Margarete Susman

Margarete Susman (married: Margarete von Bendemann; October 14, 1872 – January 16, 1966) was a German-Jewish poet, writer, and critic who lived much of her life in Switzerland. The author of hundreds of essays, five collections of poetry, and notable literary-critical works, she distinguished herself as a philosophical writer addressing vital questions in literature, politics, culture and religion. Her 1946 work Das Buch Hiob und das Schicksal des jüdischen Volkes, a reflection on Jewish history through the lens of the Biblical Book of Job, was one of the earliest postwar Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust.

Biography Susman was born in Hamburg, the daughter of Adolph Susman, a businessman (1836–1892), and Jenni Susman (née Katzenstein, 1845–1906). Her parents were of Jewish heritage, with a mostly secular outlook, and Susman received no formal Jewish education as a child. When she was around 10 or 11 years old, her family moved to Zurich, Switzerland. In Zurich she attended a public school for girls (Höhere Töchterschule), where she was educated in the Protestant faith.

Although her father would not consent to her attending the University of Zurich, In the circle around Simmel, she also formed friendships with the religious philosopher Martin Buber and the philosopher and historian Bernard Groethuysen.

Not long before her death in Zurich, in 1966, Susmann completed a memoir, Ich habe viele Leben gelebt (I have lived many lives).

Selected works

Poetry collections Mein Land: Gedichte. 1901 Neue Gedichte. 1907 Vom Sinn der Liebe. 1912 Die Liebenden: drei dramatische Gedichte. 1917 Lieder von Tod und Erlösung. 1922 Aus sich wandelnder Zeit. 1953

Prose Das Wesen der modernen deutschen Lyrik [The nature of modern German lyrical poetry]. 1910 Der Expressionismus [Expressionism]. 1918 Die Frauen der Romantik [Women of the Romantic period]. 1929. 3rd expanded and revised edition, 1960 Das Buch Hiob und das Schicksal des jüdischen Volkes [The Book of Job and the fate of the Jewish people]. 1946 Deutung einer grossen Liebe: Goethe und Charlotte von Stein [Interpretation of a great love: Goethe and Charlotte von Stein]. 1951 Gestalten und Kreise [Personalities and groups]. 1954 Die geistige Gestalt Georg Simmels [The spiritual character of Georg Simmel]. 1959. Ich habe viele Leben gelebt: Erinnerungen [memoir]. 1964 Vom Geheimnis der Freiheit: Gesammelte Aufsätze, 1914-1964 [collected essays]. 1965 Gesammelte Schriften. 5 vols., ed. by Anke Gilleir and Barbara Hahn [collected works]. 2022

Essays in translation "Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption", translated by Joachim Neugroschel. In: Arthur A. Cohen (ed.), The Jew, Essays from Martin Buber's Journal Der Jude, 1916-1928. University of Alabama Press, 1980. "God the creator". In: Nahum N. Glatzer (Ed.), The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002 (originally published by Schocken Books, 1969). . p. 86-92. According to the editor's note, this piece is a translation of the introductory part of Susman's essay on Franz Kafka, contained in her book Gestalten und Kreise (1954); the translation was first published in the Labor Zionist periodical Jewish Frontier (New York), vol. 23, September 1956