Anne Steul

(January 24, 1924 – 1989)

Anne Steul (1950s). Courtesy of Rob Hansen.

Anne Steul, an early German fan, read the U.S. prozines long before she was introduced to fandom by Jan Jansen. She published the second German individual fanzine, Fantum, produced an apazine, FANannIA, for OMPA, and organized (along with Greg and Jim Benford) WetzCon I, the first German science fiction convention, held in Wetzlar over the weekend of 14th and 15th January, 1956.

She attended Cytricon II, the 1956 UK Eastercon in Kettering, and was one of the few German members of Loncon I. She gafiated early due to feuds with Walter Ernsting and other sercon pros and fans.

After her death, her books were donated to the Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar, but her relatives saw no value in her fanzine collection and threw it away.

Rainer Eisfeld, a German fan historian, writes of her:

Anne may have been droll, but she was also well-off: After her brother's early death, she had become majority shareholder of a construction company (still existing today in Solms near Wetzlar). Writing in Andromeda, she might mention quite casually that, after Kettering, she had toured the UK for three weeks, spending some 500 marks. Need I add that, during the early 1950s, that sum was quite beyond the reach of even many adult West German fans?

In contrast, the major figures of the SFCD Board were bent on succeeding as social climbers. Ernsting - after returning with a lung disease from five years as a Soviet prisoner of war in Karaganda -  worked as a truck driver and interpreter for the British army when he got Pabel interested in publishing the Utopia-Grossband pulps. Bingenheimer was earning his living as a sales agent specializing in lending library books. Walter Spiegl, who with his family had  been expelled from Czechoslovakia, had just become employed by American Express. Rohr had started a small literary agency for pulps and lending library books. These guys all wanted a "piece of the cake", which West Germany's "economic miracle" promised. Popularizing science fiction appeared to provide the vehicle. 

In 1953, Anne Steul had succeeded in selling two sf novels by Herbert J. Campbell - Beyond the Visible and Another Space / Another Time - to Rappen-Verlag (Goslar) as lending library books, the latter translated by her [1]. The book mentioned the translator’s name. But when the novel was reprinted as Utopia-Grossband 15, Anne’s name was missing. Also, "problems" (not untypical for these "gold rush" times) developed re the translator's fee. Such incidents could not but deepen the chasm between the fannish Steul and the serconfannish Ernsting.

In spite of her misgivings, Steul joined the SFCD as Member No. 353. The SFCD fanmag Andromeda had, in 1957, three pages by her on the upcoming London Worldcon. In 1958, she and Bingenheimer joined forces to sell a new lending library series ("Cosmic Bestsellers") to Zimmermann Publishers in Balve. Steul translated the first novel, Lan Wright's very mediocre Who Speaks of Conquest? Further novels in the series, however, were provided by the Ackerman Agency through Rohr and Ernsting.

Anne Steul's small fannish world was dissolving. The Benford twins returned to the States, when their father was posted to Dallas. Jan Jansen married, became a father, left fandom. Dave Vendelmans emigrated to Canada. 

It would seem that, thereafter, Anne Steul became isolated and very lonely. Aged a mere 65 years, she died in 1989. No happy end there, I‘m afraid. 

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Fantum [1956]
• FANannIA [1955-58]

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Person

1924—1989

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