“The Savior of Dachau” – First booklet in a series of works by persecuted artists on the horrors of the Holocaust. ...

“The Savior of Dachau” – First booklet in a series of works by persecuted artists on the horrors of the Holocaust. Vienna, 1945 – First Edition

Der Heiland von Dachau – “The Savior of Dachau” by poet and journalist Hugo Huppert – An Austrian ballad about the suffering and execution of Johann Reiser in Dachau, published as a special booklet (Sonderheft) – the first in a series by the journal Wiener Revue. Vienna, 1945 – First edition.

Der Heiland von Dachau – “The Savior of Dachau” by Hugo Huppert

The first booklet in a series dedicated to the works of persecuted artists and émigrés during the years of World War II. The ballad recounts the capture of Johann Reiser, head of the Gastein monastery, by the Gestapo, the torture he endured, and the forced labor he was subjected to in Dachau: “From ten at night until ten in the morning, he is handed the heavy wheelbarrow, must gaze endlessly straight into the sun, and while pushing the swaying cart, he stares wide-eyed at the sun, and in the evening again he walks to the wall! For six days and nights he suffers thus, and on the seventh day he breaks, says to himself: ‘Wonderful!’ and falls into a deep sleep under blows.”

Ultimately, he is executed by gunshot, hanging on a cross, after being forced to confess that he was a Jew...

Hugo Huppert (1902–1982) was an Austrian poet, writer, and journalist, born in Brno, Moravia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in the Czech Republic). A staunch patriot with a clearly defined communist identity, Huppert was an outspoken anti-Nazi activist throughout the 1930s and 1940s, which led to his exile from Nazi Germany. Huppert was part of a group of German- and Austrian-Jewish writers who chose to resist fascism and Nazism through literature bearing a clear political message. During World War II, he lived in exile in the Soviet Union. After the war, he returned to Austria but remained firmly committed to his communist ideals throughout his life. He published poems, plays, and ballads marked by sharp ideological themes—anti-fascist, at times religious-symbolic, and deeply morally attuned to human suffering.

33 [2] pages. Very good condition.