Karl Ludwig Kossak

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Karl Ludwig Kossak (born April 12, 1891 in Klosterneuburg / Lower Austria , † November 5, 1949 in Vienna ) was an Austrian playwright , novelist and poet . Kossak also published under the pseudonym Karl L. Kossak-Raytenau .

Life

Kossak first worked as a bookseller, then as an editor for a publishing house. From 1930 until his death he worked as a freelance writer.

He began his literary work with popular swans and poems in dialect. However, he was successful with his extensive narrative work, of which the novel Catastrophe 1940 (1930) stands out as the most famous. In April 1937 Adolf Hitler received a copy of the author's book with his personal dedication "Adolf Hitler the creator of German purity, German freedom, the creator and chancellor of the Third Reich of the Germans in gratitude to Kossak-Raytenau in April 1937". In today's literary studies, individual works such as Catastrophe 1940 belong to the group of pre-fascist novels. Homeland values ​​as well as the commitment to this were then also recurring motifs in Kossak's writings.

Although his novels, which are formally generic, including utopian novels as well as crime fiction, are otherwise counted as entertainment fiction, they are shaped by his "goal of freedom and the right of peoples to self-determination in a truly peaceful Europe that is not built on external power factors". According to the Austrian Biographical Lexicon , Kossack combined “fantasy with real, well-founded insights into scientific and economic problems of the 20th century.” His utopias blended into “adventurous events of global proportions”. As a detective writer, he was also able to convincingly depict "the pointlessness of every crime in the long term and the life-enhancing effect of genuine, timeless values".

The writing Murder and Fire in the "Holy" Land and the utopian novel Catastrophe 1940 were entered in the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone in 1946 and 1947 respectively .

Works

  • Marcellin Ortner. Play in four acts. Unpublished typescript.
  • Faces of time. Conversations on a bench. Oldenbourg, Leipzig, Vienna 1924.
  • Disaster 1940. Stalling, Oldenburg 1930. 1st to 5th thousand. Further editions.
  • The hard-hearted men. A novel. Schildhorn-Verlag, Berlin 1935
  • The world churning. Novel. Höger, Vienna 1937.
  • In the Seehotel to the 'Blue Trout'. Novel. New book publisher, Dresden 1938.
  • Adventure in the Zepp. Novel. Lipsia Verlag, Leipzig 1939.
  • Murder and fire in the 'holy' land. Deutscher Hort Verlag, Herrsching near Munich 1939.
  • The thrust in the sky. Science fiction. Lipsia Verlag, Leipzig 1940.
  • Prince Eugenius, the noble knight. A hero's life. Kaiser, Prague 1942.
  • The three faithful. Detective novel. Kirschner, Vienna 1948.

literature

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ambrus Miskolczy, Hitler's Library, Central European University Press, p. 90, [1]
  2. ↑ Robert Hahn: The inventor as redeemer - leaders in the volkish science fiction. In: Hans Esselborn (Ed.): Utopia, Anti-Utopia and Science Fiction in the German-language novel of the 20th century. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2416-8 , pp. 43-44. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ a b (Hanus):  Kossak, Karl Ludwig. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1969, p. 149. Retrieved on June 15, 2017
  4. ↑ No. I-6353 . In: List of literature to be discarded . Zentralverlag, Berlin 1946. Accessed June 16, 2017.
  5. ↑ No. II-2191 . In: List of literature to be discarded . First supplement based on January 1, 1947. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1947. Accessed June 15, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Kossak, Karl Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kossak-Raytenau, Karl L. (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian playwright, novelist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Klosterneuburg
DATE OF DEATH November 5, 1949
Place of death Vienna