Trying to convert a .tex File into xml with tex4ht

i am trying to use tex4ht to create an xml file for my document written tex to be read on ebooks and such. My sample file is

    documentclass[ebook,oneside,openany]{memoir}
    usepackage{tex4ht}
    usepackage[german]{babel}
     usepackage[T2A,T1]{fontenc}
    usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
    begin{document}
        Some text in English
    end{document}

An error is thrown saying:

(./text_file.xref
Runaway argument?
{GenericError { }{LaTeX Error: No begingroup let let d :fn edef ETC.
! Paragraph ended before :CrsWrd was complete.

I have been searching the web for hours and still have no clue what is wrong. I have Ubuntu 18.04 and TeX Live 2019/Debian if that matters. Help would be greatly appreciated!!