Paul Stefan Grünfeldt [ps. Paul Stefan]
| Born: |
11-25-1879 |
| Faculty: |
Law School |
| Category: |
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Paul Stefan GRUENFELDT (Pseudonym: Paul STEFAN), born on November 25th, 1879 in Bruenn, Moravia/Austro-Hungaria [Brno, Czech Republic], died on November 12th, 1943 in New York/USA. He came to Vienna in 1898 and studied Law, Philosophy, Art and Music History at the University of Vienna and graduated at the Law School at the University of Vienna on June 17th, 1904 with the academic degree 'Dr. iur.'. Besides he also studied Theory of Music with Hermann Graedener and Arnold Schoenberg. Paul Gruenfeld(t) was writer, music critic and musicologist. From 1904 to 1910 he was general secretary of the central association of industry ('Zentralverband der Industrie'), from 1921 to 1928 publisher of the Paper "Musikblaetter des Anbruchs" and Co-founder of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1922. He taught at the Max Reinhard-Seminar in Vienna.
In 1938 he emigrated to Switzerland, 1939 to France, 1940 to Portugal and 1941 to the USA. There he worked at the newspaper "Neuen Volkszeitung" and wrote also books about Gustav Mahler (1910, 1912²), Neue Musik und Wien (1921), Die Wiener Oper (1922), Arnold Schönberg (1924), Arturo Toscanini (1935), Richard Wagner, Franz Schubert und Bruno Walter (1936). In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on May 8th, 1941 with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwürdig').
His autobiography "Das war der letzte Sommer" was published posthumously in 1946.
It took 62 years since the deprivation – and a very long time since the end of Nazism – until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on April 10th, 2003 posthumously in a solemn ceremony.
Lit.: POSCH/STADLER 2005; RAUSCH 2006; KLEIN 2001, 311; KRONES 2006, Sp. 1358-1359; RIEMANN 1961, 1975; PASS/SCHEIT/SVOBODA 1995; RÖDER 1983; DRIESSEN GRUBER 2008, WAGNER 2008a; LANGENBRUCH 2014; BLUMESBERGER 2002; http://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00002745; wikipedia
Herbert Posch
