Bernard von Brentano (15 October 1901, in Offenbach am Main – 29 December 1964, in Wiesbaden) was a German writer, poet, playwright, storyteller, novelist, essayist and journalist.
Life
Brentano was born on 15 October 1901, a son of the Hessian Interior and Justice Minister Otto Rudolf von Brentano di Tremezzo and a brother of Clemens and Heinrich von Brentano. His mother, Lilla Beata née Schwerdt maternally stems from the Frankfurt line of the Brentano family. In contrast to his brothers, Bernard von Brentano hardly used the full name of his family, Brentano di Tremezzo.
Brentano studied philosophy in Freiburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin. In Frankfurt, he became an active member of the catholic student association Bavaria. In Munich he was a member of the K. St. V. Rheno-Bavaria. Brentano became a member of the PEN-Club in 1920. From 1925 to 1930, he worked in the Berlin office of the Frankfurter Zeitung, where he became the successor of Joseph Roth. He was also involved in the Association of proletarian revolutionary writers and worked for the Communist literary magazine Die Linkskurve. A KPD member, he later left the party and distanced himself from politics after some trips to Moscow and because of the party's Stalinist tendencies.
Together with Berthold Brecht and Herbert Ihering he planned to edit the magazine "Krisis und Kritik", which, however, never appeared. In 1933, he emigrated to Switzerland and his family lived in Küsnacht in Zurich. In 1949, he returned from exile back to Germany. He lived with his family in Wiesbaden.Translated from Sven Hanuschek: Nachwort zu Bernard von Brentano: Theodor Chindler. Roman einer deutschen Familie. Schöffling, Frankfurt am Main 2014. .
Works Über den Ernst des Lebens, 1929 Kapitalismus und schöne Literatur, 1930 Der Beginn der Barbarei in Deutschland, 1932 Berliner Novellen, 1934 Theodor Chindler, 1936 Prozess ohne Richter, 1937 Die ewigen Gefühle, 1939 Une Famille Allemande, 1939 Phädra. Drama, 1939 Tagebuch mit Büchern, 1943 August Wilhelm Schlegel, 1944 Goethe und Marianne von Willemer, 1945 Franziska Scheler, 1945 Martha und Maria, 1946 Streifzüge, 1947 Die Schwestern Usedom, 1948 Sophie Charlotte und Danckelmann, 1949 Du Land der Liebe, 1952
References
Further reading Konrad Feilchenfeldt:Afterword, in: Bernard von Brentano:Three prelates. Essays. Limes, Wiesbaden 1974th (Important for the Assessment of Brentano's later work) Ulrike Hessler:Bernard von Brentano. A German writer without Germany. Tendencies of the novel between the Weimar Republic and in exile. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.m. e.g. 1984th (= European university studies. I. 778th series) Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag (ed.), Handbook of the German Empire, Volume 1, Berlin, 1931