Talk:Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Natalie Robins
His wife is "writer Natalie Robins". I suppose she is Natalie S. Robins, evidently a writer of poetry and non-fiction prose. If they were sometime collaborators, that would belong in the External links. Here I am not sure.

--P64 (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

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Where if anywhere does Sandy Lehmann-Haupt fit in here?
The article states that Christoper had two brothers, Carl and Alexander. That's sourced to his New York Times obit, so you'd think that's that. But there are many sources saying that one Sandy Lehmann-Haupt was Christopher's brother. (Sandy was an important figure in (and source for) Thomas Wolfe's book about the Merry Pranksters). I'm not sure if any of these sources are reliable tho (but see The Telegraph, below). But there are a bunch and they don't seem to be copying from each other, But they might be.

And it'd be somewhat odd that two Americans with the unusual name Lehmann-Haupt would be unrelated. But that doesn't mean brothers.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test gives one Carl Lehmann-Haupt as Sandy's brother. But that could be a different Carl Lehmann-Haupt than Christopher's brother (and possibly this person I guess), altho that would be a small coincidence, but Carl is a common name.

But then, Sandy's Telegraph obit has Sandy's name as "Hellmut Alexander Lehmann-Haupt", born on March 22 1942 in Manhattan, the youngest of three sons of a writer and bibliographer." Who would certainly be Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt, given in this article as Christopher's father. Sandy would have to have been the "Alexander". Sandy was almost surely a nickname, and if his birth name was indeed "Hellmut Alexander", I can see why he'd go by "Alexander" (before being nicknamed Sandy, which he was apparently universally called).

The Telegraph is described at Reliable sources/Perennial sources as "generally reliable". The Telegraph is the only source I have for Sandy's real name. Anyway, if the Telegraph is right, Sandy is Christopher's brother.

(And, our article on Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt says "(1903 – March 11, 1992) was a German-American author, academic, bibliography expert, and rare books expert. After World War II, he worked with the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, commonly known as the Monuments Men.". And this article describes Christopher's father as a "arts historian and bibliographer" (and links to the Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt article), so this person is surely and positively Christopher's father.)

But wait, our article on Christopher's father Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt (Sourced to Hellmuth's New York Times obit) also says "He had a daughter, Roxanna, and four sons, Alexander, Carl, Christopher, and John". So, there is Christopher and Carl and Alexander, agreeing with this article to this point. But, Christopher would than have had a fourth brother (or half-brother or stepbrother) named "John". Why is John not mentioned in this article as a brother, and also Roxanna is not mentioned? Odd. At any rate, either Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt's article is wrong, or this one is incomplete in not mentioning John and Roxanne. Even if half-siblings or step-siblings they would normally be included.

But wait, hold up. There is another candidate for Sandy's father, one Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt who lived 1861-1938 entirely in Germany which is really before our timeline, but he could have fathered Sandy in his last years. A 1938 birth for Sandy would have jibed with his age in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (but then so would 1942). Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt would have been about 77 years old when Sandy was conceived, which does happen. Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt's article doesn't talk about his children or family at all. He could certainly have had a another son, named Carl after himself.

But wait. Sandy's New York Times obit says that Sandy 1) died in 2001, and 2) was 59 at the time, which makes a 1938-39 birth impossible, instead it would be 1942 or 1942 -- exactly what the Telegraph says.

But here, in The Observer (which is listed as kinda-sorta reliable), we have this, a memorium written by Sandy's niece Rachel Lehmann-Haupt (daughter of "Carl" -- which one (if there were two) we don't know yet)... who describes a photo of of Sandy as a "toddler in war-torn Berlin", which would certainly jibe with Sandy being the son of Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt, and born in 1938 or 1939... by the time Berlin was seriously "war-torn", 1942 I guess, he would have been maybe three or so. So, arguably a toddler. And Sandy's father would have been dead and Rachel says his mother abandoned him in wartime/postwar Berlin, so difficult childhood indeed. And she doesn't mention any uncles besides Sandy. But Rachel could easily have been focusing just on Sandy (the subject) and Carl (her father, who apparently was, if not Sandy's only brother, the one most involved with Sandy, probably) so this isn't proof of anything.

But, the memorium does pretty much prove that Sandy was born in Germany, because Rachel says so, and so must have been the son of a father named Lehmann-Haupt (but not necessarily Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt, altho it could have been). "Toddler in war-torn Berlin" could match with a birthdate of 1938, but also of 1942, which the Times gives as his birth year -- but in New York.

If this is our Sandy he must have been a native German speaker, but AFAIK he didn't have any accent, but that's reasonable if he came to America right after the war. The piece must be accurate, as Rachel could not have gotten her uncle mixed up with an entirely different person born in America.

There could have been two Sandy's though, it's not a rare nickname -- Helmutt, called Alexander, (or who was birthnamed Alexander and the Telegraph had that wrong -- same difference), and who I suppose could later been called "Sandy" (altho there's no evidence for that that I found). Anyway, this Sandy was Alexander, was Christopher's brother, and was definitely not the Sandy of Acid Test. Then, the Sandy born in Germany, who was the Acid Test Sandy. (If this is true, two Sandys, you could see how they could have been mixed up by sources.)

So I believe in this article we should say "Several sources give Sandy Lehmann-Haupt as Christopher's brother, but he wasn't" with refs. Cos this is something that is written a lot and people believe it (I did) and some come here because of that I'm sure, and we should say something and not leave them hanging. And we would have to either edit the Hellmuth E. Lehmann-Haupt article to remove John and Roxanne, or add them to this article, whichever is correct (likely the latter, as it seems unlikely that the New York Times (the source for the family part of Hellmuth's article) would make up two additional children out of thin air).

I'm laying this out mainly for my own satisfaction as I research, as Sandy certainly rates an article and perhaps I'll write it presently. Herostratus (talk) 19:21, 9 August 2023 (UTC)