Kohler, Lotte (E.) 1919-

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KOHLER, Lotte (E.) 1919-

PERSONAL: Born December 15, 1919, in Rostock, Germany. Education: University of Münster, Ph.D., 1948.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harcourt, 15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10003-4793.

CAREER: Royal Holloway College, London, London, England, associate lecturer, 1950-51; Fort Lee High School, Fort Lee, NJ, French and German teacher, 1956-60; City College, New York, NY, associate professor, 1960-71, associate professor of German, beginning 1971; retired.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association, American Association of Teachers of German.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Hans Saner) Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers: Correspondence, 1926-1969, translated by Robert Kimber and Rita Kimber, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor and author of introduction) Within Four Walls: The Correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher, 1937-1968, translated by Peter Constantine, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Lotte Kohler, a retired professor of German, is literary executor of Hannah Arendt's estate. She is coeditor of Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers: Correspondence, 1926-1969, a collection of letters between Arendt and Jaspers. The letters date from 1926 when Arendt first became a student of Jaspers, up until his death in 1969. Even though they were both Germans, philosophers, and educated individuals, the two had differences. Arendt was Jewish and had moved to the United States, while Jaspers, a gentile, continued to live in Germany. Their letters discuss their opinions on events of the time and their different worlds. "These letters between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers are of general interest and provide a fascinating subjective account of contemporary history," noted Anne Gendler in a Booklist review.

Within Four Walls: The Correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher, 1937-1968 is a second collection of letters edited by Kohler. Arendt and Blücher, who had both escaped from Nazi ruled Germany, first met in Paris in 1936 and married in 1940. The letters describe their love for each other and what was going on in their lives when they were apart. "The collection is the record of a great love and a lifelong conversation between two people who had their own moving but never sentimental intellectual and emotional partnership," commented Amos Elon in the New York Review of Books.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1992, Anne Gendler, review of Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers: Correspondence, 1926-1969, p. 11.

Library Journal, September 15, 1992, Francisca Goldsmith, review of Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers, p. 70.

New Republic, November 27, 2000, Richard Wolin, "The Illiberal Imagination," p. 27.

New York Review of Books, May 13, 1993, Gordon A. Craig, "Letters on Dark Times," pp. 10-14; July 5, 2001, Amos Elon, "Scenes from a Marriage," pp. 56-58.

Publishers Weekly, June 29, 1992, review of Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers, p. 46.

Times Literary Supplement, April 12, 2002, Peter Baehr, "A Wheel That Has Come Off," pp. 2-4.