Publications

Hermann Kallenbach (1871-1945) was Mahatma Gandhi's closest friend, companion, associate, the most generous, unselfish supporter of the Indian Emancipation Struggle in South Africa. He remained Gandhi's most loyal friend and supporter for many decades, until his death in 1945. Hermann Kallenbach was the owner and founded together with Mahatma Gandhi the Tolstoy Farm. He was a Trustee of both the Community projects of Mahatma Gandhi, Phoenix Settlement near Durban, Natal (founded in 1904) and Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, Transvaal (founded in 1910) - for the sake of the families of the men who were jailed as political prisoners in the Satyagraha struggle against the draconic laws of the South African Government at that time. In 1912, Hermann Kallenbach decided to take an active part in the Epic March - at the height of the Indian Campaign of Civil Disobedience - and helped Gandhi to achieve a successful result in his "Satyagraha in South Africa". Gandhi, in his autobiography, written in prison, highly valued Hermann Kallenbach's friendship; without this Jewish architect - coming from the Memel area near the former border between Germany and Lithuania, being a German and later on South African citizen and one of the leading building pioneers in Johannesburg and South Africa - without Hermann Kallenbach the legitimate succession of Leo Tolstoy's heritage could not have been documented by Mahatma Gandhi so impressingly. Hermann Kallenbach visited his great friend in his Central Indian Sevagram Ashram (Segaon, Wardha) in the years 1937 and 1939; both humorously addressed themselves as "Upper House" and "Lower House" alluding to the two chambers of the British Parliament, in order to express their way of fruitful co-operation in profound congeniality. I have visited Dr. Isa Sarid and her family for several times on a working holiday for building up the Archive of the Kallenbach Papers which contains copies of Gandhi's letters to Hermann Kallenbach. This archive was the source library for the quite recently published Biography of "Hermann Kallenbach - Mahatma Gandhi's friend in South Africa" which we published as co-authors both in English and German languages in the year 1997: There are 118 pages in English language, this edition containing 6 photo pages with clear explanations of each photo. Due to the Indian Government which held a pro-Arab stand under Nehru and his successors, Hermann Kallenbach stood in the shadow of the official History writing in India. This Biography fills a great void. We tried to rectify his contributions which are described in Gandhi's personal letters and in Hermann Kallenbach's prison diary which are of great beauty and interest and appear in this book. During our joint work, Dr. Isa Sarid's personal memories, as also her mother Hannah Lazar's, re-appeared and were entered into this first Biography of Hermann Kallenbach. With our joint effort and research, we could produce this documentary work of historical facts and interest.