Ulla Wolff

German Jewish playwright

Ulla Wolff

Portrait of Wolff, c. 1890

Born| Ulla Hirschfeld
(1850-04-02)2 April 1850
Gleiwitz, Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia
Died| 1 January 1924(1924-01-01) (aged 73)
Berlin, Prussia, Weimar Republic
Pen name| Ulrich Frank

Ulla Wolff-Frankfurter (née Hirschfeld; 2 April 1850, in Gleiwitz – 1 January 1924, in Berlin), also known by the pen names Ulla Frank and Ulrich Frank,[1] was a German Jewish playwright, novelist, and journalist.

## Biography[edit]

Ulla Hirschfeld was born in Gleiwitz, Silesia into a scholarly Jewish family. Her father, Hirsch (Max) Hirschfeld, was a rabbi and philosopher of religion,[2] while her maternal grandfather, Solomon Eger, served as Chief Rabbi of Posen. She received her education at home, and later in Breslau and Vienna.

In 1869, she married Rabbi Dr. Lazar Frankfurter, a professor of Italian language and literature,[3] with whom she bore three children, including Richard Frankfurter [de]. She took up residence in Berlin soon after her husband's death in 1878, and married Jewish industrialist Louis Wolff in 1880. She would have two more children from her second marriage.

She died on 1 January 1924 at the age of 74.[4]

## Work[edit]

Wolff-Frankfurter's first production, Ein Vampyr, appeared in 1876 at the Lobetheater [de] in Breslau, and was well received.[5] This was followed in 1878 by Der Herr College. She thereupon gave up writing for the stage, and devoted her literary activity to stories and novels.[6] Her publications often explored the tension between tradition and modernity in the Jewish family,[7] and the isolated experiences of ghetto and shtetl life.[8]

As a journalist, she headed the Berlin feature section of the Hamburgischer Correpondent newspaper for over 15 years, and wrote for other newspapers and magazines, especially for the Berliner Tageblatt, the Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur, the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums and the Breslauer Zeitung. She was also the Berlin correspondent of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung.[4]

## Partial bibliography[edit]

* Der Herr College (in German). Vienna: Wallishausser. 1877.
* Ein Vampyr (in German). Vienna: Wallishausser. 1877.
* Waldgeheimniss. Ein soziales Märchen (in German). Norden: Fischer Nachfolger. 1880.
* Das Wunderkind. Erzählung (in German). Berlin: Abenheim'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1884.
* Weltliche Beichte (in German). Leipzig: Friedrich. 1887.
* Der Kampf ums Glück. Roman (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1888.
* Zwei Novellen. Frau Ottilie. Bettler's Heim (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1890.
* Rechtsanwalt Arnau. Roman (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1891.
* Sollen Damen allein reisen und andere Novellen (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1892.
* Der Kompagnon (in German). 1895.
* Adlig (in German). Berlin: H. Steinitz. 1895.
* Gestern und Heute. Roman (in German). Berlin: H. Steinitz. 1896.
* Die Berlinerin. Bilder und Geschichten. Mit 90 Illustrationen von Friedrich Stahl (in German). Berlin: Concordia. 1897.
* Die Frühlingsgnade. Novellen (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1897.
* Margarete Eilert. Roman (in German). Berlin: Freund und Jeckel. 1898.
* "Die Toten". Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. 3. Berlin: Albert Katz. 1900.
* Die Lene. Roman (in German). Berlin: C. Freund. 1903.
* "Simon Eichelkatz. Aus dem Tagebuch eines Arztes". Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. 6. Berlin: M. Poppelauer. 1903.
* Simon Eichelkatz und andere Novellen (in German). Berlin: S. Schottländer. 1903.
* Der Stern. Roman (in German). Berlin: A. Schall. 1905.
* Die Einsiedlerin. Roman (in German). Berlin: S. Schottländer. 1905.
* * Simon Eichelkatz and The Patriarch: Two Stories of Jewish Life. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. 1907 [1903].
* "Naemi Ehrenfest". Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. 8. Berlin: M. Poppelauer. 1907.
* "Mischpoche". Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. 10. Berlin: M. Poppelauer. 1907.
* Frauen von Heute (in German). Berlin: H. Steinitz. 1908.
* Der Mischpoche-Rentner und andere Erzählungen (in German). Berlin: Louis Lamm. 1913.

## References[edit]

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; Haneman, Frederick T. (1906). "Wolff, Ulla (pseudonym Ulrich Frank)". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 12\. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 553–554.

1. ^ Dollard, Catherine L. (2009). "The Maternal Spirit". The Surplus Woman: Unmarried in Imperial Germany, 1871–1918. New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 93–116. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qcnrp.9. ISBN 978-1-84545-480-7. JSTOR j.ctt9qcnrp.9. OCLC 961899360.
2. ^ Friedrichs, Elisabeth (1981). Die deutschsprachigen Schriftstellerinnen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts: Ein Lexikon (in German). Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler. p. 343\. ISBN 978-3-476-00456-7. OCLC 7708877.
3. ^ Brümmer, Franz (1913). "Wolff, Ulla". Lexikon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart (in German). Vol. 8\. Leipzig: Reclam. p. 24.
4. ^ a b "First Woman Journalist of Germany, Jewess, Dies". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1 January 1924.
5. ^ Summers, Montague (1928). The Vampire: His Kith and Kin. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. p. 312\. OCLC 460457520.
6. ^ Jacob, Walter (1962). "A Bibliography of Novels and Short Stories by German Jewish Authors 1800–1914". Studies in Bibliography and Booklore. 6 (2): 91–92. JSTOR 27943355.
7. ^ Krobb, Florian (2009). "Weibliches Schreiben im Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur 1912–1918. Ulla Wolff-Frank, Anna Goldschmidt, Auguste Hauschner". In Haug, Christine; Mayer, Franziska; Podewski, Madleen (eds.). Populäres Judentum: Medien, Debatten, Lesestoffe (in German). Berlin: De Gruyter. p. 138\. ISBN 978-3-484-97104-2. OCLC 774133000.
8. ^ Wallach, Kerry (2012). "Paths of Modernity: Jewish Women in Central Europe". In Levenson, Alan T. (ed.). The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 428\. ISBN 978-1-4051-9637-6. OCLC 781867556.

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