H.F. Garten Papers
H.F. Garten was born Hugo Friedrich Königsgarten, into a Jewish family, in Brünn [now Brno], Moravia, on 13 April 1904. He was educated at a Gymnasium in Berlin, and at the Universites of Jena (1923), Vienna (1923-1924), Berlin (1924-1926) and Heidelberg, where he obtained his doctorate in 1930. He worked as a freelance writer in Berlin from 1928 to1933, and then moved to Vienna in 1933, and London in 1938. From 1940 to 1945 he taught at New College School, Oxford, was on the staff of Die Zeitung (London) from 1941 to1944 and, in1944, was awarded the DPhil degree by the University of Oxford. From 1946 to 1965 he taught modern languages at Westminster School, London, before being appointed to a Lectureship at the Universities of Surrey and London. He was a member of the International PEN Club, the English Goethe Society, and the Gerhart Hauptmann-Gesellschaft. He married Anne Leonard Smith in1952; they had no children.
The Papers
Papers of Hugo Frederick Garten (formerly Hugo Friedrich Königsgarten) (HFG), including correspondence with the expressionist playwright Georg Kaiser (GK) and his wife Margareta from the 1920s to 1940s; typescripts of work by GK; periodicals, programmes and photographs relating to productions of GK's plays; correspondence from the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann (GH) and members of his family to HFG; newspaper cuttings on GH and his plays written on centenary of his birth in 1962; photographs of GH and letters from GH to the German Studies scholar Hermann Georg Fiedler; and letters from Stefan Zweig, Fritz von Unruh, Jakob Wassermann and his wife, Martha Wassermann-Karlweis, Robert Neumann, Friedrich Gundolf, and Alfred Weber to HFG. There are also five metal plate prints of letters by and portraits of Gerhart Hauptmann.
Archival Arrangement
HFG /1 Papers relating to Georg Kaiser (1921-1969)
Material accumulated during the course of H.F. Garten's (HFG) work with and concerning the German playwright, Georg Kaiser (GK). Includes correspondence from GK and his wife Margareta to HFL from the 1920s to the early 1940s; typescripts of work by GK; and journal and newspaper articles, programmes and photographs relating to GK and productions of his plays. There is also a small amount of material relating to the GK Archive at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
HFG/2 Papers relating to Gerhart Hauptmann (1903-1969)
Correspondence from Gerhart Hauptmann (GH) and other members of his family to H.F. Garten; newspaper cuttings on GH and his plays written at the time of the centenary of his birth in 1962; and photographs of GH and letters from GH to the German Studies scholar Hermann Georg Fiedler.
HFG/3 Correspondence and photographs relating to other literary figures (apart from Gerhart Hauptmann and Georg Kaiser) (1924-undated [c. 1972])
HFG/4 Order of service booklet for the service of thanksgiving for Hugo F. Garten at Westminster Abbey (23 Oct 1975)
HFG/5 Metal plate prints of letters by and portraits of Gerhart Hauptmann (undated [c. 1962])