Great honor is being paid here this week to the memory of Samuel Fischer, well-known Jewish publisher who died on October 15, in connection with National Book Week.
Book shop windows are displaying many books published by Fischer and stressing the fact that he introduced such literary giants as Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Jacob Wassermann, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Emile Zola and Feodor Dostoyevsky to German literature.
Herr Fischer, who was seventy-five years old when he died, was in the publishing business in Berlin for fifty years. On his seventieth birthday, the German government officially congratulated him, stating that his publishing business had brought “world-wide respect and admiration for Germany. “
When the Nazis came into power, Fischer’s concern was “coordinated” and the veteran publisher went into virtual retirement.
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