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Querido Inc.

  • Fritz H. Landshoff’s Querido publishing house was originally an offshoot of Emanuel Querido's Querido Uitgeverij Dutch publishing house in Amsterdam. Querido Verlag was created in 1933 to publish work by German political exiles.
  • Querido Inc.
  • Publishing House

  • Fritz H. Landshoff’s Querido publishing house was originally an offshoot of Emanuel Querido's Querido Uitgeverij Dutch publishing house in Amsterdam. Querido Verlag was created in 1933 to publish work by German political exiles.

    Word Count: 33

  • Fritz Landshoff (1901–1988), who was the uncle second degree of the émigré photographer Hermann Landshoff, published numerous persecuted and renowned authors, such as Alfred Döblin, Heinrich Eduard Jacob, Lion Feuchtwanger, Emil Ludwig, Klaus Mann, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Gustav Regler, Anna Seghers, Ernst Toller, Arnold Zweig and many others. In 1940 Landshoff escaped the German occupation of the Netherlands by going to work in London. He was able to emigrate to New York via Mexico in 1941. His publishing partner, Emanuel Querido, and his family failed to escape. They were arrested and murdered in 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp. In 1942, together with the German émigré publisher Gottfried Bermann Fischer, Landshoff founded the L. B. Fischer Publishing Corporation, which lasted until 1946.

    Records and publications of the time offer no hint that a New York branch of Querido ever existed. But a letterhead in the archive of Fred Stein shows that Querido Inc. was located in 1947 at 381 Forth Avenue (today’s Park Avenue). While in the process of publishing 5th Avenue, his first photobook, with Pantheon Books, in January 1946 Fred Stein was also in contact with Fritz H. Landshoff to publish the French edition with Querido. A further letter shows that Fred Stein received confirmation that the photobook would be published by Querido in January 1947. Whether Fred Stein knew Fritz H. Landshoff from his time in Germany or through the network of exiled authors and intellectuals in New York or through the photographer Hermann Landshoff is not known. Since Fred Stein photographed many émigré writers and cultural intellectuals, one of his photographic series included Fritz H. Landshoff’s founding partner Gottfried Berman Fischer of the L.B. Fischer publishing house – it is very possible that they were in contact. Hermann Landshoff also photographed a number of émigré artist and intellectuals in New York and produced a series of portraits of Fritz H. Landshoff between 1968 and 1974.

    Further research has brought to light that Fred Stein’s book was not the only one to be published under the auspices of Querido Inc. in New York. During 1944 and 1947 several books were published – mostly English translations of Dutch literature and art: The Lion Rampant. The Story of Holland’s Resistance to the Nazis (1944); How to End the German Menace. By five Hollanders (1944); Harvest of the Lowlands. Collection Dutch Prose Since 1880, edited by Jan Gershoff (1946); The Platter by A. M. De Jong (1946); Three Witnesses by Sjoerd Leiker, translated from Dutch (1946); The Shadow of the Sword by James C. De Wilde (1946); Calendar and Engagement Book for 1947 featuring a collection of Dutch paintings (1947); Rembrandt. Etchings (1947); The Pawn by Bart Landheer, (1947). It can therefore be estimated that the New York branch existed probably from 1943 to 1948. Querido was not the only publishing house to support émigré as well as the transnational transfer of knowledge. Among the others who did so were: J.J. Augustin, Oceana Publications, Schocken Books and Pantheon Books.

    Further correspondence between Fritz H. Landshoff and Fred Stein in 1946 shows that, in addition to running the New York branch, Landshoff also tried to restart Querido Verlag N.V. in Amsterdam, at the address Singel 262. In 1948 the Bermann Fischer/Querido Verlag N.V. publishing house was established in Amsterdam, with Fritz H. Landshoff as a partner. It ran until 1951, when it became part of S. Fischer Verlag N.V..

    It can be said that from the mid-1940s to the 1950s, the life and work of Fritz H. Landshoff was divided between the Netherlands and New York, but the exact details of the restarting of Querdio after 1945 are unclear, as are the dates. From 1953 to 1986 Landshoff worked for the New York art publisher Harry N. Abrams as managing vice-director of his bookstore. (See Hermann Landshoff's portrait of Harry N. Abrams) Two year later, in 1988 he died in Haarlem in the Netherlands.

    Word Count: 629

  • 381 Fourth Avenue (todays Park Avenue), Turtle Bay, Manhattan, New York City.

  • Letterhead of Querido Inc. in New York (© Fred Stein Archive).
  • Letter from Querido Inc. to Fred Stein, 10 January 1947 (© Fred Stein Archive).
    Cover of the French edition 5th Avenue (Querido, 1947) by Fred Stein (© Fred Stein Archive).
    Portrait of Fritz H. Landshoff (of Querido Publishing House) by Fred Stein, 1944 (© Fred Stein Archive).
    Portrait of Kurt Wolff (of publishing house Pantheon Books) by Fred Stein, 1959 (© Fred Stein Archive).

  • Cazden, Robert E. “The Free German Book Trade in the United States, 1933–45.” The Library Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 4, October 1967, pp. 348–365. JSTOR. Accessed 17 March 2021.

    Fischer, Ernst. Verleger, Buchhändler und Antiquare aus Deutschland und Österreich in der Emigration nach 1933. De Gruyter, 2020.

    Krohn, Claus-Dieter, et al., editors. Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, vol. 18: Exile im 20. Jahrhundert. edition text + kritik, 2000.

    Palmier, Jean-Michel.Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration in Europe and America. Verso, 2006.

    Spring, Ulrike. Verlagstätigkeit im niederländischen Exil 1933–1940 (thesis). University Vienna, Vienna, 1994. Wienbibliothek.

    Walter, Hans-Albert, editor. Fritz H. Landshoff und der Querido Verlag, 1933–1950. Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, 1997.

    Word Count: 93

  • My deepest thanks go to Peter Stein for providing me with photographs and archival material of the Fred Stein Estate.

    Word Count: 20

  • Helene Roth
  • 1943
  • 1948

  • Fritz H. Landshoff, Fred Stein.

  • New York
  • No
  • Helene Roth. "Querido Inc.." METROMOD Archive, 2021, https://archive.metromod.net/viewer.p/69/2948/object/5145-11009881, last modified: 09-06-2021.
  • Fred Stein
    PhotographerLawyer
    New York

    Always accompanied by his camera, the German émigré photographer Fred Stein discovered New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. His pictures provide an human and multifaceted view of the metropolis.

    Word Count: 31

    Chinatown U.S.A.
    Photobook
    New York

    Chinatown U.S.A. is a photobook published by the German émigré photographer Elizabeth Coleman in 1946 focusing on American-Chinese communities in New York and San Francisco.

    Word Count: 26

    5th Avenue
    Photobook
    New York

    5th Avenue was the first photobook by Fred Stein and was created in 1947 with the publishing house Pantheon Books.

    Word Count: 19

    Pantheon Books
    Publishing House
    New York

    Pantheon Books was a publishing house founded in 1942 by the German émigré Kurt Wolff (1887–1963) and aimed at the exiled European community in New York.

    Word Count: 24

    Hermann Landshoff
    Photographer
    New York

    Besides outdoor fashion shots, Hermann Landshoff was a portrait and street photographer. During his time in New York, he captured the cultural, artistic and intellectual émigré scene as well as his photographer colleagues.

    Word Count: 33

    J.J. Augustin Incorporated Publisher
    Publishing House
    New York

    J.J. Augustin was a German publishing house in Glückstadt with a long history, going back to 1632. In 1936 the American branch opened in New York with a large artistic and cultural focus.

    Word Count: 33

    Schocken Books
    Publishing House
    New York

    Schocken Books was a publishing house established in 1945 in New York by the Russian émigré Salman Schocken (1898–1959). It specialised in books on Judaica and Hebrew topics.

    Word Count: 26

    Oceana Publications
    Publishing House
    New York

    Oceana Publications Inc was a publishing house specialising in law and civil rights founded by the British émigré Philip F. Cohen (1911–1998) in 1945.

    Word Count: 22