Kurt Hirschfeld Correspondence Collection

The Kurt Hirschfeld Correspondence Collection holds correspondence and accompanying materials that were sent to Kurt Hirschfeld, primarily following the Second World War. A few letters from Kurt Hirschfeld to others is also present. Nearly all of the collection consists of letters, postcards, and greeting cards, with a few manuscripts and newspaper clippings.

The bulk of the collections is made up of correspondence sent to Kurt Hirschfeld from dramatists, authors, and other individuals active in the theater and literary fields. Prominent correspondents in this collection include Max Frisch, Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Carl Zuckmayer, Erich Kästner, Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Thornton Wilder, and Hans Sahl, among numerous others. The letters of both of the collection's series include discussions of correspondents' work, with some letters that discuss their creative choices or the work of other writers in addition to news of the correspondents' daily lives. Several manuscript drafts by Bertolt Brecht are included among the letters.

Some documentation in this series mentions the work of the theater Kurt Hirschfeld directed, the Zürich Schauspielhaus. Correspondents in the first subseries occasionally discuss the production of their work at this theater. In addition, an article in Series I by Erich Kästner includes a description of the city of Zürich with mention of the theatrical community there, along with a postcard in Series II that holds signatures of theater members in 1964 as well as the text of a speech given by Kurt Hirschfeld on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday that mentions the work of the theater.

Kurt Hirschfeld's declining health in 1964 is mentioned in many letters throughout the collection, as well as his stay at the sanatorium in Tegernsee. Correspondence that references his death and the importance of his work to others will be found among the letters of Series II.