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Finding Frederick “Fritz” Kittel: Interview with 
Johannes Feest 

 
By Christopher B. Bell & Ladrica Menson-Furr 

August Wilson Journal Editors 

              

History is so full of miscegenation, and it is usually 
acknowledged. But in Wilson studies there seems to be a 
great reluctance to acknowledge this fact. 

-Johannes Feest 

Abstract  
August Wilson Journal editors Christopher B. Bell and Ladrica Menson-Furr interviewed 
Johannes Feest via Zoom about his research into August Wilson’s father Frederick “Fritz” Kittel. The 
interview has been edited for length and clarity. 
 

Keywords 
Interview, History, Kittel, Frederick “Fritz” Kittel, August Wilson Journal 

AWJ: Our understanding is that August Wilson is not 
well known in Germany. How did you come to learn 
about him? 
 
JF: I came to Pittsburgh in 2012 to help care for my 
granddaughter. My daughter was in 
Pittsburgh earning her Ph.D. and she needed a 
babysitter for a while. But the baby was in 
daycare most of the time anyway, so I was looking 
around for what to do. I learned that the 
University of Pittsburgh has a nice program for seniors, 
so I signed up for the one thing that had to do with 
Pittsburgh, which was Dr. Laurence Glasco’s class on 
August Wilson and Pittsburgh. In his very first lecture 
he mentioned that Wilson’s father, Frederick “Fritz” 
Kittel was supposed to be a Sudeten German. And my 

father was Sudeten German. So, I immediately walked up to him and asked to learn more 
about that. But Dr. Glasco didn’t know much more. So, I used the next two months I had in 
Pittsburgh to research this question. Also, during my last two days in the United States I went 
to Ohio and met relatives of August Wilson living there today. So, this is how I learned about 
and gathered research about Frederick “Fritz” Kittel, August Wilson’s father. When I returned 

Johannes Feest 



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home to Germany in the summer of 2012 I went to northern bohemia, which is now the Czech 
Republic. I then found some of the descendants of Fred Kittel living there today. 
 
AWJ: In your research, you have uncovered that Fritz Kittel has mistakenly been labeled 
Sudeten German and that it is more accurate to label him an “Austrian” or “Bohemian” 
German. Can you explain the differences between these designations? 
 
JF: You have to realize that at the time Fritz Kittel was born, this was old Habsburg, Austria. 
The Kittels lived in the northernmost part of the Austrian empire. Since the mountains of this 
area are called Sudeten, at some point in the twentieth century people began to call these 
people Sudeten German. Even before the first World War, German nationalists tried to make 
a political issue of labeling these individuals as German, even though they were actually 
Austrian. Hitler picked that up later on. Finally, Italy invaded Czechoslovakia and they were 
suddenly German nationals. The Kittel family all lived in this area. Meanwhile, Fritz Kittel 
and his brothers had already immigrated to the United States, and they were received there 
as Austrians. Therefore, the label Sudeten German is a rather strange one because German 
nationalists labeled everyone in Czechoslovakia Sudeten German, even those, like my father, 
who had never lived near those mountains. In fact, “Sudeten German” is a tainted term, which 
is why I prefer to refer to these people as “Austrians” or “Bohemians” or, even better, as 
“Bohemian Austrian.” This is all confusing even for Austrians. 
 
AWJ: What have you uncovered about the Kittel clan arriving in America? 
 
JF: There were at least five brothers that came to Pittsburgh. As best as I could find out, they 
left Europe because there was an economic crisis. The brothers’ father, Anton Kittel, was a 
successful blacksmith, as the Kittels lived in an industrial area where such a skill was quite 
needed, but there was still no place for a second blacksmith. So, the first born, Emil, became 
a sailor and traveled to the United States in this capacity but initially did not stay. It is unclear 
what brought Emil to Pittsburgh permanently. One story has it that Emil fled when Austrian 
authorities came to his part of Bohemia to recruit soldiers for the first world war. Eventually 
he settled in Pittsburgh permanently. However, documents show that Fritz came to Pittsburgh 
in 1913, which is before the war, and we know Emil went first. Whatever the case, once he 
settled in Pittsburgh, Emil opened a bakery, although there is no evidence that he had done 
any of this kind of work while in Bohemia. But he was very successful, and after he started to 
be prosperous the family decided to send more of the sons to him. Fritz was one of the first 
brothers to follow him. Eventually, four of Anton’s sons settled in Pittsburgh. I obtained a 
family photograph taken in Pittsburgh in 1914 of Anton and his sons. Anton returned to 
Bohemia shortly after this. According to family lore, he did not like it in Pittsburgh. (See fig. 
1) 
 
 



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Figure 1: Frederick “Friz” Kittle, standing middle, with his father Anton, seated left, and three 
brothers, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1914 



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AWJ: Let’s talk about Daisy Wilson’s marriage to Fritz Kittel. You have uncovered a timeline 

that is different from the established one. Prior to your research, we have understood that 
August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel in 1945, the fourth child of Daisy Wilson and 
Fritz Kittel and the first male. Daisy lived with children at 1727 Bedford Avenue in the Hill 
District, with Fritz a sporadic presence at best. Scholars and biographers have noted that 
Daisy Wilson and Fritz were married at this time. It has also been previously reported that 
Daisy Wilson divorced Fritz Kittel at some point before leaving the Hill District in 1958, at 
which point she was married to David Bedford. The family moved to Hazlewood. By 1963, the 
family was back in the Hill District, and David Bedford, who died in 1969, appears to be out 
of the picture. What have uncovered about Daisy Wilson and her marriage to Fritz Kittel? 
 
JF: First, Daisy Wilson was never married to David Bedford. This is a rumor. No one has found 
any confirmation that she married Bedford. But she lived with him. As for Fritz Kittel, he had 
a legal wife who died in 1964. Then, Fred Kittel immediately married Daisy Wilson. A marriage 
license was procured in May of 1964 outside of Pittsburgh for reasons I do not know. Then, 
three months later, he asks for a divorce. But the courts refused. Then, of course, he died in 
1965. Again, I do not know why he asked for the divorce. He was a complicated man, given to 
drink most of the time, as reported by family and others. But he was a working alcoholic. He 
worked at night and slept during the day, as bakers do. 
 
AWJ: Your research revealed to August Wilson’s living relatives in Germany of their relation 
to the American playwright. What was their reaction upon learning this fact? 
 
JF: Fritz had a sister named Stephanie who was deported from Czechoslovakia during World 
War II and came to live in what became East Germany. I met her granddaughter, Fritz’s 
grandniece. We had coffee together, and she was enthusiastic and interested to learn that a 
famous American playwright was an extended family member. But there was another strand 
of the family elsewhere who still live in East Germany. They were not very happy to learn of 
this addition to their genealogy. I found this second reaction consistent with much of my 
research. Some on both sides of the family are enthusiastic about learning of these distant 
relatives, while others have misgivings. 
 
AWJ: Finally, you have learned interesting information about Fritz Kittel’s funeral, or, more 
specifically, the wake. We understand that the children Fritz had with Daisy Wilson attended 
the funeral service but were not invited to the wake. Do you know why? 
 
JF: I have never heard of any reasons. I received that information from Larry Glasco. Of course, 
we can all speculate about this, and we can assume that the Germans and the ex-Bohemians 
just didn’t want the non-whites at the wake. 
 
AWJ: Here is our last question. You have done this work on Wilson’s German father, placing 
the playwright’s African American heritage aside for the most part. Furthermore, you are not 
a historian, a literary critic, or a theatre critic. Yet you have uncovered more on Fritz Kittel 
than anyone working in these fields. What relevance do you think this research has on 
Wilsonian studies? What does it mean to separate his Bohemian Austrian heritage from his 
African American heritage? 
 
JF: Well, I have wondered about that. At first, I was more interested on the impact the German 
heritage had on August Wilson and his siblings. But I was unable to uncover much about that. 
Then I wondered if any of this shows up in the work. If I were an American scholar of Black 



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American literature, I would delve into that and try to find out whether or not these 
hermetically closed plays, closed in the sense that there are no Germans in them, have any 
traces of Wilson’s father’s influence. That is a difficult question to investigate, but a good 
scholar could do it. Basically, I can see that most of these things we have talked about today 
do not have much relevance except for the fact that Wilson scholars should not be in denial 
of the fact of Wilson’s German heritage. History is so full of miscegenation, and it is usually 
acknowledged. But in Wilson studies there seems to be a great reluctance to acknowledge this 
fact. Maybe this is because Wilson is still very close to us historically. Maybe it is still too 
touchy for the family. But that is my answer. 
 
AWJ: Thank you very much, Johannes. 

 
 

Johannes Feest’s Bio 
 

Johannes Feest (born 21 November 1939 in Berlin) is a German sociologist and a law professor 
at the University of Bremen. From 1995 to 1997 he directed the International Institute for the 
Sociology of Law in Oñati, Spain. He has done empirical research on the courts, police, and 
prisons. In 2019, he initiated a manifesto to abolish penitentiaries and other prisons. 

 
 
 
 
 

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