09 October 2024

A search for Heinrich Spiero in the HAB’s online catalogue (OPAC) yields 22 hits (as of 18 July 2024). Spiero was the author of six books, among them biographies of Fontane, Gerhart Hauptmann and Julius Rodenberg, and the publisher of 15 more, including the letters of Detlev von Liliencron, a commemorative publication to mark Wilhelm Raabe’s 100th birthday and the Römisches Tagebuch (Roman Diary) by Fanny Lewald. The last hit – Luise - Ein ländliches Gedicht in drei Idyllen (Luise: A Pastoral Poem in Three Idylls) by Johann Heinrich Voß – was published in 1802, long before Spiero was born. So what is the connection between this work and Heinrich Spiero? The prominent ex libris displayed on the inside of the front cover offers a solution to the mystery.

A staircase leading up to a round arch is flanked by busts of Goethe and Bismarck. Above it we can read the letters SPIERO, supported by two herm atlantes. The inscription makes the provenance even clearer: Ex libris qui amati sunt ab Henrico utr. jur. dre. mercatore et ab uxore sua Olga magistra (From the beloved library of Doctor of Canon and Civil Law Heinrich, merchant, and his wife Olga, teacher).

Ex libris (or bookplates) are often eloquent depictions full of allusions and symbolism. Here the two herm atlantes reference a work by Heinrich Spiero, Hermen: Essays und Studien (Herms: Essays and Studies), published in 1906. The busts of Goethe and Bismarck stand for Spiero’s self-image as a member of the German (cultural) nation. The sea suggested in the background may refer to the period of his life that Spiero spent in Hamburg.

But who were Olga and Heinrich Spiero, the couple who loved their books so much?

Born on 24 March 1876 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), Heinrich Spiero was a German writer, journalist and literary scholar. He studied German language and literature, law and history at the universities of Berlin, Freiburg im Breisgau, Leipzig and Lyon, obtaining his doctorate in law in 1897. In 1931 the Universität Göttingen (University of Göttingen) awarded him an honorary doctorate. On 6 November 1900, he married Olga Karoline Jolowicz, who had been born on 9 July 1877 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). The couple lived in Hamburg, where Spiero worked as a merchant in his father’s international import-export business. The marriage produced four daughters: Bertha Sabine, Josepha, Ursula and Christiane. From 1911 to 1914 Spiero was a lecturer at the Hamburg Kunsthochschule (Hamburg University of the Arts). During the First World War, as a major under Walther Rathenau, he helped to organise the war economy. After the war he settled in Berlin as a writer. He was editor at the Hermann Klemm publishing house and a lecturer in literary history at the Schleiermacher-Hochschule in Berlin. He wrote many works on the history of literature, some of them jointly with his wife, Olga. His autobiography with the prophetic title Schicksal und Anteil – ein Lebensweg in deutscher Wendezeit (Destiny and Portion: A Life in a Time of Change in Germany) appeared in 1929, followed in 1931 by Jedermanns Lexikon (Universal Lexicon).

Although he had been baptised as a Protestant in 1894, Spiero was classified as a ‘non-Aryan Christian’ and as such subjected to antisemitic persecution by the Nazis and arrested several times. In 1935 he was banned from writing or publishing. From September of the same year until his forced resignation in 1937, Spiero was chairman of the Reichsverband christlich-deutscher Staatsbürger nichtarischer oder nicht rein arischer Abstammung e.V. (Reich Association of Christian-German Citizens of Non-Aryan or Not Purely Aryan Descent). Until it was forcibly disbanded in 1939, the organisation supported people subjected to antisemitic persecution, including helping them to emigrate, and put on cultural events to counter the growing sense of social isolation. In 1937 Spiero founded his own aid organisation, the Büro Heinrich Spiero, which was banned two years later. In 1939 he was offered a position as a professor for modern literary history at the University of Delaware in New Jersey (USA), but the outbreak of war meant he was unable to take it up. Their son-in-law narrowly managed to prevent the threatened deportation of Heinrich and Olga Spiero, and they survived the Nazi regime underground in Berlin. Following the country’s liberation, Spiero taught at the Berlin-Schöneberg adult education centre until his death on 8 March 1947. Olga Spiero, who had to take legal action to obtain her compensation pension, died on 14 November 1960. She was buried beside her husband in the graveyard of the Alte Zwölf-Apostel church in Berlin-Schöneberg.

The Spieros’ private library is estimated to have contained some 20,000 volumes. Finding himself in dire straits financially after he was banned from practising his profession, Spiero had to auction more than 250 sheets of his large collection of autographs between 1935 and 1937. After 1938 he found himself forced to sell many of his books, since following his expulsion from the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature) and on account of steadily increasing pressure, he had no way of earning a living. In September 1942 the Spieros had to leave their flat in Odenwaldstraße in the borough of Friedenau and were obliged to move into a ‘Jewish house’ on Viktoria-Luise-Platz. This meant that they had to give away most of their books and furniture or sell them well below their true value. When a bomb struck the house on Viktoria-Luise-Platz in 1943, their last belongings and remaining books were destroyed.

The volume whose provenance can be traced to Heinrich and Olga Spiero entered the HAB holdings in 1985 as part of the library of the composer and university lecturer Ernst Pepping (1901–1981). Pepping’s role in the Nazi era has been categorised as ambiguous on the basis of his own statements and the recognition he received from representatives and organs of Nazi cultural policy. Pepping maintained that he assembled his collection of historical editions of German and European literature, which comprised approximately 2,300 volumes, in the post-war era through acquisitions from national and international auctions and the antiquarian book trade; it cannot be ruled out, however, that he acquired some of the items in the collection during the Nazi period.

The ex libris made it possible for the volume to be conclusively attributed to the private library of Heinrich and Olga Spiero. Since there was no doubt that it was removed from their possession as a result of Nazi persecution, it was restituted to their legal heirs.
So why does the title still appear in the OPAC?
Following the restitution, the co-owners of the Spiero estate decided to gift the volume to the HAB.
We are grateful for their trust and feel that it is our responsibility to ensure that the Spieros’ story is not forgotten.

PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/?link=195