Emil Ludwig

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Emil Ludwig

Emil Ludwig (born January 25, 1881 in Breslau ; † September 17, 1948 in Ascona ) was a German and later Swiss writer who specialized in psychologically meaningful biographies of outstanding personalities and thus achieved world success.

Life

Ludwig was the son of the ophthalmologist Hermann Cohn (1838–1906), who in 1883 took the name Ludwig. Emil Ludwig converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1902. He studied law and was awarded a Dr. iur. PhD, but decided to pursue a journalistic and writing career. In Berlin he belonged to the Choriner Freundeskreis . In 1906 he moved to Switzerland . In 1914 he became a journalist in London and was a correspondent for the Berliner Tageblatt in Vienna and Istanbul during the First World War . Ludwig publicly gave up Christianity in 1922 after the murder of Walther Rathenau . He moved back to Switzerland in 1922 and lived as a freelance writer in Ascona. In 1932 he acquired Swiss citizenship . In 1940 he moved to the USA , lived in Southern California and published anti-fascist texts in collaboration with the US government . After the end of the war he returned to Switzerland.

Ludwig was the author of popular scientific and exciting novel biographies. “It was about the fate of great people on the basis of precise source studies with effective montage of quotations and modern psychological analysis. His biographies were very successful and have been translated into many languages. "

Emil Ludwig's books had already been translated into English many times in the 1920s, which is why he was able to live on his own income in his US exile. His books were burned by the National Socialists in 1933 (see list of books burned in 1933 ). By 1930 at the latest, he was a thorn in Hitler's side when he published an article in the English Sunday Times in which he wished the Nazis would come to power because they would openly expose their inability to govern. The Times correspondent reported on May 10, 1933 that among the books burned by students on Berlin's Opernplatz from 11.30 p.m. were those by Ludwig. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels spoke of "Jewish asphalt writers".

His book Mord in Davos, translated into many languages, about the shooting of the National Socialist and National Socialist group leader Wilhelm Gustloff in his home in Davos, Switzerland, by David Frankfurter, who emigrated from Germany, became particularly well known . Emil Ludwig praised Frankfurter in his publication as the new David who slew the giant Goliath . The book was banned in Switzerland and Germany. Goebbels rejected Ludwig's book particularly strongly, as is clear from the entry in the diary of November 6, 1936: “'The murder in Davos', a mean Jewish concoction ... You can become an anti-Semite if you weren't entirely. This Jewish plague must be erased. "

Robert Neumann described Ludwig in 1947 as a Goethean who, as his spiritual heir, appeared to be in competition with Thomas Mann, whom he fought as a " usurper ". "It was bad for Ludwig [...] not only the classic sculptures (in his house on the mountainside in Moscia ) looked like marble and were plaster of paris."

See also

Works (selection)

  • A downfall. Drama in 5 acts ; Berlin 1904
  • Napoleon (drama); 1906
  • The mirror by Shalott , Bruno Cassirer, Berlin, 1907
  • The Borgia. A play , Bruno Cassirer, Berlin, 1907
  • Tristan and Isolde. Dramatic Rhapsody ; Berlin 1909
  • The Pope and the Adventurers or The Happy Gardens ; Berlin 1910
  • Bismarck. A psychological attempt ; Berlin 1911
  • Manfred and Helena. Novel ; 1911
  • Wagner or The Disenchanted ; Berlin 1912
  • The trip to Africa ; Berlin 1913
  • Richard Dehmel ; Berlin 1913
  • The artist. Essays ; Berlin 1914
  • Friedrich Crown Prince of Prussia. Historical drama in ten pictures ; Berlin 1914
  • The journeys of the Emden and the Ayesha ; Berlin 1916
  • The journeys of the Goeben and the Breslau ; Berlin 1916
  • Diana. Novel ; Berlin 1918
  • To the lantern! Pictures from the revolution ; Berlin 1919
  • Goethe, in two parts ; Stuttgart 1920
  • Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. Novel ; Berlin 1921
  • From the unknown Goethe. A new anthology ; Edited by Emil Ludwig; Berlin 1922
  • Bismarck ; 1921-1926
  • On the Mediterranean ; 1923
  • Rembrandt's fate ; 1923
  • Shakespeare on our time. An anthology on the past decade ; 1923
  • Shakespeare's sonnets , German by Emil Ludwig, Berlin (Rowohlt) 1923
  • Napoleon (novel); 1924
  • Genius and character. 20 male portraits . Rowohlt, Berlin 1924 (on Friedrich II., Stein, Bismarck, Stanley, Peters, Rhodes, Lenin, Wilson, Rathenau, Lionardo, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Voltaire, Byron, Lassalle, Goethe and Schiller, Dehmel and Bang)
  • William the Second . Rowohlt, Berlin 1925
  • Calm sea. Novel by a German prince ; 1925
  • Art and destiny. Four portraits ; 1927 (via Rembrandt, Beethoven, Weber and Balzac)
  • The Son of Man. Story of a prophet ; 1928
  • Tom and New Years Eve. A quartet ; 1928. New edition in 1933 as Tom and Sylvester - Ticino novella .
  • July 14. As a warning to the sons ; 1929
  • Michelangelo ; 1930
  • Lincoln ; 1930
  • Gifts of life. A look back ; 1931
  • Stalin, conversation with the German writer Emil Ludwig ; 1931
  • Schliemann. Story of a prospector ; 1932. Changed in 1952 as Schliemann. The story of the discovery of ancient Troy .
  • Mussolini's conversations with Emil Ludwig ; 1932
  • Goethe - fighter and leader ; Speech for the Goethe celebration in the Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, March 20, 1932
  • Leader of Europe. Drawn from nature ; 1934 (portraits by Nansen , Masaryk , Briand , Rathenau , Motta , Lloyd George , Venizelos , Mussolini and Stalin )
  • Hindenburg and - The legend of the German republic ; Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1935
  • The nil. Curriculum vitae of a stream , 2 parts; Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1935–1937
  • Murder in Davos ; Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1936. Expanded u. a. an interview with David Frankfurter as a second edition in 1945 as David and Goliath: History of a Political Murder in Zurich, and posthumously again in 1986 Emil Ludwig, Peter O. Chotjewitz , Der Mord in Davos: Texts on the attack by David Frankfurter, Wilhelm Gustloff , as one Edition expanded to include contributions from Chotjewitz and Kreuzer, Ed. Helmut Kreuzer, March Publishing House, Herbstein 1986 ISBN 3-88880-065-X
  • Cleopatra. Story of a queen ; 1937
  • The new holy alliance. About reasons for and defense against the impending war ; 1938
  • Roosevelt. Study of luck and power ; 1938
  • Quartet. An out of date novel ; 1938
  • The Germans. Double History of a Nation ; 1941
  • Bolivar. The Life of an Idealist ; 1942
  • Mackenzie King. A Portrait Sketch ; 1944
  • Stalin ; 1945
  • The disenchanted Freud ; 1946

literature

  • Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Non Fiktion - Emil Ludwig . Wehrhahn Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3-86525-546-4 (also 11th year, issue 1/2, of the magazine "Arsenal der Other Gattungen")
  • In Memoriam Emil Ludwig . Moscia, Ticino / Switzerland 1950 and Milano: A. Mondadori 1950, DNB Reference Library Collection of Exile Literature
  • Gieri Cavelty : “J'accuse” of Swiss history. The author Emil Ludwig and his passionate essay “The Murder in Davos”. In: Southeastern Switzerland . May 7, 2005.
  • Christoph Gradmann: Historical fiction. Popular biographies in the Weimar Republic. Frankfurt am Main 1993.
  • Johanna W. Roden: Emil Ludwigs's Political Writing during his US Exile 1940–1945. In: Yearbook for International German Studies (Series A, Congress Reports Volume 10). Bern 1981.
  • Sebastian Ullrich : Ernst Kantorowicz and Emil Ludwig. Two critics of Weimar history and the “crisis of historicism”. In: Social History. 21, No. 2, Verlag Peter Lang, 2006, pp. 7–33.
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 . On Ludwig pp. 181-184.
  • Wilhelm Mommsen : “Legitimate” and “illegitimate” historiography: a discussion with Emil Ludwig. Munich 1930.
  • Hans Delbrück: E. Ludwig, Wilhelm II. Discussed by Geh. Government Council Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hans Delbrück . In: Historical Fiction: A Critical Literature Report, Volume 133, Issue 3 (1926), pp. 37–43.
  • Otto Westphal: enemies of Bismarck. Spiritual foundations of the German opposition 1848–1918. Munich 1930.
  • Adalbert Wichert:  Ludwig, Emil. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 426 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ludwig, Emil. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 16: Lewi – Mehr. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-22696-0 , pp. 205-225.
  • Hans-Jürgen Perrey: Emil Ludwig (1881-1948). Poet - fighter - philanthropist. Kiel 2017, ISBN 978-3-86935-323-4 .

Web links

Commons : Emil Ludwig  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Ullrich : The Emil Ludwig case. In: The time . Online10. September 1993 ( zeit.de ).
  2. ^ Gero von Wilpert: Lexicon of world literature: authors. 3rd revised edition Stuttgart 1988; dtv edition 1997, p. 932.
  3. ↑ Ludwig on Hitler. In: Financial Times. Sept. 27, 1930, p. 5; and Sunday Times the next day.
  4. ↑ Robert Neumann: An easy life. Autobiography. P. 382 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Ludwig, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohn, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH September 17, 1948
Place of death Ascona