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1911 - 1918
1911 - 1918
Hanns Margulies (1889 - 1960)
Engaged, but ....
In 1919 Hanns was engaged to be married.
How do I know this ? Because I read it in a book !
Or, to be more precise, because I read it in five books !!!!!
I recently enterd hanns margulies in the "Google Books"
search machine and was surprised to find references to five books about Joseph Roth,
where Hanns was mentioned. The books themselves weren't available on Google Books,
but I managed to track them all down in the local libraries here.
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The story is as follows: In 1919 Joseph Roth was in his 'local' Café-House in Vienna, when he saw a young lady Friederike Reichler. She was engaged to a journalist, Hanns Margulies. (Some accounts say Hanns was with her at the time, others say that she was alone.) Joseph started courting Friederike (Friedl) and she broke off her engagement to Hanns. |
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Joseph Roth, also a journalist at that time, was working for the "Neue Tage" newspaper,
which went bankrupt, so he then moved to Berlin. Friedl went with him to Berlin for a
while, but then came back to Vienna. Roth kept contact with Friedl, through letters and
occasional trips to Vienna, but in 1922 she wrote to him, to say that her parents had
been putting pressure on her, and she was re-engaged to Hanns und would have to marry him
shortly.
"Ich kann dich nicht vergessen, aber ich muß heiraten."Roth came to Vienna immediately, and a few days later, on March 5th. 1922 Joseph Roth and Friederike Reichler were married in the Wiener Pazmaniten Tempel. |
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So far, so good, but there are a few "holes" in this story !
Joseph Roth married Friederike on 5th. March 1922 after her parents had put
pressure on her, to marry Hanns ...
... but Hanns married Maria Remenyi on the 26th. June 1920 !
All five sources say that Friedl was the fiancée of Hanns Margulies. It is possible that one of these biographers wrote "Hanns Margulies" without checking, and the others just quoted him, without checking, but I find that very unlikely !
Four of these books are "normal" biographies, but one book, by Soma Morgenstern was written by a friend of Joseph Roth's and consists of stories and reminiscences rather than a biography.
Morgenstern not only describes Hanns accurately, but he also later accused Roth of "stealing" Hanns' fiancée from him, not so much because he fell in love with her, but because Hanns wore a monocle ! (see image 4, below)
In 1913, when he was a young student, Roth was often laughed at for wearing a monocle. Seeing Hanns in the Café, wearing a monocle must have reminded him of this.
Hanns' marriage certificate is not the original but a copy, produced in 1987.
Could it be that someone made a mistake, reading and transcribing the original ?
(Memo to self: try and get a copy of the original marriage certificate !)
Not necessarily proof of anything, but another mystery:
Joseph Roth married Friederike on 5th. March 1922 after her parents had put
pressure on her, to marry Hanns ...
... but Hanns married Maria Remenyi on the 26th. June 1920 !
All five sources say that Friedl was the fiancée of Hanns Margulies. It is possible that one of these biographers wrote "Hanns Margulies" without checking, and the others just quoted him, without checking, but I find that very unlikely !
Four of these books are "normal" biographies, but one book, by Soma Morgenstern was written by a friend of Joseph Roth's and consists of stories and reminiscences rather than a biography.
Morgenstern not only describes Hanns accurately, but he also later accused Roth of "stealing" Hanns' fiancée from him, not so much because he fell in love with her, but because Hanns wore a monocle ! (see image 4, below)
In 1913, when he was a young student, Roth was often laughed at for wearing a monocle. Seeing Hanns in the Café, wearing a monocle must have reminded him of this.
Hanns' marriage certificate is not the original but a copy, produced in 1987.
Could it be that someone made a mistake, reading and transcribing the original ?
(Memo to self: try and get a copy of the original marriage certificate !)
Not necessarily proof of anything, but another mystery:
In Lunzer & Lunzer-Talos (1994) there is a picture of Friedl with a soldier.
The caption reads
Friedl Reichler mit Hanns Margulies [?] Is this Hanns or not ?? In the hope of finding an answer I published several pictures of Hanns, together with this one, on a forum and asked for other opinions. The consensus was, that this is not Hanns because
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![Friedl Reichel and Hanns Margulies [?]](../../_margulies/img/roth-friedl-hanns.jpg "Friedl Reichel and Hanns Margulies [?]")
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Sources:
Joseph Roth, Eine Biographie. David Bronsen, Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln, 1974
Joseph Roth, Rudolf Koester, Colloqium Verlag Otto H. Hess, Berlin 1982
Joseph Roth, Leben und Werk in Bildern, Heinz Lunzer und Victoria Lunzer-Talos,
Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 1994
Joseph Roth, Flucht und Ende, Soma Morgenstern, Zu Klampen, Lüneburg 1994
Joseph Roth, Helmuth Nürnberger, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1981
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