Fembio Special: European Jewish Women
Gabriele Tergit
(Dr. Elise Reifenberg geb. Hirschmann / Irene Bersill [weiteres Pseudonym] / Christian Thomasius [weiteres Pseudonym])
(Dr. Elise Reifenberg née Hirschmann / Irene Bersill, Christian Thomasius (pseudonyms))
Born 4 March 1894 in Berlin
Died 25 July 1982 in London
German author and journalist, Secretary of the PEN-Center of German-language Authors Abroad
125th birthday on 4 March 2019
Biography • Quotes • Weblinks • Literature & Sources
Biography
Gabriele Tergit had already pioneered as a female court reporter for major Berlin newspapers when she became famous overnight for her socially critical novel about the late Weimar Republic, Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Conquers the Kurfürstendamm, 1931). Her literary career in Germany was cut short by Hitler, however, and, like Irmgard Keun, she was largely forgotten after the war. But in spite of her lack of success in the early Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the exiled author never stopped writing and also worked tirelessly for the last 25 years of her life as the honorary secretary of the London PEN-Center of expatriate German-speaking authors. With the growing interest in women writers in the late 1970’s Tergit’s writings have attracted renewed attention and many have been republished.
The daughter of a Munich mother who had been in the textile trimming business and a prominent German-Jewish manufacturer, Elise Hirschmann attended the social work school of Dr. Alice Salomon against her father’s wishes, in order to prepare for a career as a social worker – or as a political activist in the struggle for women’s equality in the workforce. At age 19 she published her first newspaper article on the problems of women in wartime in a supplement to the Berliner Tageblatt. This did not please her family either—no proper young lady from a good family would write for the newspaper, after all! Nonetheless, Tergit, who had invented this name from the word “Gitter” (fence or trellis), decided to become a journalist, and with this goal in mind she went to university to study history and philosophy, earning her doctorate in 1925. Three years later she married the Berlin architect Heinz Reifenberg.
From 1920 on she was publishing feuilletons in the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt; in 1925 she was given a regular position as a court reporter at the Berliner Tageblatt. Tergit and her colleague “Sling” (Paul Schlesinger) from the Vossische Zeitung elevated the reporting of court cases to a literary genre in its own right through their lively language and socially critical perspective. Tergit’s articles criticizing injustice and the reactionary judges of the era also appeared in the progressive antifascist journal Die Weltbühne, published by Carl von Ossietzky..
Her début novel, a satire on the corrupt, sensation-craving Berlin society and popular press of the late Weimar Republic, deals with an unknown folk-singer, Käsebier, who is made famous by the media only to end in ruin in the great economic depression. With Käsebier Tergit became famous herself; the critics, comparing her with Zola, found that she had written the paramount social-critical novel of the day and managed the impossible: “laughter amidst the misery of going under.”
When a horde of SA-men forced its way into her apartment on March 4, 1933 and tried to drag her off, Tergit realized that she could no longer remain in Germany. Although this first assault had been repelled successfully, Tergit left Berlin the same day for Czechoslovakia, followed by her husband and son Peter. They soon moved on to Palestine.
From 1938 on Tergit resided in London and continued work on her writing. Her historical novel Effingers, which traces several generations of a German-Jewish family from the late 1870’s to the years following World War II, was begun in 1933 but was not published until 1951 in the FRG, where the “Jewish Buddenbrooks” met with only limited success. Following this Tergit wrote primarily cultural-historical studies such as Kaiserkron und Päonien Rot: Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Blumen (1958; Crown Imperial and Red Peonies: A Little Cultural History of Flowers); as the secretary of the PEN-Center she also edited and published numerous reports and autobiographies of writers.
Her own recollections, Etwas Seltenes überhaupt (Something Unusual), appeared posthumously in 1983.
Quotes
“Curiously, the Communist Welt am Abend did the best job of describing my psychology, which was simple but in 1931 uncommon: ‘Tergit is a citizen who has managed to maintained a sense of clean integrity (Sauberkeit) and ardently believes in a liberal ideal of society … She wants to punish the capitalist world of her novel for its degeneracy in order to better it.’” (Gabriele Tergit on her novel Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm)
Truth, my dear professor, is one of Hitler's victims. (Gabriele Tergit, Quelle)
Links
For additional information please consult the German version.
Literature & Sources
Sources
Brinker-Gabler, Gisela; Ludwig, Karola; Wöffen, Angela (1986): Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schriftstellerinnen 1800-1945. München: Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl. (dtv, 3282).
Larsen, Egon (1987): Die Welt der Gabriele Tergit. Aus dem Leben einer ewig jungen Berlinerin. München: Auerbach.
Tergit, Gabriele (1932): Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm. Roman. Berlin: Rowohlt.
Tergit, Gabriele (1951): Effingers. Roman. Hamburg: Hammerich & Lesser.
Tergit, Gabriele (1983): Etwas Seltenes überhaupt. Erinnerungen. Frankfurt: Ullstein (Ullstein Buch, 20324).
Wall, Renate (1988): Verbrannt, verboten, vergessen. Kleines Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schriftstellerinnen 1933 bis 1945. Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein (Kleine Bibliothek Frauen, 510).
Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach: Nachlass Tergit, Gabriele. Last checked 17 July 2007.
Heimberg, Anke von: Wer schießt aus Liebe? – Gerichtsreportagen von Gabriele Tergit. Rezension. literaturkritik.de. Last checked 17 July 2007.
Littlejohn, Fiona: Mobility in the Metropolis: Responses to the Changing City in Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm and J.B. Priestley’s Angel Pavement. Last checked 17 July 2007.
Reinhold, Ursula: Wiederentdeckte Novelle als Zeitbild. Rezension zu „Der erste Zug nach Berlin“. In: Berliner LeseZeichen, Ausgabe 02/2001. berliner-lesezeichen.de. Last checked 17 July 2007.
Wörtche, Thomas: Crime Watch – Wer schießt aus Liebe? Gerichtsreportagen. Rezension. freitag.de. Last checked 17 July 2007.
Works of Gabriele Tergit
Jatho, Gabriele; Rother, Rainer (Hg.) (2007): City Girls. Frauenbilder im Stummfilm. Katalog. Enthält „Sorores Optimae“ von Gabriele Tergit. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer (Filmheft, 11).
Tergit, Gabriele (Hg.) (1959): Autobiographien und Bibliographien. International PEN, a World Association of Writers. Erschien unter Tergits Realnamen Elise Reifenberg. London: Expedite Dublicating Co.
Tergit, Gabriele (1932): Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm. Roman. Berlin: Rowohlt.
Tergit, Gabriele (1951): Effingers. Roman. Hamburg: Hammerich & Lesser.
Tergit, Gabriele (1954): Das Büchlein vom Bett. Mit Zeichnungen von Gerhard Kreische und Erhard Klepper. Berlin-Grunewald: Herbig.
Tergit, Gabriele (1958): Kaiserkron und Päonien rot. Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Blumen. Mit Zeichnungen von Elfriede Fulda. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Tergit, Gabriele (1965): Das Tulpenbüchlein. Hannover: Landbuch-Verl.
Tergit, Gabriele (1983): Etwas Seltenes überhaupt. Erinnerungen. Frankfurt: Ullstein (Ullstein Buch, 20324).
Tergit, Gabriele (1984): Blüten der zwanziger Jahre. Gerichtsreportagen und Feuilletons 1923-1933. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Berlin: Rotation-Verl.
Tergit, Gabriele (1994): Atem [aus] einer anderen Welt. Berliner Reportagen. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch, 2280).
Tergit, Gabriele (1996): Im Schnellzug nach Haifa. Mit Fotos aus dem Archiv Abraham Pisarek. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Berlin: Transit Buchverl.
Tergit, Gabriele (1999): Wer schießt aus Liebe? Gerichtsreportagen. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin.
Tergit, Gabriele (2000): Der erste Zug nach Berlin. Novelle. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin.
Tergit, Gabriele (2001): Frauen und andere Ereignisse. Publizistik und Erzählungen von 1915 bis 1970. Herausgeg. von Jens Brüning. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin.
Further References
Deighton, Alan (Hg.) (1995): Order from confusion. Essays presented to Edward McInnes on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Enthält: Von Frauen und Frauenbeinen – Girls, Mädchen und andere in der Reportage von Joseph Roth und Gabriele Tergit von Helen Chambers. Hull: German Department Univ. of Hull (New German studies Texts & monographs, 10).
Josting, Petra; Fähnders, Walter; Karrenbrock, Helga (2005): Laboratorium Vielseitigkeit. Zur Literatur der Weimarer Republik ; Festschrift für Helga Karrenbrock zum 60. Geburtstag. Enthält: Mediensatire wider die Entpolitisierung der Zeitung. Journalismuskritik in Romanen von Gabriele Tergit und Erich Kästner. Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verl.
Mockel, Eva-Maria (1996): Aspekte von Macht und Ohnmacht im literarischen Werk Gabriele Tergits. Dissertation. Aachen: Shaker (Berichte aus der Literaturwissenschaft).
Schönfeld, Christiane; Finnan, Carmel (2006): Practicing modernity. Female creativity in the Weimar Republic. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Schüller, Liane (2005): Vom Ernst der Zerstreuung. Schreibende Frauen am Ende der Weimarer Republik Marieluise Fleißer, Irmgard Keun und Gabriele Tergit. Dissertation. Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verl.
Warren, John (Hg.) (2005): Vienna meets Berlin. Cultural interaction 1918-1933. Enthält: Eine ganze Welt baut sich im Gerichtssaal auf – Law and Order in the Berlin Reportage of Joseph Roth and Gabriele Tergit von Helen Chambers. Oxford: Lang (Britische und irische Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 41).
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