Herbst
by Joseph Roth

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The Leo Baeck Institute Archives contains a folder of poetry written by Joseph Roth in the First World War (probably 1917). Today remembered as a writer of fiction, Roth wrote numerous poems as well, especially when he was younger. This is his poem “Herbst” (“Autumn”), which was published. You can see both the handwritten original by Roth and the published version.

During the time Roth wrote this and the other poems in this folder, he was serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army. The photograph shows Joseph Roth during the time of his military service in 1916. He is the man in the second row, far right.  He probably had a desk job and never saw active duty. Roth claimed later to have spent months in Russian captivity as a prisoner of war. The Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, with its 15 official languages, collapsed in the war, but Roth did not lose his adoration of the vanished empire. “… we all lost a world, our world,” he once said.

Submitted by Michael Simonson, Leo Baeck Institute.