**Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber kept countless letters from young readers.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

“This is the best book I’ve ever read!”

The estate of Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber contains letters from their young readers that highlight how the books resonated with people.

Maria Becker

Dr Maria Becker is a research associate at the Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM.

“My goodness, The Black Brothers has to be the best book I’ve ever read. Only a poet could have written such a book!” These are the words taken from one of the letters addressed to Lisa Tetzner. The letter is dated 1942, in the middle of the Second World War. Over 80 years ago, the writing couple Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber (under his pseudonym Kurt Held) penned children’s classics which shaped Switzerland’s literary scene. This is particularly true of the historical novel The Black Brothers (1940/41), which tells the story of child chimney sweeps in Ticino. Kurt Kläber’s The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle (1941) ultimately became an international success. It has been translated into 18 languages and has been adapted for film, television, radio and theatre. One of the most memorable versions is the 1979 German-Swiss-Croatian television series. Before emigrating to Switzerland in 1933, Lisa Tetzner made a name for herself as a storyteller in Germany. Her most successful work was the nine-volume series of novels The Children from No. 67 (1933–49), which describes the impact of National Socialism on the lives of young people.

**Lisa Tetzner with a young reader.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

The estate of Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber at the Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM contains a very special and rare feature: fan mail collected by the authors. There are three files containing individual notes, drawings and letters from German and Swiss schoolchildren dating back to the period from 1942 to 1961. The letters focus on two books: The Black Brothers and The Children from No. 67. In their novel The Black Brothers, the duo explore the historical treatment of the spazzacamini – child labourers in the 19th and 20th centuries who were sent by their impoverished families to work as chimney sweeps in northern Italy. The book was written by Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber but for political reasons was published only under Lisa Tetzner’s name. The story is characteristic of the writing couple’s socially-critical ambitions, which didn’t necessarily tally with the educational expectations of books for children and young people at the time. “We are only allowed to show our children likeable, good, upstanding people,” Kläber retorted, when his editor disapproved of the manuscript. But Kläber didn’t want to preserve his readers from the woes of the real world; instead he wanted to explore those woes and create a better world. He therefore made the momentous decision to part company with his publisher. He went on to find a new one and to spark children’s interest: “I still can’t believe,” one reader wrote in 1942, “that there are people who can write such wonderful books. This is the best book I’ve ever read.”

**In addition to 50 individual letters and hand-drawn pictures, Lisa Tetzner also received mail from schoolchildren in Switzerland and Germany.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

Lisa Tetzner’s nine-volume The Children from No. 67, which she wrote between 1933 and 1949, was also popular with schoolchildren. Running to around 1,600 pages, the series is still considered one of the most extensive and significant works of exile literature. Among the correspondence, one bundle of letters stands out: in 1945, two months after the end of the Second World War, 25 female nursery teachers from the town of Ebnat-Kappel in St. Gallen, gave their views on the question featured in the title of the seventh volume, Is Paul Guilty? (1945). They asked the question as to whether the protagonist Paul Richter’s erstwhile convictions and entanglements in the National Socialist system were justifiable and understandable, and whether remorse and feelings of guilt are enough. “No, Paul isn’t guilty!” wrote 19-year-old E. Schmidt, adding, “he only did as he was ordered. Like all German children, he had been brought up that way. […] Our Swiss boys would also have committed an act of betrayal if they had been promised all sorts of incentives in return. But we live in such an orderly world that we can’t even imagine that.”

**“I must congratulate and indeed thank you for writing this book with your husband,” a young reader from Basel wrote to Lisa Tetzner.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

**The pair even received fan mail from France, as this example shows.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

This view suggests that the novels by Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber are still topical and fuel lively debate even now, in the 21st century. Almost 80 years after the end of the war and The Children from No. 67 is still available in bookshops. Another unforgettable edition is the graphic novel The Black Brothers, published in 2002 (new edition in 2019) and illustrated by Hannes Binder, who is famous for his scratchboard technique. The Black Brothers has been performed as a musical, adapted as a TV series in Germany and Japan (directed by Diethard Klante, 1984 / directed by Kōzō Kusuba, 1995), recorded as a radio play (2002, new editions in 2014 and 2021) and remade as a film in 2013 (directed by Xavier Koller). One letter says “I pretty much devoured this book”. Lisa Tetzner (1894–1963) and Kurt Kläber (1897–1959) have been dead for over 60 years, so unfortunately they won’t be receiving any more fan mail…

**A child’s drawing of a mountain landscape.** Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM

The writer pair’s estate is now kept in various places. A large part was transferred to the archive of the Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media SIKJM in 2006. The estate contains letters exchanged with their publisher, H.R. Sauerländer & Co Aarau (1935–59), extensive correspondence on work and residence permits in Switzerland (1925–46) and a large number of private letters, to and from people and institutions in Switzerland and abroad. The collection is complemented by over 100 books, which also contain a number of proof copies and dedications. Those who are interested can view the estate at the SIKJM library in Zurich.

Red-haired Zora and the Black Brothers

10.06.2023 12.11.2023 / National Museum Zurich

Written more than 80 years ago in the Swiss canton of Ticino, two particular novels for young people continue to touch and move their readers. They are Die rote Zora und ihre Bande (published in English as ‘The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle’ and featuring the red-haired Zora of the German title) and Die Schwarzen Brüder (‘The Black Brothers’). Behind these two classics are two German authors, both writing and life partners, who fled to Ticino when the Nazis came to power. In their work, Lisa Tetzner and Kurt Kläber also processed parts of their personal histories, conveying issues such as poverty and social injustice to their young readers. The exhibition traces Tetzner and Kläber's life in Germany and Switzerland, and examines what makes their famous books so popular.

More of: 20th / 21st century Society Education Women in history Culture Literature

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