Hans Günther Adler

Hans Günther Adler (2 July 1910 – 21 August 1988) was a Czech-English German-language poet and novelist, scholar, and Holocaust survivor.

Life Born in Prague, Bohemia, to Emil and Alice Adler, Hans Günther Adler was a Jew, though not devout. After his graduation in 1935 from Charles University, where he studied music and literature, arts and sciences, he worked as a secretary and teacher at the Urania, a pedagogical institute. This also involved him in some radio broadcasting.

In 1941 he was sent to a Jewish labour camp where he worked until shortly before his deportation to Theresienstadt with his family on February 8, 1942. Adler was to spend two and a half years in Theresienstadt with his family before being deported to Auschwitz. At Theresienstadt, Adler avoided doing work that might implicate him in the running of the ghetto and did only manual work, such as room duty and building. His wife, who was a medical doctor and chemist, led the medical central bureau. On October 14, 1944, he arrived with his wife and her mother at Auschwitz.

In June 1946 he lost his Сzechoslovakian citizenship because of his German mother tongue. To escape the impending Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, Adler fled to London in February 1947, where he married a close friend from Prague, the sculptor Bettina Gross, with whom he fathered his only child Jeremy Adler. Three of Adler's novels, The Journey, Panorama and The Wall, have been translated into English by Peter Filkins. An English translation of his monograph about Theresienstadt was published in 2017.

He received the Leo Baeck Prize in 1958, the Prix Charles Veillon in 1969 for Panorama; the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal in 1974 and an honorary Ph.D. from the Pedagogical University of Berlin in 1980.

Adler died in London, England in 1988.

Awards Leo Baeck Prize (1958) Charles Veillon Prize (Lausanne, 1969) Buber-Rosenzweig Medal (Berlin, 1974) Corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1979) Honorary Doctor of the Pedagogical University of Berlin (1980) Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1985) Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art (1985)

Works Theresienstadt. 1941–1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft, Geschichte Soziologie Psychologie. Tübingen: Mohr, 1955. (Theresienstadt: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft. Göttingen, Edition:reprint vom Wallstein Verlag, 926 Seiten. 2005. ) Die verheimlichte Wahrheit. Theresienstädter Dokumente, 1958 Der Kampf gegen die „Endlösung der Judenfrage“, 1958 Die Juden in Deutschland. Von der Aufklärung bis zum Nationalsozialismus, 1960 Unser Georg und andere Erzählungen, 1961 Eine Reise, Roman, Bibliotheca christiana, Bonn 1962; mit einem Nachwort von Jeremy Adler, Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin, 2002, Der Fürst des Segens, 1964 Die Erfahrung der Ohnmacht, 1964 Sodoms Untergang, Bagatellen, 1965 Kontraste und Variationen, Essays, 1969 Ereignisse, Kleine Erzählungen und Novellen, 1969 Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland, Mohr-Verlag, Tübingen, 1974, New edition, with a preface by Götz Aly. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2026.. Fenster, Gedichte, 1974 Viele Jahreszeiten, Gedichte, 1975 Die Freiheit des Menschen, Essays, 1976 Spuren und Pfeiler, Gedichte, 1978 Transsubstantations, Gedichte, 1978 Zeiten auf der Spur, Gedichte, 1978 Blicke, Gedichte, 1979 Stimme und Zuruf, Gedichte, 1980 Panorama. Roman in 10 Bildern, Piper-Verlag, 1988, Der Wahrheit verpflichtet. Interviews, Gedichte, Essays Hrsg. von Jeremy Adler, Bleicher-Verlag, Gerlingen, 1998, Nach der Befreiung, Ausgewahlte Essays zur Geschichte und Soziologie, Hrsg. von Peter Filkins, Konstanz University Press, 2013, Theresienstadt, 1941-1945 : the face of a coerced community / H.G. Adler; translated by Belinda Cooper; general editor, Amy Loewenhaar-Blauweiss; with an afterword by Jeremy Adler; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017