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When they met for the first time in California, Gottlieb and Guggenheim already shared a love for German culture, especially for books. As a student in Munich, Ernst Gottlieb had edited a bibliography of publications by and about Walter Rathenau, the recently assassinated foreign minister of the Weimar Republic. With a doctorate in economics and politics plus a law degree, Felix Guggenheim worked in the Berlin banking world, but soon switched careers, running a printing company and directing the Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft. Both left Germany around 1938, Gottlieb directly for the U.S. and Guggenheim for London, whence he went to United States in 1940. Both ended up in Los Angeles. Ernst Gottlieb became a photographer and met many exiled intellectualys through his lens. He was Thomas Mann's favorite portraitist. Felix Guggenheim was active in West Coast emigre politics, among other things chairing a committee to protest the appellation "enemy aliens". Later, after Pazifische Presse dissolved, Gottlieb became an antiquarian bookseller specializing in music, while Guggenheim became a literary agent. Both stayed in California. |