#kressmann-taylor

[amtskind]

jerre's books 03

kathrine kressmann-taylor - adressat unbekannt [address unknown] (1938)

"the german martin schulse and the american jew max eisenstein run a flourishing art-gallery in the usa. in 1932 schulse decides to return to germany with his family and enjoys a prosperous life. meanwhile, eisenstein continues to run the joint gallery in san francisco. the following year, hitler comes to power.

the two men remain in contact through letters. at first, the friendship does not seem to suffer from the spatial separation and the political movement in germany.

however schulse, who was initially critical of the changes in his homecountry, gradually developes into an avowed nazi.

the tables turn, twice."

✉︎ review ✉︎

in just a few pages, the author manages to tell an exciting story that makes the change of the characters' personalities and friendship tangibly clear, as sad as those are.

an unexpecting turn makes the novel unique and memorable. kressmann-taylor reminds the reader, how fast and severe propaganda impacts people. and unfortunately, this topic is still very relevant today.

✉︎ background - spoiler warning ✉︎

the author's husband and editor thought the story was "too strong to appear under a woman's name". therefore, "address unknown" was published solely under her last name, that she remained using for all of her following publications.

when story-press reissued the novel in 1995, it reached it's peak popularity, leading to numerous translations and adaptations in movies and even theatre.

kressmann-taylor's story of "letters as a weapon" was inspired by a news-article about american students in germany, who wrote home some depictions about the nazi atrocities. soon afterwards, their fellow students jokingly send them letters, in which they made fun of adolf hitler. for them, those letters, that were potentially controlled by the government, could lead to life-threatening consequences, like stated in an answer of one of the visiting students:

"stop it. we're in danger. these people don't fool around. you could murder [redacted] by writing letters to him"

the title of the novel is a mistranslation and would have been called "addressee unknown" (indicating they are probably dead) correctly- which makes more sense regarding the plot.