Ernst Kaiser


Ernst David Kaiser was an Austrian writer and translator.

Life and work

The Jewish Austrian Ernst David Kaiser was born in Vienna in Bandgasse. His father, a Jewish merchant, came from the Slovak part of Hungary, the mother from Brno. At birth he was Hungarian, but his father later opted to be Austrian. Ernst Kaiser grew up in Vienna, attended a high school, passed the Matura, his military service and studied German. Before he could finish his doctorate, took place on 12 March 1938 annexation of Austria into the German Reich. A few months later Kaiser fled to Prague to Poland and from there by ship to Southampton / UK. He settled in London. He found only in a slaughterhouse a job where he dragged pork and sides of beef in cold storage. When the war began Kaiser was interned "and was afterwards almost six years in the British Army, as the military government in Hamburg as an interpreter at the rank of sergeant and pulled it right then retire to private life and to waive any officer rank. "Later, he wrote that he had fought against Germany in Germany.

Postwar period

Still in Hamburg was published in 1946 his first book, "Shadow Man", a novella, published by Hans Duve. He lived in London, working as a translator. As a writer he has been unsuccessful. End of 1946, Kaiser took British citizenship. He met Eithne Wilkins, a New Zealand Germanist know, translator and poet. She taught at the time as a lecturer at the University of London. Kaiser and Wilkins married in 1949.
1947 Kaiser asked the Bollingen Foundation in New York, a grant to the second part of his novel writing "The Story of a Murder." It is the writer Hermann Broch, who examined the first 480 pages of the manuscript for the Foundation. Broch is full of praise and recommends promoting emperor. He is aware that it will be difficult to find a publisher for the bulky book. He therefore makes the proposal to set up a library, to be collected in the publication is worth manuscripts for the first place, no publisher, so they are not lost or forgotten.
Despite the use of Hermann Broch leaned from the Foundation to promote Emperor. He wrote the second part of his novel without subsidies, as in the following years, a series of novels and short stories. Together with his wife he has translated books from German into English. They are regarded as outstanding good translators who work for first publishing addresses in the U.S. and the UK. Are on the long list of its transmissions including Novels, short stories and poems by Goethe, Kafka, Benn, Feuchtwanger, Wiechert, Kokoschka and Lenz, further letter volumes of Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg.

Musil translation

Groundbreaking is their translations of several works of Robert Musil, including "The Man Without Qualities", they not only translated, but also in the new version edidierten from the estate. In fact, the scientific work on Robert Musil's work since 1950 for Kaiser and Wilkins-Kaiser their main activity. Already in 1948, "they gave the most spectacular signal the importance of the writer after the Second World War for the first time raised awareness with a large article in the London Times." Since 1950, co-published numerous scientific papers on Musil's work in journals and anthologies, including the 1962 extensive band "Robert Musil - An introduction to the work." In
Stuttgart
The contact to the Bollingen Foundation has now been helpful. In the period from 1954 to 1965, the couple Kaiser / Wilkins was thanks to several grants from the Foundation eleven years living in Rome and view the estate Musil and evaluate. The resulting findings led to a several years-long disagreement with the Rowohlt been published where Adolf Frise, a complete edition of the works of Robert Musil was. It was located in the estate of the Frise texts Musil ignored, with the result that additional chapters to the novel "The Man Without Qualities" were not published, and also the order of the published chapter was incorrect. Only after vigorous public discourse and after in the U.S. and in the UK, the translation of the book appeared in the correct form and completed by Emperor / Wilkins, the Rowohlt decided on a revised edition. In the period from 21 April 1967 was to read: "The years of conflict to the Musil-Edition, fueled by the reduction studies of Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser Kaiser, have still found a happy ending. The Rowohlt... announced that a new edition of his work has now begun. Published 1968... and of Frise, together with the Emperor... developed new edition of "The Man Without Qualities"... so it seems as if one of the few outstanding German writers of this century, but come to a regular edition of his work. "
Also on the relocation of the estate of Robert Musil from Rome to Austria, where these materials are now archived in database of the National Library in Vienna, the couple Kaiser / Wilkins had played a major role.
In 1969, Ernst Kaiser publish a second book. It is the Paracelsus monograph in the monograph series of KESSINGER publisher. Why does the author of Paracelsus interested is currently not known. Maybe it was a commissioned work for the publisher, which was made for purely financial reasons.

Publication of the 2nd Romans

Multiple tried Ernst Kaiser, his novel "The Story of a Murder" to accommodate German publishers. Friends, as the German scholar Wilhelm Bausinger tried to assist him. For nearly three years the manuscript was published by Suhrkamp Verlag. Several times was from there signaled a willingness to publish this work. Kaiser was asked to cut the text clearly. This he declined, not because he did not want any cuts, but he noted that the work must be "objectively made useful". He hoped to "live it to cut a god and streamlined." In November 1960 Suhrkamp handed the manuscript back without comment. Kaiser presented the text now on the publisher Ledig-Rowohlt, with whom he was for three years because of the revision of Musil issue in personal contact. Also Ledig-Rowohlt began by the publication of the novel in view; but also insisted on cuts. Kaiser was, as he reported in a letter to Bausinger, agrees. However, he has declared Ledig-Rowohlt that he could not make this revision. First, it was ten years ago that he had completed the work, he was temporally unable to hineinzufinden again in his text, and secondly, come the novel of a lifetime that he had finished, and in the back he did not want. He got the publisher to cut free hand given to cut too sharply. Kaiser was more surprised that his manuscript was sent by a publisher secretary without any comment two months later.
The writer Ingrid Bachér, who now lives in Düsseldorf, held in the first half of the 1960s in Rome. She learned the couple Kaiser / Wilkins know, it was friendship. They also offered "The story of a murder" in its present publishers. Her opposite was Ernst Kaiser free hand with regard to the revision of the text. Even then their efforts were unsuccessful. Ingrid Bacher returned to Germany, and Ernst Kaiser and his wife moved in 1966 to the UK. Kaiser Eithne Wilkins received in spring 1968 as a professor at the University of Reading. Kaiser was appointed Honorary Research Fellow and directed with his wife, the Robert Musil Research Unit at the University. Ingrid Bacher, the emperor remained in contact corresponded.
Disappeared estate
On 1 January 1972 Ernst Kaiser died in Reading. Just two years later, in late 1974, also died Eithne Wilkins Kaiser. Shortly thereafter reported to Ingrid Bacher, the former assistant of Kaiser-Wilkins at the University and wrote the Emperor would have to hand over all her manuscripts Ernst Kaiser, with the request to publish try out this bundle. She answered immediately, she was ready to take on the lyrics. The announced package with the lyrics but never came. All attempts to clarify the whereabouts of the package were unsuccessful. The assistant had to go to a closed psychiatric hospital and was no longer accessible. Reading the Emperor is no discount available. The brother of Eithne Wilkins, a scientist, refused to provide any information. The texts of the writer Ernst David Kaiser had listed as missing. In one of her novels, wrote Ingrid Bacher fate emperor and his manuscripts. Thus, the unknown author was a literary figure.
Two forums of Else Lasker-Schüler company reported Ingrid Bacher Ernst Kaiser, his wife and his missing texts. In 2001, she then spoke to a young man and offered to conduct a search. In the Internet age must surely be to find something about Kaiser. He was right. The German Literature Archive in Marbach, there were numerous references to the Emperor, correspondence with authors, journals and publishers. As particularly productive premature legacy of the ethnologist proved Prof. Dr. Hermann Bausinger. Hermann Bausinger handed over to the archives - as part of its Vorlasses - even the estate of his brother William, who was killed in 1966 fatal. This includes inter alia An extensive correspondence of William Bausinger with Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins Kaiser. They were connected not only as Musil researchers, but also devoted to friendship. Moreover, in Bausinger inventory, manuscripts Emperor exist, including the carbon copy of a typewritten manuscript of the novel "The Story of a Murder", a total of over 1,000 pages, divided into a first part, "The Big House", an "interlude" and a second part of "The White House".
Ingrid Bacher went to Marbach and read the text in the archive "The Big House" and many letters from Kaiser / Bausinger. She let him copy the manuscript, looking for a publisher. Again succeeded over the years not a publisher to print the novel "The Story of a Murder" to move. This despite always great interest in disclosure was signaled. Only in the spring of 2008 she was on the basis of personal acquaintance with the publisher Ralf love and his program director Helmut Braun two colleagues who were willing to implement the publication of the novel. After reading the entire manuscript suggested Brown, initially published the first part of the text as "The Story of a Murder." Since the second part, "The White House", far removed from the narrative of the first part and the only clip the character of the protagonist is, it is justified to speak of two novels that can be published separately. Ingrid Bacher took it over, as promised his time, the text referred to Emperor "objectively useful to make" him "to tighten and shorten." It did so gently and without stylistic interventions. The necessary transcript - creating a file - and their correction led to a tentative alignment with today's spelling and punctuation, without mentioning the peculiarities of spelling Emperor impaired. Now there is a "human readable text" before, which tells of a man who becomes embroiled in a surreal way in a murder case, falling into a trap of reality and fiction, the question of guilt nearly destroyed and what by waiving all accounting for his life, seeking a release.
Kaiser's literary archive is now with a niece of Eithne Wilkins, in London. The archive includes unpublished manuscripts, correspondence and original artwork.