Oda Weitbrecht

Biography

Born 21 November 1900, daughter of a Hamburg bookseller. 1921: trainee in production department of the Potsdam publisher Gustav Kiepenheuer. 1923: director of production. April 1924: founded in Potsdam the Presse Oda Weitbrecht (1924-9) as part of Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag. 1927: returned to Hamburg and married Siegfried Buchenau. She ran the Presse Oda Weitbrecht from Bergstrasse 26, Hamburg, publishing, among others, Alfred Döblin and Rilke. Twenty-three titles were published in limited editions from 10-300 copies. Willy Wiegand, in an article in an English journal, wrote that she was ‘The only woman in Germany who does her printing entirely herself.’ 1966: Editor of the Imprimatur Register (Index of articles 1930-64). Died 1988 in Hamburg.

Writings by

  • compiler, Siegfried Buchenau’s biography, in Heinz Sarkowski (ed.), Begegnung mit Siegfried Buchenau, Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 1964
  • ‘Afterword’ in Imprimatur Register, Frankfurt a.M. : Gesellschaft der Bibliophilen, 1966
  • ‘Erinnerungen an die Presse Oda Weitbrecht’, Imprimatur, 1967, pp. 114-20 plus 2-page inset (reprinted in Flach, 1978), includes bibliography of the Press.

Writings about

  • ‘Presse Oda Weitbrecht’, Philobiblon, May 1928, pp. 61-2 (work in progress
  • p. 70: ad for the Press)
  • Oda Weitbrecht und Ihre Presse, 1930
  • Adolf Flach, ed., Raamin-Presse Roswitha Quadflieg, 1973-8, with retrospective of Presse Oda Weitbrecht, 1923-30 ( exh . cat.), Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1978 (includes bibliography of the Press 1924-9)
  • GKS, 1978
  • Elmar Faber, 75 Jahre Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag. Marginalien zu einer Verlagsgeschichte, Leipzig/Weimar: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1984
  • Wolfgang Tripmacker, ‘Frauen um Gustav Kiepenheuer’, Leipziger Jahrbuch zu Buchgeschichte, 1997, pp. 169-87
    • ‘Die Presse Oda Weitbrecht’, in Wolfgang Tripmacker, ‘Bücher für Bibliophile aus vergessenen Verlagen’ (forgotten publishers), Marginalien, 1999/3, pp. 30-32.

Exhibitions

  • Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, 1978.