Georg Bondi was the editor and owner of a small publishing firm who became an early fan of Stefan George’s works. Bondi approached George in 1898 with a request to publish some of his poetry. This meeting served as a catalyst for a professional partnership with George that lasted until the poet’s death. In fact, George published ALL of his works with Bondi’s firm: Georg Bondi in Berlin. Robert Norton, in his George biography, describes Bondi, saying, “Bondi was an honorable, straightforward businessman with somewhat exotic tastes in literature but with a sound head for the nuts and bolts of his trade” (219). The writer and the publisher worked closely together and Bondi even started publishing the creative works of George’s followers.

 

There is, however, controversy undergirding Bondi’s publishing; particularly, the symbol published on George’s literary journal—as early as 1910-- is a svastika, a symbol closely resembling a Nazi swastika. Undoubtedly, correlations were made (some even before WWII) that George’s circle might have similarities, or even slight congruencies to the Nazi party. However, George renounced the claims that the use of the symbol on the volumes published by Bondi had any relation at all to the rising political movement that would one day commit some of history’s most heinous atrocities.

  

While George’s relationships with other men involved in his literary work could sometimes be very passionate and involve a large array of emotion, his relationship with Bondi was very professional. Robert Norton states, “it was a partnership in only a limited sense, however, for everything George wanted he got, and he never accepted compromises or half measures” (220). Thus, Bondi navigated their relationship by appeasing George and he, consequentially, profited in his publishing business by the poet’s rising fame. Norton states, “As the fame of George and his circle grew…Bondi remained immune to the most violent excesses of unchecked adulation that George would come to inspire in some of his admirers” (Norton 220-221).