Otto Flake

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Flake's desk in the Literaturmuseum Baden-Baden

Otto Flake (29 October 1880 – 10 November 1963) was a German writer. Flake has an extensive œuvre that includes novels, philosophical essays, translations and two volumes of fairy tales that rework traditional folk-tale characters and beliefs.

Early life

Flake was born on 29 October 1880 in Metz. He attended high school in Colmar and studied German philology, philosophy and art history at the University of Strasbourg. There he belonged to the artist group The Youngest Alsace (also Der Stürmerkreis).

His first professional stations were Paris and Berlin, where he was a regular contributor to the Neue Rundschau and later one of the most widely circulated authors of the Weimar Republic. During this time he undertook numerous trips, which he reported on in his collection of essays Das Logbuch (1917). Among other things, during a visit to Constantinople, he met Friedrich Schrader and Max Rudolf Kaufmann, both known at the time for their translations of modern Turkish literature and numerous articles on Ottoman culture in the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Zeitung.

During the World War I, Otto Flake worked in the civil administration in occupied Brussels. There, in the house of Carl and Thea Sternheim, he had contact with the writers Gottfried Benn, Friedrich Eisenlohr and Carl Einstein, who were also stationed there, the art historian Wilhelm Hausenstein, the publisher Hans von Wedderkop and the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. In early 1918 he worked briefly for the newly founded Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in Berlin as head of the feuilleton. Until 1920, the deputy editor-in-chief of the DAZ was Max Rudolf Kaufmann, whom Flake knew from Constantinople. Towards the end of the war, Flake settled in Zurich and joined the circle of Dadaists.

In 1920 he presented a German translation of Honoré de Balzac's famous novel, Lost Illusions. In the same year, at the same time as Eduard Korrodi, he recognized Hermann Hesse's authorship of Demian. From 1928, after his expulsion from South Tyrol (where he lived on the Ritten), he lived with his family in Baden-Baden.

Kurt Tucholsky wrote about his collaborator at Die Weltbühne: "Flake, our most important essayist next to Heinrich Mann, a German trailblazer, an intellectual boon [...]." Likewise Stefan Zweig stated: "Quite foreign is Flake, I know it, quite isolated with this kind of his in our newer literature, but necessary, very necessary, for he proves best of all to the Germans, to whom poetry is almost always one with twilight, that art can also be cleverness, and cleverness with power."

In 1933, like 87 other German writers, Flake signed an vow of most faithful allegiance to Adolf Hitler, which his publisher Samuel von Fischer had asked him to sign in order to support his publishing house (Fischer was considered a Jew according to official categories). Moreover, Flake's fifth wife was a "half-Jew" in contemporary racial terminology, and he believed he was thereby protecting her as well. He was sharply criticized for this signature by Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and Alfred Döblin, among others.

After the end of the war in 1945, Flake was appointed by the French occupying forces to the Baden-Baden Cultural Council, which was entrusted with organizing exhibitions and lectures. In the German Democratic Republic, Flake's The End of the Revolution (1920) was placed on the list of literature to be censored and discarded.

As a native of Lorraine, he was committed to the reconciliation of Germans and French. As an author, he was initially hardly noticed after 1945 and wrote under the pseudonyms "Leo F. Kotta" and "Werenwag". In 1954, Otto Flake received the Johann Peter Hebel Prize from the state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1958, Bertelsmann reissued several titles by the impoverished and depressed author and sold around 1 million copies of them in 28 months, which caused a surprise.

Otto Flake died on November 10, 1963. His estate is in the municipal library of Baden-Baden.

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Flake's grave site in Baden-Baden.

Private life

Flake was married five times, including to German doctor and socialist Minna Flake, with whom he had a son, Thomas Flake, who was born in 1908, and twice to the mother of his daughter, Eva Maria (née Flake) Seveno.

He died on 10 November 1963 in Baden-Baden, where he was buried.

Works

• "Die elsässische Frage als Kulturproblem," Halbmonatsschrift für deutsche Kultur, Vol. I (1907)
• Strassburg und das Elsass (1908)
• Rund um die elsässische Frage (1911)
• Der französische Roman und die Novelle. Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (1912)
• Schritt für Schritt (1912; novel)
• Freitagskind (1913)
• "Caramba. Erzählung. Neue Rundschau," Freie Bühne, Vol. XXIV, No. 11 (November 1913)
• Die Prophezeiung und andere Novellen (1915)
• Horns Ring (1916)
• Das Logbuch (1917)
• Schritt für Schritt (1917; novel)
• Wandlung. Novelle (1919)
• Die Stadt des Hirns (1919; novel)
• "Politisierung mehr als je," Das Ziel. Jahrbücher für geistige Politik, Vol. III, No. 1 (1919)
• Das Ende der Revolution (1920)
• Ulrich von Hutten. Mit 8 Bildbeigaben (1920)
• "Republik Deutschland," Der Neue Merkur. Monatsschrift für geistiges Leben, Vol. IV, No. 8 (November 1920)
• Nein und Ja (1920; novel about the Zurich Dada scene. Reissued as Nein und Ja. Roman des Jahres 1917 in 1923)
• Die fünf Hefte (1920; reprinted as Dinge der Zeit, 1921)
• Das kleine Logbuch (1921)
• Kaiserin Irene. In vier Aufzügen (1921)
• Pandämonium. Eine Philosophie des Identischen (1921)
• Die moralische Idee. Eine kritische Untersuchung (1921)
• Das neuantike Weltbild (1922)
• Die Simona (1922; excerpt from Die Stadt des Hirns, 1922)
• Ruland (1922)
• Erzählungen (1923)
• Die Unvollendbarkeit der Welt. Eine Chemie Gottes (1923)
• Die Deutschen (1923)
• Die zweite Jugend (1924)
• Der gute Weg (1924; novel)
• Zum guten Europäer. Zwölf Chroniken Werrenwags (1924)
• Villa U.S.A. (1926)
• Sommerroman (1927)
• Der Erkennende. Philosophie der Freiwerdung (1927)
• Unsere Zeit (1927)
• Freund aller Welt (1928)
• Die erotische Freiheit (1928)
• Es ist Zeit... (1929)
• Große Damen des Barock. Historische Portraits (1929)
• Marquis de Sade. Mit einem Anhang über Retif de la Bretonne (1930)
• Ausfahrt und Einkehr. Erzählungen und Reiseskizzen (1930)
• Christa. Ein Kinderroman (1931)
• Die Geschichte Mariettas (1931)
• Bilanz. Versuch einer geistigen Neuordnung (1931)
• Maria im Dachgarten, und andere Märchen (1931)
• Montijo oder Die Suche nach der Nation (1931; novel)
• Die französische Revolution (1932)
• Hortense oder die Rückkehr nach Baden-Baden (1933)
• Der Strassburger Zuckerbeck und andere Märchen (1933)
• Die Töchter Noras (1934)
• Die junge Monthiver (1934)
• Anselm und Verena (1935)
• Scherzo (1936)
• Sternennächte am Bosporus (1936)
• Schön Bärbel von Ottenheim (1937)
• Türkenlouis. Gemälde einer Zeit (1937)
• Die vier Tage (1937)
• Personen und Persönchen (1938; novel)
• Straßburg. Geschichte einer deutschen Stadt (1940)
• Der Handelsherr (1940; novel)
• Das Quintett (1943)
• Die Deutschen (1946)
• Nietzsche. Rückblick auf eine Philosophie (1946)
• Versuch über Stendhal (1946)
• Versuch über Oscar Wilde (1946)
• "Fürst Pückler-Muskau," Karussell. Literarische Monatsschrift, Vol. I, No. 5 (1946)
• Fortunat (1946; in two volumes: "Berge und Täler bleiben stehen" and "Menschen begegnen sich")
• Ein Mann von Welt (1947; in two volumes: "Fluctuat nec mergitur" and "Wappen von Paris")
• Amadeus (1947; short stories)
• Die Söhne (1947; short stories)
• Der Reisegefährte (1947)
• Old Man (1947)
• Der Mann im Mond und andere Märchen (1947)
• Vom Pessimismus (1947; under the pen name Leo F. Kotta)
• Jakob Burckhardt (1947)
• Traktat vom Eros (1947; under the pen name Leo F. Kotta)
• Zuweisungen (1948; essays)
• Kinderland (1948)
• Kamilla (1948)
• Als die Städte noch standen (1949)
• Otto Flake zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (1950)
• Traktat vom Intensiven (1950; under the pen name Leo F. Kotta)
• Die Sanduhr (1950; novel)
• Kaspar Hauser. Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, Nachgeschichte. Der Tatsachenbericht (1950)
• Die Bücher von Bodensee (1950)
• Die Monthiver Mädchen (1950)
• Schloß Ortenau (1955)
• "Die Versuchung des Richters," Frankfurter Rundschau (1958)
• Der Pianist. Erzählung (1960)
• Finnische Nächte. Die Erzählungen (1960)
• Es wird Abend. Bericht aus einem langen Leben (1960; autobiography)
• Über die Frauen (1961; aphorisms)
• Freiheitsbaum und Guillotine. Essays aus sechs Jahrzehnten (1969; edited by Rolf Hochhuth)

Miscellania

• Alexandre Dumas, Die Kameliendame (1907; translation)
• Alain-René Lesage, Der hinkende Teufel (1910; translated by G. Fink; Illustrated by Fritz Fischer. Newly edited with introduction by Otto Flake)
• Benjamin Constant, Adolf. Aus den Papieren eines Unbekannten (1910; translated and introduced by Otto Flake)
• Mirabeau, Mirabeaus Briefe an Sophie aus dem Kerker von Vincennes (1910; introduction by Otto Flake)
• Michel de Montaigne, Gesammelte Schriften (1911; historical-critical edition with introductions and notes based on the translation by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode; edited by Otto Flake and Wilhelm Weigand; 8 volumes)
• Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux, Geschichten (1913; translated by Otto Flake; 2 volumes)
• Jean de La Bruyère, Charaktere. Neue deutsche Ausgabe (1918; edited by Otto Flake)
• Honoré de Balzac, Vetter Pons. Übersetzt von Otto Flake (c. 1920; translated by Otto Flake)
• Honoré de Balzac, Verlorene Illusionen (c. 1920; translated by Otto Flake)
• Denis Diderot, Die Romane und Erzählungen (1920; translated by Hans Jacob and Else Hollander; with an introduction by Flake)
• André Suarès, Portraits (1922; transcription and afterword by Otto Flake)
• Honoré de Balzac, Pariser Novellen (1923; translated by Otto Flake)
• Anker Kirkeby, Russisches Tagebuch (1924; introduction by Otto Flake)
• Arthur de Gobineau, Die Renaissance. Historische Szenen (1924; translated by Otto Flake)
• Heinrich Heine, Gedichte, Prosa, Briefe. Ein Brevier (1947; selected and introduced by Otto Flake)

References

• Boeschenstein, Hermann (1968). "Observations on Otto Flake." In: Essays on German Literature in Honour of G. Joyce Hallamore. Toronto: Published in Association with the University of British Columbia by University of Toronto Press.
• Stern, Guy (1971). War, Weimar, and Literature: The Story of the Neue Merkur, 1914-1925. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Otto Flake in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW