Hans Heller Collection

Hans Heller was born in Vienna on August 3, 1896, to Gustav Heller and his wife Mathilde (née Kreidl). He had two sisters: Margarete (after marriage Margarete Rutter) and Marianne (after marriage Marianne Wolf). In 1891 Gustav Heller and his brother Wilhelm founded a candy factory in Vienna, Gustav & Wilhelm Heller.

While studying in Gymnasium (high school) Hans first encountered the works of Sigmund Freud, which would continue to be of interest to him. After graduation he was enlisted as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army of World War I, where he was part of an artillery unit and was stationed on the Italian front. In 1919 he married Margarete (Gretl) Steiner, whom he had known for several years prior to the war. He then attended the University of Vienna, where he studied economics and political theory; he received a degree in economics. In 1920 Hans and Gretl's son Peter was born. Hans became a junior partner in the family candy business; he would later become co-owner with his father. In 1934 Hans and Gretl divorced, although they remained friends.

During this time, Hans Heller's interest in writing grew, and he had some short pieces published. It was during this time that he wrote his unpublished work "Die sieben mageren Jahre" (The Seven Meager Years). He also became close friends with the art historian Ernst von Garger, with whom he traveled in Italy. Later Hans wrote Ein Mann sucht seine Heimat, about a half-Jewish art historian who fought against the Nazis; this book was published in Switzerland in 1936 under the pseudonym Martin Haller. While writing this book, Hans married his second wife, Inge.

By the later 1930s Hans Heller became co-editor of the newspaper Die Wiener Weltbühne with his friend, journalist Willy Schlamm. Hans Heller would escape city life for the country at his hunting lodge in Klausen, Italy, and at a summer home in the Alpine village of Grundlsee, Styria.

Following the Austrian Anschluss in 1938 Hans made a deal with his "Aryan" brother-in-law and another relative regarding selling the candy factory. With the help of a friend in England Hans was able to send some funds there as well as his son Peter. Hans traveled to England via Switzerland in 1938, leaving behind his elder sister Margarete Rutter, who would spend the war hiding in the cellar of her home; his younger sister Marianne Wolf eventually died of multiple sclerosis. His wife Inge later followed him to England.. In England, Hans contacted an English candy company in Liverpool, Barker & Dobson, where he proposed to start a new Heller candy factory on its premises and run it in partnership with a cousin. After his son Peter was interned as an enemy alien and sent to Canada – a fate of which Hans was exempt by being involved in the export trade – he considered emigrating to the United States, which he did in 1940 while on a business trip for Barker & Dobson.

At first Hans struggled to find partners with whom to establish a candy business in New York. When he finally found enough investors, he established a small business called Heller Candy Company, Inc. in a rented loft in Harlem. It would later move to 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. During the early years of the Second World War, Hans and Inge separated; he later met his third wife, the artist Helen Ek. They married in 1946 and had a son, Marc. They first lived on New York's Upper West Side but later the family moved to the town of Hartsdale, New York. At some point Hans Heller Americanized his given name to John, although he also continued to use his German name, Hans. At some later point he established a candy factory in Paterson, New Jersey.

After the war, John Heller returned to Austria in 1947. He was particularly worried about his good friend Ernst von Garger, with whom he had reestablished contact and who was in poor health. Upon his return to the United States John Heller had an article published in the New York Herald Tribune "Hungry Austria Reverts to the Past," related to the starvation present in the country at the time and its political situation. It took more than a year to sort out legal ownership of the family factory in Vienna.

Over the next few years, his wife Helen Heller began to gain more prominence as a sculptor. John Heller, who enjoyed hunting, took trips to the Adirondack Mountains and Newfoundland. He also visited Austria several times to seek the return of family property and to re-establish connections with his sister and her family there. John Heller and his family often traveled and eventually moved to the town of Scarborough, New York, along the Hudson River. At some point during the 1960s John took a memorable hunting trip to Africa. Meanwhile, the Heller Candy Company he had established in the United States flourished. It sold hard and filled candies in bags, jars, and holiday tins. When the Vietnam War broke out John realized that since his candies could withstand high heat, they would be ideal for the deployed soldiers, and the armed forces became a large client of the company. This helped to make the candy even more well-known and eventually extended to exports to Asia and South America. John Heller also became involved in painting landscapes. In 1974 he and Helen had a joint exhibition of their work at a gallery in New York's Soho neighborhood. Helen, who had fought cancer for years, died shortly before the opening of their exhibition.

John Heller had a difficult time adjusting to life without Helen. After some time, he married the anesthesiologist Edith Kepes. He remained president of Heller Candy Company until his retirement in 1981. They spent much of their old age traveling together, including to Vienna, where John Heller had an exhibition of his paintings. In 1983, Abaris Press published John Heller's memoirs, Memoirs of a Reluctant Capitalist. He also wrote another, unpublished, memoir, "Old, Old Age," about the experiences of life in extreme old age. In 1985 his autobiography in German was published by Ovilava-Libri Press, Zwischen zwei Welten: Erinnerungen, Dokumente, Prosa, Bilder. John Heller died in 1987.