Bermann Fischer, Gottfried

Photo: DNB, Laura Stein

Gottfried Bermann was born in Gleiwitz (Gliwice, Upper Silesia) on 31 March 1897. He studied medicine and subsequently started his career as an assistant doctor. In 1925, he married Brigitte Fischer (born in Berlin on 5 April 1905), the daughter of Berlin publisher Samuel Fischer. At his father-in-law's request, he joined the publishing company and changed his name to Gottfried Bermann Fischer. After Samuel Fischer's death in 1934, Gottfried Bermann Fischer and his wife took over the publishing company.

Gottfried and Brigitte Bermann Fischer were both of Jewish origin. In 1935, they moved to Vienna to escape persecution by the Nazis. When they left, Gottfried Bermann Fischer succeeded in reaching an agreement with the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda regarding the division of the S. Fischer Verlag: while one part of the publishing company remained in the German Reich under the management of Peter Suhrkamp, Bermann Fischer was able to re-establish the other part in Vienna under the name "Bermann-Fischer Verlags GmbH".

In March 1938, immediately after the annexation of Austria, Bermann Fischer and his family fled via Switzerland to Sweden, where he set up the Bermann-Fischer-Verlag once more. He was forced to leave his personal possessions and the Viennese company's book depository behind when he escaped from Austria. In 1940, he was expelled from Sweden following an arrest and emigrated to the USA with his family. After the end of the war, he re-established the publishing company S. Fischer-Verlag in Berlin and Frankfurt and oversaw its operations until 1962. He died in Italy in 1995.

20 publications that formerly belonged to Gottfried Bermann Fischer have been identified from among the German National Library's holdings in Leipzig. The majority of these writings came to the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig in 1938/39 via the book collection and distribution centre (Bücherverwertungsstelle) in Vienna. Albert Paust, who had been seconded from the Deutsche Bücherei to the book collection and distribution centre (Bücherverwertungsstelle) in September 1938, appears to have personally supervised the removal of Bermann Fischer's private library from his apartment in Vienna's Hietzing district. In a report to the Deutsche Bücherei's Director-General, Heinrich Uhlendahl, he expressly mentions the rare private prints that he had found in Bermann Fischer's library. However, the Deutsche Bücherei was not the sole recipient of the confiscated property: the Austrian National Library in Vienna also added books belonging to Gottfried Bermann Fischer to its inventory. After the war, more books were found in the so-called "Tanzenberg collection", a depository of books looted by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. The fact that books from the private library also found their way into the antiquarian book trade is evidenced not least by the finding that two of the publications identified at the German National Library were not acquired through the book collection and distribution centre (Bücherverwertungsstelle) but were rather added to the collection as antiquarian purchases made as late as the 1960s.

The German National Library managed to contact Gottfried Bermann Fischer's heirs and, in the spring of 2023, reached an agreement with them regarding the return of the publications and their subsequent repurchase. The 20 books can thus remain in the German National Library's collection and – in accordance with the heirs' wishes – continue to be accessible to the public.

Further information:

Gottfried Bermann Fischer, Bedroht – Bewahrt. Der Weg eines Verlegers, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1994.

Sören Flachowsky, „Zeughaus für die Schwerter des Geistes“. Die Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig 1912-1945, Göttingen 2018.

Murray G. Hall und Christina Köstner, „…allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern…“ Eine österreichische Institution in der NS-Zeit, Wien: Böhlau 2006.

Irene Nawrocka, „Verlagssitz: Wien, Stockholm, New York, Amsterdam. Der Bermann-Fischer Verlag im Exil (1933-1950). Ein Abschnitt aus der Geschichte des S. Fischer Verlages“, in: Archiv für die Geschichte des Buchwesens 53 (2000), S. 1-210.

Irene Nawrocka (Hrsg.), Carl Zuckmayer – Gottfried Bermann Fischer: Briefwechsel. Mit den Briefen von Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer und Brigitte Bermann Fischer, Göttingen 2004.

Grit Nitzsche, „Die Bücherverwertungsstelle Wien“, in: Regine Dehnel (Hg.), Jüdischer Buchbesitz als Raubgut. Zweites Hannoversches Symposium, Frankfurt am Main 2005, S. 67-72.