must not think in any part of you that you are still viable in Germany as the author whose reputation even your enemies were unable to deny. It’s my sense that you exaggerate the moral qualities of the Insel Verlag. Have you still not heard enough stories about his treachery? Still not? If you were physically within reach, the son-in-law of Insel would hand you over to the SA. I urge you: quit Insel. A few of your books will be republished in other houses, and contribute to your wealth and fame.
(Did you get a letter from Amsterdam [from Praag]1 as well?—There is some thought here as well, of Grasset’s bringing out a new list.)
Remember that you will need money; and that you will be called on to help other deserving parties with the luster of your name, who need a publisher if they are to live.
I don’t think you should write the article about children now. The people it would appeal to don’t need you. The rest won’t understand it. The charges you lay against the Hitler beasts are mistaken too: they’re not pursuing the Jews because they’ve done something wrong, but because they’re Jews. In that respect, the “children” are every bit as “guilty” as the fathers.
It occurred to me too that one might write the Habsburg pamphlet anonymously. Against that there is the desire of my political friends. They are convinced the statement of a “leftist” author—you know how little I was ever that—would have some propaganda value. Plus: this is a time when the Jews are needed. In all discretion, the Christian Socialists (the Vaugoin2 group) are with us right now. Starhemberg3 very strongly, Dollfuss4 and Winkler5 are wavering. But in the army and the civil service, anything is possible. I need Prince Polignac6 Do you know him? Are you able to get me an introduction to him?
It’s good for us now to have the Jews on board. Even if the Nazis yell. We have enough anti-Semites and Catholics.
So far as I’m concerned, I stood in the field for nine months for the Habsburgs. No swastika merchant can claim that. I have a right to my fatherland.
Please write soon.
I can only come and see you when I am in possession of a new contract. Maybe 6–8 weeks.
Sincerely,
your old and loyal Joseph Roth
1. Praag: Siegfried Emanuel van Praag (1899–2002), profilic Dutch writer and essayist. He sought to woo exiled German writers to the Dutch publisher Allert de Lange.
2. Vaugoin: Karl Vaugoin (1873–1949), Austrian politician.
3. Starhemberg: Ernst von Starhemberg (1899–1956), leader of the Fascist home guard, from 1934 to 1936, Austrian deputy chancellor.
4. Dollfuss: Engelbert Dollfuss (1892–1934), from 1932 to 1934 Christian Socialist Austrian chancellor, establishing a “Christian state” (aka a Catholic dictatorship) in 1934. Shot by the Nazis.
5. Winkler: Franz Winkler, Austrian politician, deputy chancellor in Dollfuss’s cabinet from 1932 to 1933.
6. Prince Polignac: the nephew of Prince Edmond de Polignac and his wife, Winaretta, née Singer.
197. To Klaus Mann
19 May 1933
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
Dear Mr. Klaus Mann,1
of course I should like to get the money2 as quickly as possible. The sooner the better. First serial rights are 600 francs. Emigré prices. Second serial 300.
If I’m still in Paris, I should like to see you both3 again—For now, all the best!
Sincerely
Joseph Roth
1. Klaus Mann (1906 Munich–1949 Cannes), journalist, writer, essayist. Edited the exile magazine Die Sammlung from 1933 to 1935.
2. money: for a contribution to Die Sammlung.
3. Presumably Klaus and his sister Erika Mann, sometimes known as “the terrible twins.”
198. To Stefan Zweig
[Paris] 22 May 1933
Hotel Foyot
Dear esteemed friend,
in three or four days Dr. Landshoff will be with you.
He will bring with him, as others have already, a new publishing project.
Of all that I have heard so far, it’s the only proper and trustworthy one.1
If it comes about—and one should be a little careful, because Dr. L. went to Berlin yesterday for a couple of days—then I’ll write my next novel2 in 3 months, for the first time in my life. Wonderful material, remote from Germany, though with obvious application to it. Plays in the eastern borderlands. Par discretion:
St. Julian the Hospitaller, modern version, instead of animals, Jews, and at the end the removal. Very Catholic.
I stumbled upon it in a Ukrainian newspaper. Fully formed.
You don’t write me. Mrs. Van Praag conveyed me your best wishes, nothing more.
I am afraid, I fear for your immortal soul. You don’t mind if I’m open with you?—I am afraid you don’t quite see events straight. You’re pondering your alternatives. You’re making up your mind.
Here’s my view:
a. It’ll last for 4 years;
b. Hitler will end in disaster, or in monarchy,
c. We will have nothing whatever to do with the 3rd Reich;
d. Within 5 months, there will be no publisher, no bookseller, no author of our kind;
e. We must give up all hope, irrevocably, and be as strong and braced as we have to be. There is war between him and us. Any thought for the enemy is punishable by death. All authors of repute who stay will suffer their own literary death.
f. As long as we are banished, no common cause with the “Left”: Feuchtwanger, A. Zweig, the Weltbühne. They are partly to blame for our plight. They are the party of the fools with chutzpah.
Please come and be on my side. Ditch the Insel Verlag. For the last 4 years his behavior toward you has been scandalous. His recently published denial on the subject of your German was, frankly, disgusting.
These are not temperamental reactions on my part. I go to meet these people with a riding crop. You in your high-mindedness don’t grasp the instincts of the janitor. You don’t know the Prussians, the way I do. I know them from the field. It’s true, everything they say about atrocities in Belgium. All true! The Prussians are representatives of the chemical inferno, of the industrialized inferno, in the world. I hope lightning strikes them. I know they will be destroyed far sooner than people think.
You won’t take anything I say amiss, will you?
Sincere and loyal regards
your Joseph Roth
1. Publishing project: the Querido Verlag, a principal publisher of exiled German writers, with Fritz Landshoff’s participation, in Amsterdam.
2. novel: Tarabas, published by Querido in 1934.
199. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
Saturday [24 June 1933]
Dear esteemed friend,
in haste:
Your telegram yesterday. My letter was pretty important. Its loss indicates that Nazi cells have been at work.
Whether I make it to Zurich or not depends on many factors, of which more later.
I don’t know of a single one here that’s important.
Expecting your letter with impatience.
Please confirm safe arrival of this one.
Sincerely
Joseph Roth
200. To Stefan Zweig
[Paris] 26 June [1933]
Dear esteemed friend,
please consider my material situation, as much as my yearning for you. I can’t go to Basel. Come here! No one will know. I have to see you! For me a great deal depends on it. I cannot leave. But you can come here. Please show yourself to be the way I know you are. Come, even for 2 hours.
Since
rely
J.R.
And wire, please, on Monday!
201. To Hermann Kesten1
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
29 June 1933
Dear friend,
I am awaiting the check with impatience.2 I suggest you send it express. Landshoff is coming tonight.
There is no gossip. We’re looking—according to Mehring3—for a cheap room for Hugenberg.4
I am writing, very badly, very unhappily, no money.
Jakob Hegner,5 whose letter I will forward to you, is starting a publishing company in Zurich.
I’ll give Tuke your instructions. Mrs. Manga Bell asks to be remembered to you both. We’re positively longing for you.
God help us. Dr. Bermann was here. Wants to copublish Landshoff’s authors in the 3rd Reich in the Fischer Verlag. As a proud Austrian, I declined to be a yid.
Write soon, Hermann!
Best wishes J.R.
1. Hermann Kesten (1900–1996), author and editor (for Kiepenheuer); JR’s friend from 1927 to his death, he probably did more for the retrieval of his reputation following World War II than any other individual. Brought out a three-volume edition of JR’s fiction, and assembled and edited the 1970 selection of his letters on which the present book is based.
2. For “Stationmaster Fallmerayer,” which appeared in an anthology of exiled German writers brought out by Kesten.
3. Mehring: Walter Mehring (1896–1981), poet, essayist. Went into exile in Paris in 1933.
4. Hugenberg: Alfred Hugenberg (1865–1951), media proprietor and film entrepreneur, in 1928 leader of the German Nationalist People’s Party. In 1933, after strongly supporting Hitler, became a minister in his cabinet. In June of that year, he abruptly resigned and withdrew from politics, realizing that he had no control of the direction of the party.
5. Jakob Hegner (1865–1962), printer, publisher, and translator.
202. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
13 July 1933
Dear esteemed friend,
forgive me, since I left you, I’ve thanked you neither for the day you sacrificed to me, nor for the letters you’ve written since. These days have brought one misfortune after another. My father-in-law underwent an operation, the operation failed, and he is blind. God, I have nothing! I can’t go on. Eight people are depending on me. No one helps me. I am already in the circle (perhaps I’m feeling it too quickly) of the scroungers. Huebsch’s behavior is inexplicable! I’ve just written him a very forthright letter. If he’s angry with me, I can’t help it. I work 10 hours a day, have another 7,000 francs (700 gulden) coming to me from Landshoff, and am 3,000 in debt. Dear friend, Mr. Alexander1 doesn’t write back to me; perhaps not to you either. My last happy day was my day with you. Black clouds have closed in.
I want to know that you got this letter. Please, send a card to confirm arrival.
How can I live, even if I get the strength to finish the novel in 8 days? Can you invoice Mr. Alexander?
Sincerely,
your old Joseph Roth
I was just given the news—I’m writing in a café—that a telegram from Mr. Alexander has come for me, but it’s in English and the porter can’t translate it. I’ll send it along ASAP. If it’s positive, then disregard these lamentations.
1. Kurt Alexander, a literary agent in London. Roth will have been trying to get money owing to him out of America, either for Job or for The Radetzky March, only to be foiled by the Nazi laws, and a plethora of middlemen.
203. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
14 July 1933
My dear friend,
here is the telegram, my reply, and Mr. Alexander’s reply to me.—I refuse to believe it. I refuse to believe there’s a chance that I’ll survive all this.
Please confirm receipt of both letters.
Yours sincerely, your old
Joseph Roth
204. To Klaus Mann
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
18 July 1933
Dear Klaus Mann,
the novella isn’t finished after all. I’ll give it to you next week, here. That seems better to me. Don’t panic!
Sincerely,
your old Joseph Roth
205. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
19 July 1933
Dear esteemed friend,
here is Mr. Alexander’s latest telegram. I don’t understand your last kind letter at all. Even if you believed I could be so thoughtless on my own account, do you think me capable of exposing or embarrassing you, discrediting you in some way, I don’t know?—I asked for the money all at once, because the pound is falling. I’ve been stung before. Mr. Alexander first wires his authors, and only then, armed with their replies, does he approach their publishers. It’s not at all—as you seem to think—that Mr. Alexander makes an offer to an author, having first discussed it with a publisher.—But, irrespective of that: do you take me for a fool?—The only thing that will help me in my position is if I get the sum of 80,000 francs at one fell swoop—and since you said so yourself, I can tell you that if I ever believed I might have good fortune on such a scale, my first action would have been to send you half of it, and ask you, you in person, to keep it safe for me. But this is all hypothetical! People don’t come to me offering miracles.—And our friend Huebsch—such a friend!—stood me up, treated me positively sadistically. I would tell you what he did, only physical disgust prevents me.
My dear friend, I have often been foolish in the course of my life. I still am. But don’t think I don’t see the vileness perpetrated by others. You, however, don’t see it. You would go rigid with pain and dread if I told you how I lived, and how Huebsch and others have let me down. I refuse to do it in writing. Please drop me a line to let me know you’ve got this, and I don’t have to wire.
Sincerely and faithfully,
your old Joseph Roth
206. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
20 July 1933
Dear esteemed friend,
would you happen to have a copy of my novel Zipper and His Father? Or can you manage to get hold of one? If so, then please send it to A. Corticelli, Viale Abruzzi 19, Milano.
He wants to publish it, and will pay me for it. It’s shocking, I have no copies of any of my books.
Sincerely,
your old Joseph Roth
207. To Stefan Zweig
Hotel Foyot
Paris 6e
33 rue de Tournon
24 July 1933
Dear friend,
misunderstandings should be cleared up as soon as they occur. So I’m writing you back straightaway.
1. You write and say they’ve agreed to pay 800 pounds. But it wasn’t my idea to ask for 1,000. It was Mr. Alexander who offered me that, in his first telegram. Should I have written back to say, no no, too much?
2. Maybe Pinker1 is behind Alexander. But what I don’t understand is that carry-on of making an offer, and only when the author has replied, start to negotiate a deal. I’ve heard from three separate publishers that Mr. Alexander isn’t among the ones who are taken seriously.
3. I hope to see Mr. Huebsch here tomorrow. I’ll write to you. For now, here’s this: (a) Huebsch sends 1,000 dollars to Kiepenheuer after Hitler’s arrival, and only 100 to me, even though I’ve wired him that Kiepenheuer is broke and he should just hang on to all moneys for the time being; (b) Mr. Huebsch sells film rights to Job: a 3,000-dollar advance is paid to the publisher by the film company: 2,000 are still outstanding: Huebsch writes that they’ll be paid as s
oon as Kiepenheuer confirms that he is giving up my film and foreign rights: I get Mr. Landshoff to put up the 5,000 marks the Kiepenheuer Verlag, or its liquidators, want for the surrender of my foreign rights; Landshoff pays the money: whereupon Huebsch writes that the film company is unsure what to do: I owe Landshoff 5,000 marks; furthermore, Huebsch should have paid another 500 dollars for the Radetzky March in April: they haven’t reached me yet. Meanwhile, the dollar falls.
All this to Huebsch.—I don’t think he’s a bad man. He’s just a so-called businessman. He’s even a decent man—except where dollars are at stake. I have no comprehension for that kind of thing. I know only comradeliness, including in business.
4. More important: the fact that you say advances are a consequence of the inflation. Maybe so. But the world has changed. Taking myself for an example, without an advance I couldn’t have written Job or the Radetzky March. Between the old writers and me there is the war. If Austria-Hungary had survived, then I’d be a major in Witkovitz, and could write without an advance. And irrespective of that: why seek to abolish advances, if the inflation that gave rise to them remains a factor? Why do you suggest that the weakest people, authors, return to solid bourgeois conditions, while all around the colossuses are crumbling? Where’s the logic in that, my dear fellow! In Kipling’s time, capitalists were still decent people. The world was in order. But in today’s world, you want us to be the solid and respectable ones?—It’s not possible for us to live and work without an advance, any more than it is possible for capitalists to get by without bank credits and state subventions. Do you think Roosevelt isn’t a swindler? The dollar inflation no wheeze? And you want me to live like Kipling? Without advances?
I’m not just being polemical here for the hell of it, but because you seem to me to have “romantic” opinions on several matters. You’re so much wiser than I am, you know life and people better than I do. The way you behave in the world is infinitely wiser than me. But strangely you’re less realistic than I am. And even though I’m younger and more foolish than you, I come to bring you enlightenment. I am your friend, and that’s my right.
(Excuse these stains!)
Joseph Roth- a Life in Letters Page 27
