Kurt Wolff (3 March 1887 – 21 October 1963) was a German publisher, editor, writer, and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

. Wolff was born in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

Rhenish Prussia The Rhine Province (), also known as Rhenish Prussia () or synonymous with the Rhineland (), was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822 to 1946. It was created from th ...

; his mother came from a

Jewish-German The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish comm ...

family. He married Elisabeth Karoline Clara Merck (1890–1970), of the

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

pharmaceuticals firm, in 1909. Together with

Ernst Rowohlt Ernst Hermann Heinrich Rowohlt (23 June 1887 in Bremen – 1 December 1960 in Hamburg) was a German publisher who founded the Rowohlt publishing house in 1908 and headed it in its repeated incarnations until his death. In 1912, he married actres ...

, Wolff began to work in publishing in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

in 1908. He was the first to promote and publish

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

and

Franz Werfel Franz Viktor Werfel (; 10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II. He is primarily known as the author of '' The Forty ...

but declined to publish the works of

Axel Munthe Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe (31 October 1857 – 11 February 1949) was a Swedish-born physician and psychiatrist, best known as the author of '' The Story of San Michele'', an autobiographical account of his life and work. He spoke several langua ...

. Wolff's close contact with other writers in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

and his support for unknown, but talented, writers helped him to further the careers of Kafka's friends,

Max Brod Max Brod (; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist. He is notable for promoting the work of writer Franz Kafka and composer Leoš Janáček. Although he was a prolific writer in his ow ...

and

Felix Weltsch Felix Weltsch (; 6 October 1884, Prague – 9 November 1964, Jerusalem) was a German language, German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod, Ludwig Winder and Franz Kafka, ...

, who were better known in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In 1929, Wolff published the photography book ''Face of Our Time'' by

August Sander August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait photography, portrait and Documentary photography, documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sande ...

. In 1941 Wolff and his second wife, Helen Mosel, left Germany and emigrated to Paris, London, Montagnola, St. Tropez, Nice, and finally with the assistance of

Varian Fry Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France from August 1940 to September 1941 that helped 2,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees, mostly artists and intellec ...

, to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Later in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, Wolff developed several publishing houses. In the U.S., he and Helen founded

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint. Founded in 1942 as an independent publishing house in New York City by Kurt and Helen Wolff, it specialized in introducing progressive European works to American readers. In 1961, it was ...

in 1942, which became well known. They later ran the Helen and Kurt Wolff Books imprint at

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. It was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1 ...

. Wolff settled in Switzerland in the 1950s. He died after a driving accident and is buried with Helen in Marbach, Germany. The

Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize The Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize is an annual literary prize named for the German–American publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff "honoring an outstanding literary translation from German into English", published in the United States of Am ...

is named in honor of him and his wife. His son, Christian Wolff, is a renowned avant-garde musician. His grandson Alexander (son of Nicholas) wrote a family history, published in 2021 as ''Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home''.

Literary archives

The

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts and ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

holds the Kurt Wolff Archive, 1907–38. The collection contains about 4,100 letters and manuscripts from the files of the Kurt Wolff Verlag from the years 1910–30. A portion of the Kurt Wolff Archive is currently available online.Kurt Wolff Archive, 1907-1938.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Retrieved on 2009-07-08.

References

External links

* Kurt Wolff Archive. Yale Collection of German Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. * Helen and Kurt Wolff Papers. Yale Collection of German Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Kurt 1887 births 1963 deaths German book publishers (people) German male journalists Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Businesspeople from Bonn People from the Rhine Province German male writers American book publishers (people) 20th-century German journalists

Literary archives

Further reading

References

External links