Melvin J. Lasky
Melvin Jonah Lasky ( born January 15, 1920 in New York; † 19 May 2004, Berlin) was an American publicist of the anti-Stalinist left. He became known in Germany, especially as editor of the anti-communist magazine The Monthly.
Youth
Lasky grew up as the son of immigrant Polish Jew Samuel Lasky and Esther Kantrowitz on in the Bronx and attended the City College of New York. Here he formed with Irving Kristol, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Howe and Daniel Bell, a Trotskyist Jewish dispute Ante group demarcated from the numerically superior Stalinists of the college.
After the youth in New York Lasky studied history at the University of Michigan. After that, he was features editor of The New Leader. As such, he accused the Roosevelt administration before moral void, since they do not do anything against the Nazi genocide of Jews. Lasky belonged to the circle of the New York Intellectuals.
During the Second World War 1944-1946 Lasky served in Germany and France as a military historian. After the war he remained as a cultural officer in the U.S. commander of the American sector in Berlin. He was later also worked as a correspondent for American magazines ( among others The National Interest ).
On the first German writers' congress in Berlin ( 1947) Lasky expressed " doubts about the democracy of the soviets " and asked about the fate of intern Soviet writers, which he caused a stir. A year later he founded with Hellmut Jaesrich in Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the political and cultural magazine The month, initially funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and one of the most important magazines in postwar West Germany. Most recently, she appeared once a year.
In 1950, Lasky, and once again stir. In a speech at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the Titania-Palast in Berlin, he called for " free elections and the realization of human rights in Eastern Europe". From artists and intellectuals such as the philosopher Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers and the writers Albert Camus, Golo Mann and George Orwell he received support.
From 1953 to 1990 Lasky was with Irving Kristol, editor of the British cultural magazine Encounter in London, where in 1958 he also moved.
Both the Encounter and The month had been co-financed by the CIA, as the New York Times in 1967 laid bare. Some literati then distance themselves from these publications.
Private
Lasky was from 1947-74 married to Brigitte Newiger, with whom he had children Oliver and Vivienne Freeman - Lasky. Since the mid-60s, he was romantically involved with the literary figure Helga Hegewisch, who had worked with him at the month -Verlag. His sister Floria V. Lasky Altman (1923-2007) was a lawyer in the theater business, many prominent clients such as Jerome Robbins, Tennessee Williams and Gypsy Rose Lee represented.
Melvin Lasky was often a welcome guest in Werner Höfer International brunch. He ran home a kind of literary salon with guests such as Alfred Jules Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, Arthur Koestler and George Mikes.
He was buried in the forest cemetery army in Berlin.