Pinthus, Kurt

(1886-1975)

   theater* and film* critic; edited the first important anthology of Expressionism.* Born to a Jewish family in Erfurt, he studied philosophy and literary history at Leipzig and took his doctorate in 1911. Already writing criticism by 1908 for various literary publications (through which he helped establish several Expressionist writers), he was an advisor for Leipzig's Ernst Rowohlt* Verlag by 1910. In 1912 he helped his friend Kurt Wolff* establish the Kurt Wolff Verlag. As principal reader for Wolff (he still juried for Rowohlt), he promoted numerous Expressionists, including Franz Werfel and Walter Hasenclever.* Although World War I interrupted his career, he achieved some renown in November 1918 as a member of Magdeburg's Soldiers' Council. His early 1919 "Address to World Citizens" was among the literary community's foremost calls to internationalism. Relocating to Berlin,* he became leading critic for Tage-Buch* and 8-Uhr-Abendblatt. His Mensch-heitsdammerung (Twilight of mankind), published in 1919, remains the most famous anthology of Expressionist poetry. With an uncommon appreciation of film and radio, he began broadcasting at Berlin's first radio station in 1923.

   Although Pinthus appeared on the Nazis' list of proscribed authors, he re-mained in Germany after 1933 and lectured at Berlin's Freies Jüdische Lehrhaus (Free Jewish School). Fleeing to America in 1937, he wrote for the New York Times, taught theater at Columbia University, and worked on the Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature. He returned to Germany in 1953.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon;Deak, Weimar Germany's Left-Wing Intellectuals; Ermarth, Kurt Wolff; Newton, Form in the Menschheitsdammerung; Raabe, Era ofGerman Expressionism.