zonder druk en zonder jaar van uitgifte - info geschat via Worldcat.

First and only Dutch edition of Bettauer s most celebrated and tragically prophetic novel, first published in German in 1922 as Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews). ¶ Hugo Bettauer (1872 1925) was born in Baden bei Wien (Austria) to Jewish parents. He led an adventurous life and emigrated to the United States twice. He worked as a journalist and editor in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and New York. ¶ He was a prolific author of crime novels and campaigned for social reforms, including modern divorce law, abortion and the legality of homosexuality. Otto Rothstock, a member of the Nazi party, assassinated Bettauer in 1925. ¶ Today, Bettauer is best remembered for Die Stadt ohne Juden, a novel satirizing antisemitism. In it, a politician expels all Jews from Austria, to great applause from the population. However, without the Jews the economy collapses, giving rise to a new movement demanding the return of the Jews. Eventually the expulsion law is repealed and the Jews return to Austria. ¶ The novel, published to critical acclaim, became a huge bestseller and was made into a feature film in 1924, directed by Hans Karl Breslauer. ¶ This Dutch edition, published in the fateful year of 1933, was translated and edited by Philip Johan Godlieb Roest, who became editor of a Dutch resistance newspaper during the Second World War. As is clear from the blurb, this edition was prompted by the massive rise of antisemitism in Nazi Germany. In other words, this book was intended as a warning. ¶ Brinkman's cumulatieve catalogus van boeken 1931-1935, p. 89; cf. "Bettauer, (Maximilian) Hugo", in: ÖBL Online-Edition; for Roest: Winkel-De Vries, De ondergrondse pers 1940-1945.


= Extremely scarce with the original expressive dustjacket with flaps with blurb preserved (strengthened on folds on the inside and outside spine-ends with acid-free tape). De Stad zonder Joden (Die Stadt ohne Juden, or The City Without Jews) was first published in 1922 and is arguably Hugo Bettauer’s best-known novel. Bettauer was also author of crime novels and campaigned for various social reforms, such as divorce law, abortion and the legalization of homosexuality. The City Without Jews portrays a satire on the acutely topical subject of antisemitism: a fictional politician orders the expulsion of all Jews from Vienna. Alexander Moulton observes "in scenes that are frighteningly prophetic, Austria borrows thirty stock car trains from neighboring countries to help in the expulsion (to the east) of the Jews and their belongings." In the book, the citizens of Vienna initially celebrated the expulsion, but sentiment changed as theaters went bankrupt and department stores, hotels and resorts suffered. The economy declined to such an extent that a popular movement arose demanding the return of the Jews. Without the Jews to blame, the ruling party collapsed; the expulsion law was repealed, and the Jews were welcomed back to Vienna. Hugo Bettauer succeeded in creating a relatively accurate allegorical vision of the near future, although the book was intended as entertainment and as a satirical response to the primitive antisemitism of the 1920s. It immediately became Bettauer's most commercially successful work: it was translated into several languages, and sold 250,000 copies in its first year. It became one of Bettauer's most controversial works, gaining him both great admirers and bitter enemies. Nazi sympathizers attacked Bettauer and his work, denouncing him as the "Red poet" and a "corruptor of youth". The novel was made into the 1924 feature film The City Without Jews, directed by Hans Karl Breslauer; shortly after the premiere of the film Hugo Bettauer was murdered by Otto Rothstock, a former member of the Nazi Party, who was lionized by the antisemitic Austrian masses and was released less than two years after having been committed to a psychiatric institution. The Dutch edition was publshed in the year of 1933 when the nazi rise in Germany was imminent - the publisher must have acknowledged the threat that the book was no longer a novel set in the future, but was actually being overtaken by current events, albeit not in Vienna at the time, but in Berlin.