Hugo Knoepfmacher Collection

This collection documents the personal and professional life of the lawyer and librarian Hugo Knoepfmacher. Among the papers in the collection are personal and official papers, correspondence, manuscripts, and a small amount of clippings and published material.

Documents stating Hugo Knoepfmacher's personal experiences and providing biographical information on him will be found mainly in Series I, which holds Knoepfmacher's personal papers, such as educational, emigration, immigration, identification and other official or government-issued documents, personal notes from various periods of his life, some correspondence, clippings, and material relating to his World War I and prison camp experiences. Other biographical data or information about Knoepfmacher's personal experiences can be extracted from his personal correspondence with family members and friends, which is represented in Series III. Knoepfmacher's restitution claims, which also recount the course of his emigration to the U.S., are located in Series IV, Subseries 1.

Papers that focus on the professional life of Hugo Knoepfmacher are located in two different areas of this collection. Series I holds professional documents from Austria and the U.S. The Austrian papers document the time from his first steps as a lawyer until his ban from profession by the Nazis, including references from Viennese lawyers, some correspondence, and business records. The U.S. papers concern Knoepfmacher's professional restart as a librarian, including correspondence with employers, job offers, appointments, and certificates from the C.I.A. The professional correspondence in Series III originates also from the period of Knoepfmacher's emigration. It is of particular interest, since it contains many letters of Hans Kohn exercising his influence on his friend's behalf and recommending him for various professional positions in the U.S. Other more personal correspondence with Hans Kohn documenting the life-long friendship will be found in the personal section of Series III. In contrast, Knoepfmacher's collected material on Hans Kohn resides in Series VII, consisting of as articles and reviews concerning the historian's work, course outlines, published essays of Kohn, and Knoepfmacher's recollections of his encounter with Kohn.

Hugo Knoepfmacher's manuscripts are represented in Series V; the ones on Freud in Subseries 1 are based on family memories and provide a few interesting details about Freud's schooldays and his membership in the Jewish association B'nai B'rith. The essays on historical and political developments after 1945, such as the Soviet occupation of Austria, the policy of the Soviet Union, and the ideology of communism in general, will be found in Subseries 2 and Subseries 3. Series VI holds Knoepfmacher's published texts, including encyclopedia entries, articles, reviews and specialized texts. The manuscripts of Knoepfmacher's translations of Saul Tschernichowski's and Gershon Shofman's Hebrew poetry are located in Series VIII.

In addition to papers to Hugo Knoepfmacher, this collection also holds documents pertaining to his family members. These will be found in Series II, which holds papers of his wife Juliana Knoepfmacher, his father Wilhelm Knoepfmacher, and the family of his sister Hedwig Stern. Most documents here are official documents, such as certificates of birth, residence, military service, marriage, and death. The documents of Juliana Knoepfmacher contain also papers from the period of her first marriage to Johann Swarowsky, including judicial papers concerning their divorce. Other documents relating to family members will be found in the family correspondence of Series III, which also contains letters of Juliana's brother Wolf Laszky. Documents pertaining to Hedwig Stern's restitution claims will be found in Series IV, Subseries 2, while the poems she wrote for her brother Hugo are located in Series I.