Joseph Roth

Lore & Background

Joseph Roth was born into a Jewish family and grew up in Brody (currently in Ukraine), a small town near Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine) in East Galicia, in the easternmost reaches of what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire. Jewish culture played an important role in the life of the town, which had a large Jewish population. Roth grew up with his mother and her relatives; he never saw his father, who had disappeared before he was born. After secondary school, he moved to Lemberg to begin his university studies in 1913, before transferring to the University of Vienna in 1914 to study philosophy and German literature. In 1916, Roth broke off his studies and volunteered to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front, 'though possibly only as an army journalist or censor.' This experience had a major and long-lasting influence on his life, as did the collapse in 1918 of the Habsburg Empire, which marked the beginning of a pronounced sense of 'homelessness' that featured regularly in his work.

Roth married Friederike (Friedl) Reichler in 1922. In the late 1920s, his wife became schizophrenic, which threw Roth into a deep crisis, both emotionally and financially. She lived for years in a sanatorium and was later murdered in the Nazis' Aktion T4 programme. In 1929 he met Andrea Manga Bell, born in Hamburg and unhappily married to Alexandre Douala Manga Bell, Prince of Douala in Cameroon. Being a prominent liberal Jewish journalist, Roth left Germany when Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Andrea Manga Bell accompanied him with her children. He spent most of the next six years in Paris, a city he loved. The relationship with Andrea Manga Bell failed due to financial problems and Roth's jealousy. From 1936 to 1938, Roth had a romantic relationship with Irmgard Keun. Without denying his Jewish origins, Roth considered his relationship to Catholicism very important; in his final years, he may have converted, and was said to have had two funerals, one Jewish, one Catholic. He died in Paris in 1939 from double pneumonia, aggravated by abrupt withdrawal of alcohol that produced delirium tremens.

Reader's Guide

Joseph Roth's significance lies in his literary chronicling of the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the displacement of Jewish populations in early 20th-century Europe. His novel Radetzky March (1932) is considered a masterwork of the Habsburg myth, evoking a melancholic nostalgia for imperial Central Europe before 1914. His essay 'Juden auf Wanderschaft' (1927) provided a fragmented account of Jewish migrations from eastern to western Europe after World War I and the Russian Revolution. Roth's journalism, particularly his reports from Berlin and Paris, has been republished in the 21st century, sparking a revival of interest. His later works often portrayed homeless wanderers—Jews and former citizens of Austria-Hungary—who lost their only possible Heimat with the monarchy's downfall. Roth's legacy is that of a writer who captured the personal and political upheavals of his era, from the collapse of empires to the rise of National Socialism, through both fiction and reportage.

Did You Know?

• Roth never saw his father, who disappeared before he was born.
• His wife Friederike was murdered in the Nazis' Aktion T4 programme.
• Roth was said to have had two funerals, one Jewish and one Catholic.
• He wrote a prophetic letter to Stefan Zweig in February 1933 warning of 'great catastrophes' and a new war.