Helen und Kurt Wolff Archive
The Helen and Kurt Wolff Archive possesses the estates of over 200 authors and scholars who were persecuted by the Nazi regime and subsequently went into exile, making it one of the most important sources for German-language exile literature of the twentieth century.
Since its establishment in 1955, the German Literature Archive Marbach (DLA) has been among the most significant collections for German-language exile literature. The aspiration to collect German-language literature which was subject to book burnings and censorship already guided the founders of the DLA and remains a hallmark of the archive’s policies for acquisitions, exhibitions and events to the present day. The holdings of the estates of authors who lived in exile include those of Hannah Arendt, Alfred Döblin, Hilde Domin, Yvan Goll, Mascha Kaléko, Siegfried Kracauer, Else Lasker-Schüler, Karl Löwith, Heinrich Mann, Joseph Roth, Nelly Sachs, Carl and Thea Sternheim, Kurt Tucholsky, Kurt Wolff, Karl Wolfskehl, Carl Zuckmayer and Stefan Zweig. Along with numerous other holdings, they form the Helen and Kurt Wolff Archive.
The name of this archive honors Helen and Kurt Wolff, a married couple who worked together in publishing. Forced into exile themselves, they were the publishers and agents for many authors in exile and are represented in nearly every holding in Marbach related to the exile of German-language authors with letters, manuscripts, contracts and other documents.
Current indexing projects:
Schalom Ben-Chorin, Konrad Merz, Gabriele Tergit, Armin T. Wegner