Kahler-Kreis (Kahler Circle) refers to the circle, lasting from 1939 to the early 1970s, of intellectual friends of
Erich Kahler
Erich von Kahler (October 14, 1885 – June 28, 1970) was a mid-twentieth-century European-American literary scholar, essayist, and teacher known for works such as ''The Tower and the Abyss: An Inquiry into the Transformation of Man'' (1957) ...
and his second wife, Alice (Lili or Lilly) Loewy Kahler. This group, named the "Kahler-Kreis" by Charles Greenleaf Bell (1916–2010), had its physical center at the Kahlers' house, One Evelyn Place in Princeton, New Jersey. Erich Kahler, a scholar, author, and lecturer, arrived in Princeton in 1939 as a financially destitute Jewish refugee from the Nazi regime. One Evelyn Place welcomed Jewish intellectual refugees from Europe and was filled with visitors, boarders, and cultural conversation. The
Einstein family
The Einstein family is the family of physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955). Einstein's great-great-great-great-grandfather, Jakob Weil, was his oldest recorded relative, born in the late 17th century, and the family continues to this day. Al ...
,
Thomas Mann's family, and
Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and '' The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945).
...
were close friends of the Kahlers. The Kahler circle of friends also included
Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime.
Panofsky's work represents a hig ...
, Hetty Goldman,
Ernst Kantorowicz,
Kurt Gödel, and the painter
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''.
Biography
Shahn was bor ...
. Einstein preferred to visit the Kahlers when they had no other guests.
Archival material related to the Kahler-Kreis
Alice Loewy Kahler (whose first husband was Paul Loewy, MD) was one of two daughters of Ignatz Pick (1870–1941), an art collector and successful art/antiques gallery owner in Vienna. She donated most of Erich Kahler's papers to the Princeton University Library. Another substantial bequest is at the Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History. The M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives at the State University of Albany, New York, has of items in its inventory of Erich (von) Kahler Papers, 1906-1968. In its Hermann Broch Archive, Yale University has about 300 items related to Erich Kahler. There are a few dozen items related to the Kahlers and the Kahler-Kreis at the Albert Einstein Archives, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
[http://www.alberteinstein.info According to an April, 2011 e-mail from Barbara Wolff, Einstein Archives Information Officer, there are 10 items related to Alice Loewy Kahler 1942-1974; 27 items related to Erich Kahler 1939-1954; 15 items related to Antoinette von Kahler 1942-1951; 30-40 items related to Hermann Broch 1937-1951 ... However, a substantial part of these items are copies provided by other archives/libraries where the originals (mainly Einstein's letters to Kahler, etc.) are located.]
References
External links
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* (The two-story house with a large attic was built around 1900.)
*{{cite book, author=Lützeler, Paul Michael, title=Hermann Broch: eine Biographie, publisher=Suhrkamp Verlag, year=2011, chapter=Photo of One Evelyn Place & 1947 photo of Albert Einstein with Alice Loewy (photographs following page 240), isbn=9783518751015, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3FTCwAAQBAJ&q=Erich+kahlers+haus&pg=PA240
American culture