Ellen Otten Collection

Ellen Emilie Hedwig Otten (née Kroner) was born on June 28th 1909 to Jenny Kroner (née Kastan) and her husband, lawyer Heinrich Kroner. Ellen grew up in an upper-class household with her older brother Lux Ludwig (born on June 14th 1906). After the early death of her parents in 1928 and 1929, Ellen gave up her academic studies in the field of law and never completed any other professional training. Instead, she was always committed to the work of her business partner, and later husband, Karl Otten (1889-1963) who she met in 1930.

Karl Otten was an expressionist author who had been held in custody during World War I due to his anti-military activities. Throughout the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), he was a co-worker for democratic journals and supported the idea of a revolutionary reorganization of society in the sense of a messianic communism. He had foreseen the political development in Germany as early as 1932 and convinced Ellen to cancel the lease for her Berlin apartment. Karl Otten left Berlin on March 12th 1933 for Paris, a few days before his apartment got searched and all male residents present at the site were arrested. Ellen followed him five days later. Eventually they both moved to the island of Mallorca, Spain.

According to the documents included in this collection, Karl Otten and Ellen Kroner were planning to establish a weaving business. They had already purchased a handloom in anticipation of their potential business. This prospect was shattered, however, by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Ellen and Karl were forced to flee to England in the fall of that year.

On April 8th 1939, Karl Otten and Ellen Kroner married. In England, Karl worked for the Propaganda Department of the BBC. After he went blind, in 1944, Ellen began working for the BBC instead. She was responsible for selecting possible articles and reports that were then translated and offered to foreign radio stations as part of a British propagandist movement.

Both Karl and Ellen were interested in researching and preserving German-Jewish culture, in particular German avante-garde literature, which was effectively eliminated with the rise of Nationalist Socialism. Once Karl had lost his sight, Ellen assisted him in writing his prose and prepared and edited his anthologies of this lost literary genre. The need to save the works of German-Jewish authors drove Ellen to conduct extensive research in second-hand bookstores. She typed, edited and researched biographies of the many forgotten and missing Jewish writers. In addition, she traced their addresses or those of their heirs.

In 1958, Ellen and Karl Otten moved to Locarno at Lago Maggiore in Tessin, Switzerland in order to be closer to a German-speaking community. This move was intended to make communication with German publishers and broadcasting stations easier. Karl Otten died soon after the move on April 4th 1963; however Ellen continued working. In 1965, she edited writings of the author and philosopher Salomo Friedlander (also known as Mynona), while the following year she edited the correspondence of publisher Kurt Wolf, in cooperation with Bernhard Zeller. Other notable publications include a bibliography of Karl Otten's expressionist prose and translations of seven books by writer Isaac Bashevi Singer. She died in Locarno on December 9th, 1999.