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| Verlag Die Schmiede | |
|---|---|
| Name | Verlag Die Schmiede |
| Founder | August Scherl |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Country | Germany |
| Headquarters | Berlin |
| Publications | Books, Literary Magazines, Pamphlets |
| Genre | Literature, Philosophy, Political Thought |
Verlag Die Schmiede was a Berlin-based publishing house active in the early to mid-20th century, notable for its role in modernist literature and intellectual debate in Weimar and postwar Germany. It became associated with avant-garde writers, émigré intellectuals, and cross-disciplinary collaboration among poets, painters, and critics. The press's activities intersected with major cultural institutions and movements across Europe and the Americas.
Verlag Die Schmiede emerged amid the cultural ferment of post-World War I Berlin, interacting with circles around Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Toller, Hermann Hesse, and Rainer Maria Rilke. During the Weimar Republic it published material that connected to Dada, Expressionism, New Objectivity, Bauhaus, and exchanges with Paris Commune (1871). The imprint weathered the rise of the Nazi Party and the repressive policies that affected peers such as S. Fischer Verlag, Rowohlt Verlag, Suhrkamp Verlag, and émigré networks like Querido Verlag. Post-1945, Die Schmiede participated in efforts similar to Allied Control Council cultural reconstruction, aligning with initiatives from British Council and United States Information Agency cultural programs.
The founding circle included editors, typographers, and patrons linked to figures like Alfred Döblin, Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch, Franz Werfel, and designers influenced by Jan Tschichold and Paul Klee. Key administrators corresponded with literary agents and institutions such as Erich Maria Remarque's representatives and the offices of Thomas Mann in exile. Printers and binders collaborated with workshops associated with Bauhaus Dessau alumni and the studios of Lyonel Feininger and Kurt Schwitters. The publisher also maintained ties with critics and curators operating at venues including Pergamon Museum, Städtische Galerie, and the editorial teams of periodicals like Die Weltbühne, Simplicissimus, and Der Sturm.
Die Schmiede issued editions that brought together authors and artists comparable to Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Gustav Mahler in music writing contexts, and translators who engaged with works by Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and Samuel Beckett. Its catalog included poetry and essays by writers in the orbit of Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn, Bertolt Brecht, and Else Lasker-Schüler, with illustrated volumes featuring contributions from Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Oskar Kokoschka, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Scholarly and polemical titles connected to debates involving Karl Kraus, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Gropius also appeared under its imprint, reflecting intersections with theater practitioners like Max Reinhardt and composers such as Arnold Schoenberg.
The editorial program favored experimental prose, urban reportage, and politically engaged drama, resonating with contemporary movements around Neue Sachlichkeit, Symbolism, and anti-establishment currents linked to Spartacus League. Design aesthetics matched modernist typographic standards influenced by Jan Tschichold, El Lissitzky, and Bauhaus pedagogues, producing dust jackets and layouts in dialogue with galleries exhibiting Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. The house often published limited-run portfolios, artist books, and pamphlets that connected literary texts to exhibitions at institutions such as Neue Nationalgalerie and salons hosted by figures like Alfred Kerr.
Distribution networks extended through booksellers and wholesalers tied to Leipzig Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, and international partners in Paris, London, New York City, and Buenos Aires. Reviews and debates took place in periodicals including Frankfurter Zeitung, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, The Times Literary Supplement, and émigré journals such as Exilpresse and Menschen und Werke. Reception fluctuated with political pressures, censorship episodes similar to cases involving Ernst Toller and Kurt Tucholsky, and wartime disruptions that paralleled the experiences of S. Fischer Verlag and Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Verlag Die Schmiede's legacy is evident in the transmission of modernist aesthetics to postwar publishing houses like Suhrkamp Verlag and Rowohlt Verlag, and in the careers of writers who later engaged with institutions such as Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and university presses at Humboldt University of Berlin. Its experimental formats influenced independent presses in Paris, London, and New York City and inspired curators at museums including Stedelijk Museum and Museum of Modern Art. The house's intersections with émigré communities shaped scholarship archived in centers like Leo Baeck Institute and collections at YIVO.
Papers, correspondences, and typescripts connected to Die Schmiede are preserved in various institutional repositories, including holdings comparable to those at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, Bodleian Libraries, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and specialized collections at German National Library. Artist proofs and design materials appear in museum archives such as Museum of Modern Art and university special collections at Columbia University and University of Oxford. Researchers consult catalogues from fairs like Frankfurt Book Fair and inventories assembled by bibliographers in the tradition of Walter Benjamin studies and archival initiatives at Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen.