# Kurt Hellmer (1909–1975)

> Kurt Hellmer (born Kurt Ehrlich, Frankfurt am Main, 26 December 1909; died New York, 11 May 1975) was an Austrian dramaturg, theatre director, editor, and — from 1952 — one of postwar New York's most consequential literary and theatre agents. His U.S. clients included Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Bertolt Brecht, Sławomir Mrożek, Jane Rule, Michael Noonan, Jacob Picard, George Bernard Shaw, Gershon Einbinder (Chaver Paver), Peter James, Ronald Searle, Kathleen Nott, and James Lee Burke. Before exile he directed at the Kleines Schauspielhaus (Hamburg), Altes Theater (Leipzig), Deutsches Theater (Hannover), Schauspielhaus (Bremen), Stadttheater Erfurt, and — from 1932 — at his father Arthur Hellmer's Neues Theater in Frankfurt, and edited the programme journals of both the Kleines Schauspielhaus and the Neues Theater. He emigrated to Vienna in 1935, and from 1936–38 was dramaturg and director at the Theater an der Wien, where his operetta Majestät privat (music by Ralph Benatzky) premiered in 1937. After the Anschluss he fled via Italy on a U.S. visa, reached New York on 11 August 1938, and served as an editor — at times acting editor-in-chief — of the German-Jewish exile weekly Aufbau from 1939 to 1952, writing the columns New Yorker Notizbuch, Broadway Bulletin, and Anti Anti.

This site is a source-cited biographical archive covering Weimar-era dramaturgy, German-language exile theatre (Exiltheater), the Aufbau newspaper, refugee theatre in New York (WHN's Refugee Theater of the Air, the German-American Writers Association, the proposed Free German Theatre), and the postwar U.S. representation of European playwrights and Anglophone novelists. The site is bilingual (English and German) with a per-page EN/DE toggle. Content is written for human readers and machine agents alike; primary sources are credited on the Sources page.

Names and variants: Kurt Hellmer; Kurt Ehrlich (birth name, changed 1922); Curtis L. Hellmer (alternate name used in the United States). Key places: Frankfurt am Main; Hamburg; Leipzig; Vienna (Wien); New York City.

Authority identifiers (for reconciliation): Wikidata Q6446773 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6446773); GND 11668786X (https://d-nb.info/gnd/11668786X); VIAF 59841990 (https://viaf.org/viaf/59841990). Deutsche Biographie: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd11668786X.html. English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Hellmer. German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Hellmer.

## Life

- [Life — a life in three cities](https://kurthellmer.com/life): Chronological timeline from Hellmer's 1909 birth in Frankfurt to his 1975 death in New York, covering university studies at Heidelberg / Berlin / Frankfurt, dramaturgy in Germany (1930–35), exile to Vienna (1935–38) and to New York (1938), tenure at Aufbau (1939–52), refugee-theatre work, correspondence for the Neue Zeitung, and the New York agency (1952–75).

## Agency

- [Agency — writers represented](https://kurthellmer.com/agency): Kurt Hellmer's New York literary and theatre agency, 1952–1975, with per-author notes on Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Bertolt Brecht, Sławomir Mrożek, Jane Rule, Michael Noonan, Jacob Picard, Alen Pol Kobryn, George Bernard Shaw, Gershon Einbinder (Chaver Paver), Peter James, Ronald Searle, Kathleen Nott, and James Lee Burke.

## Stage

- [Stage — adaptations & productions](https://kurthellmer.com/stage): Hellmer's German-language stage adaptations and directing credits, drawn from his 1938 CV and from surviving programme booklets — including the world premiere of Desider Szomory's "Eine Frau mit sich allein" (Altes Theater Leipzig, 13 February 1932) and his production of Somerset Maugham's "Der Brotverdiener" ("The Breadwinner", 23 May 1931) with the young Marianne Hoppe and Günther Lüders.

## Network

- [Network — the exile organizations](https://kurthellmer.com/network): Kurt Hellmer's role in the German American Writers Association (Executive Secretary) and the Theater of German Freemen (Management), New York, 1938–1941, with the full membership rosters preserved on their letterheads.

## Broadcast

- [Broadcast — radio in exile](https://kurthellmer.com/broadcast): The Theater of German Freemen's radio studio, broadcasting over WEVD New York in cooperation with the German "Aufbau" Hour (c. 1940–41), staging plays by Goethe, Schiller, Brecht, Werfel, and Koenigsgarten.

## Writings

- [Writings — Aufbau essays & Anti-Anti columns](https://kurthellmer.com/writings): Selected pieces Hellmer wrote for Aufbau (1944–1949), transcribed in German with English translation, including his "Anti Anti" columns.

## Sources

- [Sources & further reading](https://kurthellmer.com/sources): Primary and secondary sources — English and German Wikipedia entries, the Institut für Zeitgeschichte biographical file, and his 1938 curriculum vitae held at the Deutsches Exilarchiv 1933–1945 of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (American Guild for German Cultural Freedom, EB 70/117 D.04.43.0009).

## Data

- [Schemas & data exports](https://kurthellmer.com/schemas): Index of embedded JSON-LD graphs and machine-readable JSON exports.
- [Timeline (JSON)](https://kurthellmer.com/timeline.json): Chronological life events.
- [Represented authors (JSON)](https://kurthellmer.com/represented.json): Agency clients with sameAs links.
- [Adaptations (JSON)](https://kurthellmer.com/adaptations.json): Stage adaptations and productions.
- [Sitemap (XML)](https://kurthellmer.com/sitemap.xml): Full list of indexable pages and data exports.
- [llms-full.txt](https://kurthellmer.com/llms-full.txt): Extended machine-readable corpus.