Stefan Großmann (18 May 1875 â€" 3 January 1935) was a Viennese
writer who became one of the most prominent left-wing liberal
journalists of his generation. He was the founder and during its first
seven years the producer of the respected political weekly journal Das
Tage-Buch.Born in the city's central Wollzeile district, Stefan
Großmann described himself as the "son of impoverished Viennese
citizens". Leopold Großmann (1836-1901), his father had been in
business, but had lost his money and his will to work in the economic
crash of the 1870s. His mother, born Sophie Brummel (1845-1916), used
what remained of the family money to invest in a tea shop. Later she
opened a liquor kiosk near the Prater, the park and amusement centre
on the south-eastern side of Vienna. Großmann was expected to serve
the customers during the early morning shift, before he went to
school. He later reflected that although these early starts might have
been detrimental to his school performance, the direct contact they
gave him with "ordinary workers" and the staff from the adjacent
Carltheater had a defining impact on the rest of his life.He left
school when he was seventeen, half a year before he was due to take
his final exams, without telling his parents, and began to take an
increasing interest in the socialist movement. The Social Democratic
Party had been founded in 1889 and was conspicuously still far outside
the political mainstream: at the Gumpendorf Workers' Education
Association Großmann found like-minded young socialist "extremists",
to the disgust of his parents who had hoped to prepare their son for a
conventional middle-class existence.After an intensifying battle with
his mother he turned his back on his family's Jewish background and
had himself baptised as a Christian, a decision which he later linked
with the "instinctive antisemitism of my early years". When he was
eighteen he moved to Paris where he remained for two years, supporting
himself with translation work and by trading in second-hand books. He
followed the unfolding Dreyfus affair and the speeches of the time
delivered in Paris by the young socialist leader Jean Jaurès with
fascination and close attention.
writer who became one of the most prominent left-wing liberal
journalists of his generation. He was the founder and during its first
seven years the producer of the respected political weekly journal Das
Tage-Buch.Born in the city's central Wollzeile district, Stefan
Großmann described himself as the "son of impoverished Viennese
citizens". Leopold Großmann (1836-1901), his father had been in
business, but had lost his money and his will to work in the economic
crash of the 1870s. His mother, born Sophie Brummel (1845-1916), used
what remained of the family money to invest in a tea shop. Later she
opened a liquor kiosk near the Prater, the park and amusement centre
on the south-eastern side of Vienna. Großmann was expected to serve
the customers during the early morning shift, before he went to
school. He later reflected that although these early starts might have
been detrimental to his school performance, the direct contact they
gave him with "ordinary workers" and the staff from the adjacent
Carltheater had a defining impact on the rest of his life.He left
school when he was seventeen, half a year before he was due to take
his final exams, without telling his parents, and began to take an
increasing interest in the socialist movement. The Social Democratic
Party had been founded in 1889 and was conspicuously still far outside
the political mainstream: at the Gumpendorf Workers' Education
Association Großmann found like-minded young socialist "extremists",
to the disgust of his parents who had hoped to prepare their son for a
conventional middle-class existence.After an intensifying battle with
his mother he turned his back on his family's Jewish background and
had himself baptised as a Christian, a decision which he later linked
with the "instinctive antisemitism of my early years". When he was
eighteen he moved to Paris where he remained for two years, supporting
himself with translation work and by trading in second-hand books. He
followed the unfolding Dreyfus affair and the speeches of the time
delivered in Paris by the young socialist leader Jean Jaurès with
fascination and close attention.
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