author
Carry Brachvogel
1864–1942
A once-celebrated Munich novelist, journalist, and women's rights advocate, she wrote with independence and ambition at a time when few women could build public literary careers. Her life also reflects the brilliance of Jewish cultural life in Germany and the tragedy of its destruction under Nazism.
1 Audiobook
Die große Gauklerin: Ein Roman aus Venedig
by Carry Brachvogel
About the author
Born Karoline Hellmann in Munich in 1864, Carry Brachvogel became a well-known German writer, feuilletonist, and salon host. After marrying the writer and editor Wolfgang Brachvogel, she was widowed in 1892 and supported herself and her children through her writing, going on to publish novels, stories, and historical works.
She was also active in Munich's cultural and women's movements. Sources describe her as a co-founder and longtime leader of the association of Munich women writers, and as a figure who argued for women's self-determination while building an unusually public literary life of her own.
Because she was Jewish, her position in German cultural life was destroyed after the Nazi rise to power in 1933. She was deported from Munich to Theresienstadt, where she died in 1942. Today she is remembered both for her books and for the part she played in Munich's literary and feminist history.