Vaternahm, Claus (also Klaus)

bookseller

Born: 29.10.1929 in Geisenheim

died: 02.06.2014 in Wiesbaden

In 1949, Vaternahm joined the bookshop founded in 1935 by his father, Dr. Otto Friedrich Vaternahm (1888-1962). He came from the Vaternahm family of booksellers, who had opened station bookshops in various cities, including Giessen, Kassel and Frankfurt, since 1869. Dr. Otto Friedrich Vaternahm was a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime; his circle of friends included Heinrich Roos and Ferdinand Grün. This attitude was formative for Claus Vaternahm. After the Second World War, the Vaternahm bookshop was one of the first in Wiesbaden to receive a license to reopen from the American military government.

Vaternahm trained as a bookseller from 1949-52. In 1959, the store, which Vaternahm ran with his wife Erika from 1962-98, moved into a new building at An den Quellen. He was particularly interested in modern fiction. Many of his customers appreciated his range of art books as well as the selection of literature on music and theater.

Inspired by the Wiesbaden "Booksellers' Days" organized by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, he and colleagues such as Thomas Angermann and Thomas Wiederspahn launched the "Wiesbaden Book Days" series of events in 1991. Until 2000, the organizers invited numerous well-known authors, as well as musicians, to Wiesbaden every year for literary and musical reading evenings. He then became involved in the "Wiesbaden reads" literary series. Vaternahm was also one of the founding members of the Förderverein Literaturhaus Clementine, on whose board he served for many years, as well as one of the initiators of the Mozart Society. He was also a member of the advisory board of the Theaterfreunde.