Ernst Toller´s letters. An annotated edition

The complete edition of Ernst Toller`s works has been established in the course of the FWF-Project Critical Edition of the Works of Ernst Toller. This edition will - after publication in 2013 - constitute the first comprehensive and quotable Toller edition meeting the requirements of modern editorial standards. The project Ernst Toller`s Letters. An annotated edition aims at establishing - for the first time - a comprehensive selection of Toller`s epistolographic works in three volumes. It will be accompanied by an online edition. Ever since the beginning of research into the life and works of Ernst Toller, the lack of such an edition of letters has been regarded as a serious deficit. Ernst Toller was one of the most successful German-speaking dramatists of the Weimar Republic, a leading intellectual, and protagonist of the Bavarian Soviet Republic during the German Revolution of 1918/19. As a politically as well as racially persecuted emigré, he was among the avantgarde of the German exile and anti-fascist resistance and devoted his life to the politcal issues of his time. These varying but always prominent positions underpin the significance of his letters as important sources for the history of literary life in the interwar period. Not only are they valuable sources for biographical information, but they also allow deep insight into the social history of the intellectual field of the Weimar Republic as well as the German-speaking exile. Among the addressees of his letters are W. H. Auden, Johannes R. Becher, Richard Dehmel, Albert Ehrenstein, Albert Einstein, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Eisner, George Grosz, Maximilian Harden, Carl Hauptmann, Hermann Hesse, Kurt Hiller, Max Hölz, Richard Hülsenbeck, Siegfried Jacobsohn, Alfred Kerr, Hermann Kesten, Egon Erwin Kisch, Karl Kraus, Gustav Landauer, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann, Erich Mühsam, Jawaharlal Nehru, Carl von Ossietzky, Erwin Piscator, Rainer Maria Rilke, Romain Rolland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Roth, Upton Sinclair, Leon Trotsky, Kurt Tucholsky, H. G. Wells, Kurt Wolff as well as numerous political and literary organisations, publishing houses and both German and Non-German newspaper and magazine publishers. As co-editors of the critical edition and organizers of international conferences focusing on Ernst Toller`s life and works, the members of the Ernst Toller research centre staff in Innsbruck are not only familiar with the subject and the methodology but also internationally connected to distinguished researchers on Ernst Toller. The Wallstein- Verlag, one of the most renowned German publishing houses for literature and the humanities, is the publisher of the new edition of Toller`s works and would be interested in continuing the cooperation.

During the duration of the project Kommentierte Ausgabe der Briefe Ernst Toller, a total of more than 1.600 letters, postcards and telegrams written by Toller have been discovered, collected, transcribed and collated. With the help of specialist literature, encyclopaedias and almost as many letters addressed to Toller, the collected manuscripts were analysed, evaluated, annotated in accordance with scientific standards and emended where necessary. Extensive registers were added and the resulting manuscript was prepared for typesetting in order to be published by Wallstein in autumn 2017, where in 2014 the annotated edition of Tollers works had already been published. Furthermore, a professionally designed and programmed database and website were created, allowing full text searches as well as precise selections according to recipient, place of dispatch, institutions, persons and works referenced.In order to accomplish this, extensive research and annotation were necessary, some of which had to be done abroad in Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Talks and conferences with experts in the fields of exile literature, edition philology, and digital humanities have been organized, and technical experts have been called in to help planning and realizing the website. On these occasions, a number of public lectures and presentations were held, which contributed to communicating the work of the research team and the FWF as well as the arts and humanities in general to the public. Of particular note were the following events: doch nicht nur für die Zeit geschrieben. Zur Rezeption Ernst Tollers: Person und Werk im Kontext, 2015-11-12/13, held in cooperation with the Innsbruck Newspaper Archive (IZA) at the University of Innsbrucks research facility Brenner-Archiv as well asEin Abend für Ernst Toller mit Albert Ostermaier (Lesung) und Hans Platzgumer(Musik), 2015-11-12, at the Literaturhaus am Inn (Innsbruck). and Der Seelentänzer. Ein Abend für Ernst Toller. Vortrag in der Stadtbibliothek Koblenz mit begleitender Lesung von Texten Tollers durch Traute van Aswegen. Veranstaltet vom Verein Lesen & Buch, Koblenz, 19.1.2016