Picard, Fritz (1888–1973).

[LOVE LETTERS BY THE OWNER OF 'LIBRAIRIE CALLIGRAMMES' – WEIMAR GERMANY AND LITERATURE IN EXILE] Extensive group comprising 22 autograph letters, one autograph postcard and a portrait photograph (gelatin silver print); mostly in the original stamped envelopes addressed by Picard.

Paris and Munich, November 1966 to December 1967. Various formats. Together approximately 72 pages in ink, ballpoint pen, and pencil, some of them on the stationery of the "Librairie Allemande Calligrammes" in Paris. Overall about very good. Item #55063

Extensive, previously unpublished collection of letters by the legendary German-speaking Parisian bookseller Fritz Picard to the publisher's employee Rosemarie Still, many decades his junior. Picard's bookshop "Librairie Allemande Calligrammes" in the bohemian and intellectual neighbourhood of Saint-Germain-de-Près primarily represented the avant-gardes of the Weimar Republic in exile in France. Before his emigration, Picard himself belonged to Berlin's avant-garde circles. For example, he socialised with Else Lasker-Schüler, Erich Mühsam, Erich Kästner, Max Liebermann, George Grosz and Ludwig Meidner, who painted him several times, in the ‘Romanisches Café’ and the ‘Café des Westens’. After the National Socialists came to power, Picard hid the Malik publisher Wieland Herzfelde, among others, in his flat before the latter fled to Prague. He cultivated his relationship with the avant-gardes in the 1920s and 1930s not only privately, but also as a representative in the book trade for Franz Kafka's publisher (Die Schmiede), among others. While travelling abroad, he was illegally active as a liaison for the Ossietzky Nobel Prize Committee, among other things. Due to a mix-up at the Gestapo, he was able to repeatedly carry out illegal courier services for the resistance until 1938. After fleeing to Switzerland via France, he moved to liberated Paris. His bookshop and antiquarian bookshop became a meeting place for German and French authors, artists and students.It is therefore not surprising that Hannah Arendt, Claire Goll, and Paul Celan introduced themselves to the public in his rooms. (Ernst Fischer.Teil 3/Supplement Verleger, Buchhändler und Antiquare aus Deutschland und Österreich in der Emigration nach 1933: Ein biographisches Handbuch, Berlin, Boston, 2020, 378f.)

The present letters also show that that Picard fulfilled an important function as a bridge between Paris and West German publishers and authors. For example, he writes in the run-up to a lecture evening with Klaus Wagenbach: "I would be tempted to say much more than I am allowed to say. But I won't be able to refrain from saying some very unorthodox things" (7 January 1967). Ten days later he writes: "(...) I am, however, looking forward to arguing with Mr Wagenbach at our authors’ evening on Saturday – perhaps I will attack him in my introductory speech, but I have to find out somewhere whether that might be inappropriate." He later reports on his meeting with Mr Wagenbach: "Very clever, very interesting. My introduction was brief and respectful with a very small dash of scepticism, which he – and I think only he – noticed.The strong – almost purely emotional – scepticism that I had when I got to know the first Quarthefte has not diminished."

These anecdotes of the post-war German literary scene are interwoven with a rather disconcerting series of "love letters" from the 79-year-old bookseller to the 25-year-old publishing house employee, whom he addresses primarily as his "beloved girl." Between the lines, it becomes clear that Picard is increasingly carried away by the idea of being "simply madly in love", while the young woman (possibly hindered not only by the age difference, but also by the business relationship between the still active bookseller and the inexperienced publishing house employee) finds it difficult to set a firm limit to these advances. It is clear from Picard's letters that he repeatedly harasses her with letters and phone calls to the publisher's office ("I was happy again to hear your voice, which I love. Do they know at Hanser that these calls come from Paris?"), in which he asks for a reply ("there was no reply to my letters (...) I was quite unhappy"; "Your letter that you told me about yesterday hasn't arrived yet on Friday evening”), begs for her private telephone number, meetings, and even a photograph. The letters reveal Picard's bitter disappointment that, although Still yields to his insistence and pleas to avoid conflict, she shows no discernible initiative on her part. He remarks: "Your shyness – I don't just respect it – I love it."

When Picard meets Still on a trip to Germany, he is confronted with the insurmountable distance between his ideas and reality: "When we travelled to you in the taxi, you sat next to me – a stranger and filled with fear of what was to come. And then there were moments when you hated me." He complains about "our somewhat one-sided dinner conversation in the restaurant, where I knocked on all sides – and no sound came out." He then compares her silence to that of Max Liebermann, whom he visited as a young man and who "didn't answer him with a single syllable, but (...) just looked at him sharply and scrutinisingly", probably to avoid realising the situation he had put her in. In later letters, Picard tries to construct an interpretation of the situation that is favorable to him. He writes, for example: "I didn't want to admit it, didn't want to accept it (...).That's my fault (but I think you'd prefer this unwillingness to accept to a ‘fine, then don't)". The last letters are characterised by increasing disillusionment. The last letter is a bitter New Year's greeting for 1968. A few years later, Rosemarie Still moved to Amsterdam, where she worked as a translator. A part of Fritz Picard's estate is held by the Deutsches Exilarchiv (German Exile Archive).

Price: €2,500.00

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