Gustav Otto Wolff was born on 3 April, 1872, (probably in Hamburg) the son of George M. Otto Wolff and Ida Strube.  He was the nephew of Gustav Wilhelm Wolff.  Gustav Otto died on 19 May 1843 at Orselina, Switzerland.  He married Caroline Johanna Kielich in August 1897. Johanna was born on 30 January 1858 at Sovetsk, Russia, and she died on 3 May, 1943, in Orselina, Switzerland.  She was the daughter of Adolf Kielich. A pamphlet entitled Johanna Wolff: Leben und Werk can be read HERE which fills in the details of Johanna's life. [PLEASE SEE THE COPYRIGHT NOTE AT THE VERY END OF THIS PAGE}.

In the possession of our family is a book of the following description:  Title: Namenlos: Frauenlieder.  Author: Johanna Wolff ; Published: Breslau, 1900 (New Edition).  Inscribed on the inside is:  Hamburg (25/7/04) from [or in memory of] the authoress, Cousine Hanna Wolff to Nora Loeck. The portrait left source: Collection Hugo E. Martin, autograph from 1933 , Berlin.  Some of the material on this page is from the website of Hugo E. Martin and is copyrighted.  You may benefit by going there to get additional information, as well as learning about the compositions made by Hans Martin (1916 - 2007) on Johanna's poems http://hans-martin-komponist.blogspot.com/ and also visiting the Conventus Musicus website.

Searches for books written by Johanna Wolff have revealed at least 15 and these are listed at the end of this passage.  There may well be more - stay tuned.

Among the records I found while searching under the name Wolff, Johanna was the following:

Ahasver, von Johanna und Gustav Wolff. Titelzeichnung von Fidus. Berlin, Verlag des Dramaturgischen Instituts Abteilung III (E. Ebering)1899. 102 pages. (Wandering Jew -- Poetry.) Wolff, Gustav, joint author.

This record is surprising for two reasons.  First, it indicates that not only was Johanna a writer, which we already knew, but that so also was her husband Gustav.  Second, the subject matter is unexpected – Jewish Poetry.  We know that both Moritz Wolff and Fanny Maria had converted from Judaism to Christianity and therefore their children must have been raised as Christian so the fact that Gustav and Johanna Wolff have chosen to write about Jewish poetry, is surprising. This book has been copied and is in my possession.

At the back of the book is a page devoted to advertising three more books one is 'Namenlos' by Johanna and the other two are both authored by Gustav alone and appear to be travel books, the first is called 'Capri' and the other is 'Die Beichte des MÖnches' (see cover below).

I have asked and received from the Vanderbilt University Library the one and only copy in this country (U.S.) of Gustav's book Capri. What was surprising about the book was that it had actually been signed by Gustav himself.  Below is a scan of his inscription:

Unfortunately, there is a possibility of confusing our Gustav Wolff with two other authors of the same name.  The first is a Gustav George Wolff who writes about classical philosophy but whose dates are ‘wrong’ being 1819-1873.  The second is a Gustav Wolff who was a psychoanalyst and was among Jung's circle and therefore has nothing to do with the Gustav Wolff discussed here.  It should be noted however that all three Gustav Wolffs have been misidentified and miscataloged in various library records so that it is at times painful to sort one Gustav from another.

Back to our Gustav. On August 19 1897 his cousin, Clara May living in London and looking after their uncle Wilhelm Wolff writes: ‘Gustav Wolff married to his nurse 15 years older than himself in Hamburg’.  I believe Gustav was not a very robust man and needed nursing and Johanna was originally his nurse.

The jointly authored book on Jewish poetry was written in 1899 - two years after the marriage noted by Clara May. But why does Clara May say in her diary that Gustav Wolff married ‘his nurse’ and yet Gerda has noted that Hanna is a writer. The answer is that Johanna was a nurse, indeed had been Gustav's and she became a writer. 

Since writing the above I have I emailed the director of German Literature Archives asking for information on Johanna Wolff and I got the following reply which has been roughly translated:

The German Literature archive owns a small Johanna Wolff collection in its Handwritten as well as General Document section of the library. The Handwritten collection consists of a number of Johanna Wolff's letters and poems, in addition to letters by her husband Gustav Wolff, while the other section includes newspaper clippings about her.

Johanna Wolff, born Caroline Johanna Kielich was born in 1858 and died in 1943. She was an author and nurse. Her husband was born in 1869 or 1870. Because he suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis the couple lived in Orselia (Italy?). Gustav Wolff writes in a letter that Johanna Wolff's book "Hanneken: A book of poverty and work" was very autobiographical.

Gudrun Bernhardt
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Deutsches Literaturarchiv E-Mail: bernh@dla-marbach.de
Schillerhoehe 8-10 Telefon: +49-7144-848-422
D-71672 Marbach am Neckar WWW: http://www.dla-marbach.de
 

A VERY INCOMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS BY JOHANNA WOLFF  (please visit Hugo Martin's web site for a complete list of Johanna's works).

1. Von Mensch zu Mensch - Gedichte (1917) 179 pages. This can be read in PDF HERE.
2. Du schÖnes Leben: Dichtungen. Berlin: Schuster & Loeffler, 1907. 144 pages.
3. Du schèones Leben; Gedichte. Stuttgart [etc.] Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1926. 129 pages.
4. Frauen zwischen gestern und heute, Lebensstèucke. Stuttgart, Berlin, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. [c1930] 359 pages.
5. Das Hanneken: eine Geschichte von Arbeit und Aufstieg Frankfurt a. M. Rèutten & Loening, 1919. 300 pages. (Previous editions published under title: Hanneken, ein Buch der Armut und Arbeit).
6. Der LiebeGott auf urlaub. Zeitlose legenden. Mèunchen, G. Mèuller, (1926), 236 pages.
7. Die Meisterin: Schauspiel in vier Akten Berlin: Schuster & Loessler, 1912. 78 pages.
8. Die tèochter Sauls, tragèodie. Stuttgart, Berlin, J. G. Cotta nachf., 1919. 150 pages.
9. Vogelreuthers Mèuhle, Roman. Berlin, Steuben-Verlag P.G. Esser ßc [c1938] 214 pages.
10. Wir bleiben Jung; eine heitere HanseatengeschichteÜ, Kèonigsberg/Pr., Grèafe und Unzer [c.1935]
11. Andres Verlaten, ein deutsches Schicksal. Braunschweig, H. Wollermann, (1933) 287 pages.
12. Das Hanneken; ein Buch von Arbeit und Aufstieg. Vierzehntes bis dreiundzwanzigstes Tausend. Braunschweig, H. Wollermann [c1912] 306 pages.
13. Hannekens Grosse Fahrt. Kèonigsberg, Pr., rèafe und Unzer [c1935] 356 pages.
14. Hans Peter Kromm der lebendige; eine Geschichte von ufer zu ufer. Erstes bis drittes Tausend ... Berlin, Schuster & Loeffler, c 1921.
15. Schwiegermèutter, Novellen, Stuttgart, Berlin, J.G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, c 1928.
16. Wanderer wir; ausgewèahlte gedichte. Kèonigsberg (Pr.) Grèafe und Unzer [1939] 143 pages.
17. Notturno. in Literarische beilage nr. 10 der Ostdeutschen monatshefte. 1930 Danzig, etc., G. Stilke, (This record was found at Harvard and be downloaded HERE (<--- in PDF)

COPY RIGHT NOTE (c) Copyright 2007 - 2009, Hugo E. Martin The portrait above of Johanna Wolff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. See: http://hans-martin-komponist.blogspot.com/2008/12/stoffsammlung-johanna-wolff-geb-kielich.html