; died 23 November 1988 in East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

) was a German publisher and writer. He is particularly known for his links with German avant-garde art and Marxist thought, and was the brother of the photo montage artist John Heartfield

John Heartfield

John Heartfield is the anglicized name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld...

, with whom he often worked.

Life

His parents were Franz Held, a writer, and Alice Stolzenberg. In 1914 he followed his older brother Helmut, later known as John Heartfield, to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In 1916 he founded the artistic journal Neue Jugend, and the following year started the publishing house Malik-Verlag, known for its works on art and Marxism. Towards the end of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he briefly worked on propaganda films for the German government.

After the war, he continued his publishing activities and also founded an art gallery, Grosz-Galerie, and a bookshop, as well as helping to organize the First International Dada Fair in 1920, which included works by Hans Arp, Max Ernst

Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

, Georg Scholz

Georg Scholz

Georg Scholz was a German realist painter.Scholz was born in Wolfenbüttel and had his artistic training at the Karlsruhe Academy, where his teachers included Hans Thoma and Wilhelm Trübner. He later studied in Berlin under Lovis Corinth...

, Johannes Theodor Baargeld

Johannes Theodor Baargeld

Johannes Theodor Baargeld was a pseudonym of Alfred Emanuel Ferdinand Grünwald , a German painter and poet who, together with Max Ernst, founded the Cologne Dada group. He also used the name Zentrodada in connection with Dada.Baargeld was born in Stettin , Prussian Pomerania. He studied...

, and Otto Dix

Otto Dix

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.-Early life and...

.

Following Hitler's rise to power, he fled to Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 in 1933, later moving to London, and in 1939 to the USA where he published works by exiled German writers. In 1949 he returned to what was by then East Germany, becoming a professor of literature at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

; he also wrote poetry and fiction, and worked as a translator. He died in 1988 and was buried in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in Berlin.