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New
York was the third and last stop on Herzfeld's emigration path, which
he traveled together with his wife, Gertrud Bernheim. In March 1933,
after the confiscation of his publishing house Malik Verlag, Herzfelde
fled first to Prague, where he re-founded the firm as an international
house, then to London, before going on to the U.S. in 1939. In Germany,
Herzfelde had been an active member of the Communist Party, after
fighting for the revolutionary workers movement in his youth and
founding Malik Verlag in 1917 together with his brother, the graphic
artist later known as John Heartfield. During the period leading up to
his exile from Germany, he published books that often had politically
controversial themes. Because of his revolutionary activities, he was
often accused of sedition by the German authorities and several times
arrested. Upon reaching the U.S., because he admitted in his FBI
interrogation to being German, despite having a Czech passport, and
also being a member of the Communist Party, he was treated as an enemy
alien during the war and not allowed to travel.
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Photograph of Wieland Herzfelde in New York. Courtesy of the Akademie der Kunste, Berlin. |
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