Hans Sahl

Sahl, Hans (Dresden, 1902-93, Tübingen), completed his university studies in Breslau before establishing himself as a critic in Berlin where he was brought up. The years of exile began for him, a well-known Jew, as early as 1933, taking him to Prague, Zurich, and Paris, from where he fled in 1941 to the USA. Unable to settle in West Germany after his return in the early 1950s, he went back to the USA until 1989. In 1990 he was awarded the Exil-Preis of the Bavarian Academy of Art. In exile, Sahl came to represent a group of writers with Russian sympathies, including W. Mehring, A. Döblin, H. Kesten, and K. Mann, recording his experience in Die Wenigen und die Vielen (1959), Memoiren eines Moralisten (1983), and Das Exil im Exil (1990). His other writings include a few radio plays and verse, among which the title poem of the collection Wir sind die Letzten (1976) urges future generations to listen to those who for the sake of their ideals have spent their lives away from a homeland that has forgotten them: ‘Fragt uns aus./Wir sind zuständig.’ In 1966 Sahl edited works by George Grosz; their correspondence is contained in So long mit Händedruck. Briefe und Dokumente (1993), compiled by K. Riha, the editor of Werke (1994).