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Jan 1, 2008
(Groß-Glogau, Silesia, 1887 -- 1968, Berlin),
the son of a Jewish master saddler, studied from 1907 -- 1911 at various universities and served in the 1914 -- 18 War, latterly in a press unit on the Russian front. After the war he turned to authorship, and from 1923 lived in Berlin. In 1933 he fled to Czechoslovakia, moving from there to Palestine, where he worked as a journalist. From 1948 until his death he lived in East Berlin. During these last years he suffered from blindness, and his later works were dictated. Zweig was a recipient of various prizes for literature, and from 1950 -- 1953 was president of the East German Academy of Arts. He was not related to Stefan
Zweig.Zweig wrote two early tragedies, Abigail und Nabal (1913) and Ritualmord in Ungarn (1914), and the plays Bonaparte in Jaffa (1939) and Soldatenspiele (1956, a collection), but he is mainly the author of fiction. His collections of stories include Die Novellen um Claudia (1912), Aufzeichnungen über eine Familie Klopfer (1911), Geschichtenbuch (1916), Söhne. Zweites Geschichtenbuch, Gerufene Schatten (both 1923), Frühe Fährten, Regenbogen (both 1925), Knaben und Männer, Mädchen und Frauen (both 1931), Spielzeug der Zeit (1933), and Allerlei Rauch (1949); his Novellen Der Spiegel des großen Kaisers (1926, ext. 1957) and Pont und Anna (1928, originally included in Regenbogen) were published separately.In 1927 appeared Zweig's best novel,
Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa
(dramatized as Das Spiel vom Sergeanten Grischa, 1949, new stage version 1957), which was followed by Junge Frau von 1914 (1931) and De Vriendt kehrt heim (1932). His next two novels, Erziehung vor Verdun (1935) and Einsetzung eines Königs (1937), were prefixed to Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa to form a trilogy; at their respective centres are Bertin and Winfried, two characters from the earlier novel. In his 60s Zweig arranged his war novels to make a cycle of six works entitled Der große Krieg der weißen Männer. It consists of Die Zeit ist reif (1958), the earlier novels Erziehung vor Verdun, Junge Frau von 1914, Einsetzung eines Königs, and Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa, and Feuerpause (1954). Other novels are Versunkene Tage (1938, retitled Verklungene Tage, 1950), Das Beil von Wandsbek (1947, rev. 1953, first in Hebrew 1943), and Traum ist teuer (1962).Front-line experience at Verdun was crucial for Zweig's anti-war attitude; the remark, written in 1940 from Haifa to his Dutch publisher, that for him the war has never really ended (‘der für mich eigentlich nie aufgehört hat’) characterizes his lifelong commitment (reflected in the development of Bentin, the German and Jewish intellectual) to his analysis of the period, its Prussian military and its cultural and social climate, beginning with pre-war Germany. Zweig's traditional narrative technique combined with the influence of his friend S.
Freud, with whom he corresponded from 1927; their
Briefwechsel, ed.
E.
L.
Freud
, appeared in 1968.
Zweig's essays, many of which are devoted to the Jewish problem, include Lessing, Kleist, Büchner (1925), Bilanz der deutschen Judenheit (1934), and Die Aufgabe des Judentums (1933, ed. with postscr. K.
Pätzsold, 1990), written in collaboration with L.
Feuchtwanger; their correspondence, Briefwechsel 1933–1958, appeared in 1984. A select edition of his works, Ausgewählte Werke (16 unnumbered vols.), appeared 1957 -- 67 DDR; 1972 -- 87 BRD.
© Oxford University Press, 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005
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