Bertha Badt-Strauss (7 December 1885 – 20 February 1970) was a German writer and Zionist. She wrote for numerous Jewish publications in Berlin and the United States, and edited and translated the works of many other writers.

Bertha Badt-Strauss
Bertha Badt-Strauss circa 1910
Bertha Badt-Strauss circa 1910
Born7 December 1885
Breslau
Died28 February 1970(1970-02-28) (aged 84)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Genrenon-fiction
translation
biography

Biography edit

Bertha Badt was born in 1885 in Breslau to Benno Badt, a philologist, and Martha (née Guttman), a teacher. She studied literature and philosophy in Breslau, Berlin and Munich, and with her thesis on Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, became one of the first women in Prussia to receive a doctoral degree.[1] She lived in Berlin with her husband Bruno Strauss [de], an educator, from 1913, and their son Albrecht was born in 1921. Shortly after Albrecht's birth, Bertha developed multiple sclerosis.[2]

Badt-Strauss was a Zionist and an active member of the Jewish community in Berlin. She wrote articles for a variety of Jewish newspapers, including Jüdische Rundschau, Der Jude, Israelitische Familienblatt, Blätter des Jüdischen Frauenbundes and Der Morgen, and contributed to two Jewish encyclopedias, Encyclopaedia Judaica and Jüdisches Lexikon [de]. She was also a prolific editor and translator of works by other writers, including Droste-Hülshoff, Achim von Arnim, Moses Mendelssohn, Fanny Lewald, Hermann Cohen, Rahel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine, Süßkind von Trimberg, Profiat Duran and Leon of Modena.[1] She wrote a book-length unpublished biography of German writer Elise Reimarus.[3]

Badt-Strauss migrated from Nazi Germany to the United States in 1939. She settled in Shreveport, Louisiana, where her husband was a professor at Centenary College of Louisiana. She published a biography of the Zionist Jessie Sampter titled White Fire: The Life and Works of Jessie Sampter, and continued to write for a variety of Jewish-American publications: Aufbau, The Jewish Way, The Menorah Journal, The Reconstructionist, The National Jewish Monthly, Hadassah Newsletter and Women's League Outlook. She died in 1970 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.[1]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Steer, Martina (2009). "Bertha Badt-Strauss". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  2. ^ Steer, Martina (2007). "Badt-Strauss, Bertha". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2016 – via HighBeam Research.
  3. ^ Spalding, Almut (2005). Elise Reimarus (1735–1805). Königshausen & Neumann. p. 27. ISBN 978-3-8260-2813-7.