Peter H. Amann Collection

The Peter Amann Collection consists almost entirely of correspondence files amassed by Peter Amann, noted American historian and son of Paul Amann, a prominent Austrian-Jewish writer and translator. Although most of these files date from Peter’s adult life, when he worked as a professor of history at various American universities, many files, including all of Series I, appear to have been inherited from his mother Dora Amann (née Iranyi) during the 1980s. These files include Dora Amann’s family papers, which, like the rest of the collection, are predominantly composed of correspondence. Much of this correspondence dates to the period before the Anschluss and documents the daily lives of the Iranyi/Israel family. Later exchanges with the Iranyi/Israel family during wartime, while Dora and Paul Amann lived in Paris, document the conditions of Jewish individuals and families in Vienna under the Nazi regime. Other materials inherited from Dora Amann consist of some of Paul Amann’s correspondence, which contains a limited amount of post-war correspondence with prominent literary figures like Christopher Isherwood, Albert Camus, and the estate of Romain Rolland, and correspondence between Ernst Amann and his parents Dora and Paul. Included with the Paul Amann materials are also photocopies from a Swiss archive of Paul Amann’s correspondence with Hermann Hesse, as well as an unpublished memoir, written in English, pertaining to his time as an Austrian soldier during World War I.

The rest of the correspondence has been divided into three groups: family correspondence, professional correspondence, and personal correspondence. The earlier family correspondence is almost entirely comprised of letters exchanged between Peter Amann and his parents. Starting in the mid 1950s, other figures begin to appear in the family correspondence, including Peter’s half-brother Wilhelm (Willi), who settled in Scotland, and Peter’s sister Eva. After the death of Paul Amann in 1959, the family correspondence contains an increasing amount of letters to and from Dora Amann. From the 1970s onward Peter Amann’s children Paula, Sandra, and David also appear regularly. This series does not contain any correspondence with wife Enne Amann’s family; these materials can be accessed in Series IV: Personal correspondence.

The professional correspondence starts during Peter Amann’s graduate studies at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. This series consists of correspondence and application materials for scholarships and fellowships, such as the Fulbright Peter Amann received in 1963, letters exchanged with colleagues and with collaborators on various research and book projects, letters seeking job placement, and letters with scholarly and academic publishers, relating both to proposed and to actual book and research projects. A substantial amount of official correspondence with the administrations of the various universities for which Amann worked, especially the University of Michigan, is also present. Additional materials in this series include diplomas and awards dating from Amann’s high school years in the 1940s through the 1970s, and various writings both academic and fictional, publications, and translations. Many of these writings included in the collection have never been published. A final subseries of professional correspondence pertains to his wife Enne Amann’s career as a folk singer, for which Peter Amann acted as manager during the mid 1960s through the early 1970s.

The final series, personal correspondence, comprises letters and cards exchanged with friends and neighbors, as well as many materials pertaining to personal accommodations, such as lodging and transportation, while abroad for research purposes. The line between personal and professional correspondence is often blurry in the case of letters exchanged with professional colleagues, and therefore many correspondents appear in both the personal and professional series. The original order of the files with regards to dividing personal and professional correspondence was largely kept intact to avoid any destruction of contextual evidence. A variety of other types of correspondence, including letters to newspaper Op-Ed pages and letters to Congressional representatives expressing personal political views, were also included in this series, even if they refer to Peter Amann’s professional credentials.