Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 10

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.2 linear_foot (1 box)

Language:

German

Preferred Citation:

Alma Mahler letters to Willy Haas, circa 1939-1961, Ms. Coll. 10, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1912-1961 (inclusive) and 1947-1961 (bulk)

Creator:

Mahler, Alma

Form:

Correspondence

Abstract:

Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879-1964) was a composer, author, and editor. Born in Vienna, she was forced to leave Austria in 1938, after the Anschluss, seeking refuge in the United States. Her husband, Franz Werfel, was a life-long friend of Willy Haas, editor of Die Welt, who assisted Alma with the German edition of her autobiography, Mein Leben. This collection consists almost entirely of letters written by Alma Mahler Werfel and sent to Willy Haas. The letters are all in German. There are two additional letters, one: a photocopy of a letter from Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), an Austrian artist, poet, and playwright; and the other: a photocopy of a letter from Alma to Baroness Annie Schey.

Born Alma Maria Schindler, Alma Mahler was a composer, author, and editor. Born in Vienna, she was forced to leave Austria in 1938, after the Anschluss, seeking refuge in the United States. She was married to the composer Gustav Mahler, the architect Walter Gropius, and the author Franz Werfel. A life-long friend of Franz Werfel, Willy Haas assisted Alma with the German edition of her autobiography, Mein Leben. For a more extensive biographical note on Alma Mahler, see the Mahler-Werfel papers, 1880-2004 (bulk: 1898-1975), Ms. Coll. 575.

Born in Prague in 1891, Willy Haas studied law and participated in the literary and cultural circles that met at the Cafe Arco; other members of this set included Franz Kafka, Max Brod, and Franz Werfel, who became Haas' lifelong friend. After the First World War, Haas moved to Berlin, where he worked as a screenwriter, editor, and film critic, and where he founded the weekly newspaper Die literär Welt. After enduring political harassment from the German government, he returned to Prague in 1933, where he founded the short-lived and financially unsuccessful literary magazine Welt in Wort. [1] After the German occupation of Prague he moved to Italy and then to India, where he worked as a screenwriter for Indian films and as a censor for the British army in India. [2] At the end of the war he moved to Hamburg, where he wrote for the magazines Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag. Haas was married to the translator Jarmila Ambrozova from 1919 to 1921, to Hanna Waldeck (with whom he had a son in 1925) from 1924 to 1936, and to Herta Doctor from 1947 until his death in 1973. He and Herta Doctor were buried in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. [3]

This collection consists almost entirely of letters written by Alma Mahler Werfel and sent to Willy Haas, a friend who helped her with the German edition of her autobiography, Mein Leben. The letters are all in German.

The collection also includes a photocopy of a letter from Oskar Kokoschka to Alma, dated 15 April 1912, and a photocopy of a letter from Alma to Baroness Annie Schey, dated 7 March 1917.