Billy Wilder on Assignment, Noah Isenberg [the beginning after the end read novel .TXT] 📗

the early 1890s he became a novelist in Berlin. A collapse of a bank, Unter den Linden, was the subject of his Tempest in the West, a portrait of society framed with a keen eye for current events, which was one of the first to capture the abrupt shifts that occurred during this transitional period, its crises, and its sensations. Then Holländer wrote Jesus and Judas, a novel of the socialist movement. And at the end of the decade his major novel of personal development, The Path of Thomas Truck, recapitulated everything that was being debated among intellectuals.

Thomas Truck, who yearns to take the cares of the world upon himself and whose idealism is seduced and duped by the sensuality of a millionaire’s wife from the Tiergarten neighborhood, meets a working-class girl at a Salvation Army gathering. The suicide of this poor soul, who has sunk so low, inspires him to regain his freedom. In the bohemian group that gathers at the “Nachtlicht,” he is drawn to all kinds of revolutionary inclinations and finds the balance he is seeking in a Tolstoyan Christ. This novel has secured its place even today in the history of novels that depict the era between 1900 and the present.

From then on Felix Holländer remained one of the most widely read storytellers, often astounding his readers with the sure touch he gave his characters, and always with the nervous art of tension, as in The Oath of Stefan Huller, set in the milieu of acrobats in a variety show, and in The Dancer, the fantastically crafted novel of a con man.

His foray into playwriting resulted in a single stage drama, Ackermann, which he co-scripted with Lothar Schmidt and which enjoyed success onstage with Emanuel Reicher in the lead role. But he always had a secret love for the theater itself. He pursued this love when Max Reinhardt was working in Berlin, approaching him as a dramaturge and director, and for many years was the energy behind the operation, with tremendous vitality and stamina that only increased as time went on. When Reinhardt left the Deutsches Theater, Holländer took over the directorship and stayed in this post throughout the chaos of the postwar years until the worst was over and he could once again place it in Reinhardt’s hands. Now he’s back in the theater critic’s orchestra seat. In addition, he did sparkling work as a stage producer.

Perhaps he has thought of writing a memoir by this point. He was invariably in the thick of every moment of turmoil. It would surely be very interesting if he were to portray a portion of his journey, because he would be speaking not only of personal matters but of a turbulent era in the history of Berlin.

B. Z. am Mittag, October 31, 1927

The Elder Statesman of Berlin Theater Critics

ON THE DEATH OF ALFRED KLAAR

Alfred Klaar, the elder statesman of Berlin theater critics, who has now died two days before completing his seventy-ninth year of life, began his life on Prague soil, just like Fritz Mauthner. He taught at the Deutsche Technik academy, where he acquired the title of professor. He served as theater critic for the Bohemia. He was a focal point in the intellectual life of the city, in which he gave the final outdoor speech in German at a Schiller commemoration. To this day there is a picture of Klaar hanging in the rooms of the Concordia, the Prague writers’ association, for which he organized the talks. He looks like a mild-mannered, dark-bearded, pensive individual.

As a critic, Klaar embraced the aesthetics of idealism. For him, the German classical drama was the eternal high point; he wrote extended essays on Maria Stuart and reviews in serial form. But because he was at home in the Austrian cultural sphere, he enjoyed early exposure to the world of Ludwig Anzengruber, and with every generation he progressed into the next one.

The best thing about him was the forbearance with which he adapted to trends that had to have been unfamiliar to him. The criticism he penned at an advanced age was gentle and well intentioned. In the decades of his professional life he had seen a great deal, starting in Prague, at Angelo Neumann’s German Theater, where the luminaries of the north German and Austrian theater gathered as guests and for many a future giant of the theater was the springboard to success. He had a comprehensive overview of talents and trends, and in addition to his ability to recognize individual strengths, he was well versed in his capacity as a patriarch.

When he moved to the capital of the German Empire with Paula Eberty, a Berlin actress who worked with Else Lehmann, he wrote for the Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, then for the Vossische Zeitung, Theodor Fontane’s and Paul Schlenther’s newspaper. He kept on working tirelessly right into his days of infirmity, and he attended every premiere, in a misbuttoned black tailcoat, a friendly old man with bright, serious eyes. The Association of Berlin Theater Critics just recently named him honorary president.

Of all of Alfred Klaar’s books, one stands out as the full expression of his personality. Its title is We and Humanity. This literary historian, who also wrote an account of Spinoza’s philosophy, was a humane individual to the depths of his soul. One of his last publications was a study of Heinrich von Kleist’s Marquise of O. He was a highly enthusiastic orator and had an astonishing memory. Anyone who has heard him talk about someone like Uriel Acosta for more than an hour without any notes knows his integrity and his ethical stance, and his exacting mastery of the word will ensure people’s reverential love for him well into the future.

B. Z. am Mittag, November 5, 1927

The B. Z. Lady and the German Crown Prince

At two on the dot, Schappel goes into Taubenschlag Restaurant on Behrenstrasse, sets up shop in the corner, spreads out at the round table in the back, and adjusts her