13 Facts About Irmgard Keun

Irmgard Keun's books were banned by Nazi authorities but gained recognition during the final years of her life.

Irmgard Keun was born on 6 February 1905 in Charlottenburg to Eduard and Elsa Keun.

Irmgard Keun's father was an agent for a company that imported petrol, her mother a housewife.

Irmgard Keun later recalled her mother as "stark hausfraulich eingestellt, auf eine sehr schauerliche Weise".

Irmgard Keun and her family, including her brother Gerd, born in 1910, lived in the city until 1913, when they moved to Cologne.

Irmgard Keun worked as a stenotypist, but attended acting school in Cologne from 1925 until 1927.

In 1932, Irmgard Keun married the writer and director Johannes Tralow.

Irmgard Keun continued to publish in Germany after 1935, occasionally using pseudonyms, but after she was finally banned from publishing by the authorities - and after she had tried to sue the government for loss of income, and her final appeal to be admitted to the Reichsschrifttumskammer was refused - she went into exile to Belgium and later the Netherlands in 1936.

Irmgard Keun claimed she seduced a Nazi official in the Netherlands and, however that may be, her cover back in Germany may have been helped by the fact that the British Daily Telegraph reported her suicide in Amsterdam on 16 August 1940.

Irmgard Keun counted among her friends such literary notables as Egon Erwin Kisch, Hermann Kesten, Stefan Zweig, Ernst Toller, Ernst Weiss, and Heinrich Mann.

Irmgard Keun worked together with Roth, traveling with him to various cities such as Paris, Wilna, Lemberg, Warsaw, Vienna, Salzburg, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Irmgard Keun died in Cologne in 1982 of lung cancer.

Irmgard Keun utilizes her characters from her novels to highlight and critique the social problems of the early 1930s.