View source for Ernst Weiss

{{Short description|Austrian author (1882–1940)}}
{{About||the German mathematician|Ernst August Weiß}}
{{Infobox writer
| name          = Ernst Weiss
| image         = Ernst Weiß (1882–1940).jpg
| alt           = 
| caption       = Ernst Weiss (before 1939)
| birth_name    = 
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1882|08|28}}<ref>[https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz122845.html#ndbcontent Entry for Ernst Weiß in "Deutsche Biographie"]</ref>
| birth_place   = [[Brünn]], [[Austria]]
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1940|06|15|1882|08|28}}
| death_place   = [[Paris]], [[France]]
| resting_place = 
| occupation    = [[Novelist]], [[physician]]
| language      = German
| citizenship   = 
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| period        = 
| genre         = 
| subject       = 
| movement      = 
| notable_works = ''The Eyewitness'' (''Der Augenzeuge'')
| spouse        = 
| partner       = 
| children      = 
| relatives     = 
| awards        = 
| signature     = 
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| module        = 
| website       = <!-- www.example.com -->
}}
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{{MedalSport | [[Art competitions at the Summer Olympics|Art competitions]]}}
{{MedalSilver | [[1928 Summer Olympics|1928 Amsterdam]] | [[Art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics|Epic works]]}}
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Dr '''Ernst Weiss''' ([[German language|German]]: Weiß, August 28, 1882 &ndash; June 15, 1940) was an [[Austria]]n physician and author of [[Jewish]] descent. He is the author of ''[[:de:Ich, der Augenzeuge|Ich, der Augenzeuge]]'' (''The Eyewitness''), a novel dealing with the [[Hitler]] period.
[[File:Gedenktafel Luitpoldstr 34 (Schö) Ernst Weiss.JPG|thumb|300px|Memorial plaque on Luitpoldstraße in Berlin]]

==Biography==
Ernst Weiss was born in Brünn, [[Moravia]], [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]] (now [[Brno]] in the Czech Republic) to the family of a prosperous Jewish cloth merchant.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia">S. Saur, Pamela. "Ernst Weiss". The Literary Encyclopedia. 23 September 2006. Accessed 22 June 2008. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11735]</ref> After his father died when he was four, he was brought up by his mother Berta, née Weinberg, who led him to art.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/> However, after completing his secondary education in Brno, [[Litoměřice]] and [[Hostinné]],<ref name="Leben">Ernst Weiß – Kurzer Lebensabriß, {{cite web |url=http://golm.rz.uni-potsdam.de/Seghers/marseille/ewbio.htm |title=Ernst Weiß Kurzer Lebensabriß |accessdate=2008-06-22 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080321051726/http://golm.rz.uni-potsdam.de/Seghers/marseille/ewbio.htm |archivedate=2008-03-21 |language=de}}</ref> he came to [[Charles University|Prague]] to study medicine. In 1908 he finished his studies in [[University of Vienna|Vienna]] and became a surgeon. He practiced in [[Bern]], [[Vienna]], and [[Berlin]] but he developed tuberculosis and tried to recover as a ship doctor on a trip to [[India]] and [[Japan]] in 1912.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/> In 1913 he met [[Rahel Sanzara]], a dancer, actress and, later, novelist, and their relationship lasted until she died of cancer in 1936.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/> In the same year he met [[Franz Kafka]] and they became close friends. Kafka wrote in his ''Diaries 1914'': "January 2. A lot of time well spent with Dr. Weiss".<ref name="Orthofer">M.A.Orthofer: Ernst Weiß: A Preliminary Survey, Complete Review, Volume II, Issue 4, November, 2001, [http://www.complete-review.com/quarterly/vol2/issue4/eweiss.htm]</ref> Weiss was in touch with other writers of the [[Prague Circle]] such as [[Franz Werfel]], [[Max Brod]], and [[Johannes Urzidil]].<ref name="Brno">Encyklopedie dějin města Brna, [http://www.encyklopedie.brna.cz/home-mmb/?acc=profil_osobnosti&load=2020] {{in lang|cs}}</ref> In 1914 Weiss returned to [[Austria]] to start a military physician career. He served for the duration of [[World War I]] on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]],<ref name="Altman2010">{{cite news |work=[[The Nation]] |title=Reverse Psychology: On Ernst Weiss |first= Elias |last= Altman|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/154454/reverse-psychology-ernst-weiss|date=September 20, 2010}}</ref> ultimately earning a golden cross for bravery.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/> After the war he lived in Prague, then the capital of [[Czechoslovakia]]. He gave up his medical career in 1920 when he finished working in a Prague hospital.<ref name="Brno"/> In 1921 he moved to Berlin,<ref name="Leben"/> and began his most prolific period of writing, publishing nearly a novel a year.<ref name="Altman2010" /> This period came to an end when, in 1933, he returned to Prague to care for his dying mother.<ref name="Orthofer"/> He could not enter [[Nazi Germany]] and so he left for [[Paris]] in 1934. There he lived a poor life dependent on help from authors such as [[Thomas Mann]] and [[Stefan Zweig]].<ref>Dominique Fliegler: Doslov k Jarmile, Praha 1998, {{ISBN|80-901626-6-5}} {{in lang|cs}}</ref> He applied for, but did not receive, a grant from the [[American guild for German cultural freedom]].<ref name="Leben"/>

Weiss's last novel, ''The Eyewitness'', written in 1938, describes a young German veteran of World War I, identified as "A.H.," who has been sent to a military hospital because he is suffering from hysterical blindness (now termed [[conversion disorder]]). The character is evidently modeled on Adolf Hitler, who was indeed treated for conversion disorder at a military hospital in [[Pasewalk]], but scholars dispute to what extent the account is fictional. The writer [[Walter Mehring]] claimed in his autobiography that Weiss had access in Paris to Hitler's Pasewalk medical file, which had been sent out of the country for safekeeping by Edmund Forster, the psychiatrist who treated Hitler. The whereabouts of the file today are unknown, however, and the real Edmund Forster disapproved of hypnosis, the treatment used to cure "A.H." in Weiss's novel.<ref>{{Cite journal
 | title = Hitler's missing psychiatric file
 | year = 2007
 | journal = European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
 | pages = 245
 | volume = 257
 | doi = 10.1007/s00406-006-0648-4
 | last1 = Koepf	 | first1 =  Gerhard
 | last2 =  Soyka	 | first2 =  Michael
 | pmid = 17464549
 | issue = 4
 | s2cid = 11501955
 }}</ref><ref name="Ächtler2007">{{Cite journal
 | doi = 10.1111/j.1756-1183.2007.tb00078.x
 | title = Hitler's hysteria: War neurosis and mass psychology in Ernst Weiss's Der Augenzeuge
 | year = 2007
 | author = Ächtler, Norman
 | journal = The German Quarterly
 | pages = 325–49
 | volume = 80
 | issue = 3
 }}</ref>

Weiss committed suicide on 14 June 1940 when German troops invaded the city.<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/><ref name="Lester">{{cite book|last=Lester|first=David|title=Suicide and the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R1nkj-xSzYgC&q=suicide+and+the+holocaust|publisher=[[Nova Publishers]]|isbn=978-1-59454-427-9|page=2|date=January 2005}}</ref><ref name="WWII">{{cite web |url=https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/friv/lists.cgi?id=65 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417055433/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/friv/lists.cgi?id=65 |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 April 2020 |title=Olympians Who Were Killed or Missing in Action or Died as a Result of War |accessdate=24 July 2018 |work=Sports Reference}}</ref> His attempt to deal with poison in his hotel room did not succeed immediately, but he died as a result only in the following night in a Paris hospital.

Based on thorough research on Hitler and his story at Pasewalk clinique psychologist [[David Lewis (psychologist)|David Lewis]] in his book ''The Man Who Invented Hitler'' tells also the story of Ernst Weiss and his book on Hitler using pseudonym A.H.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=David|title=The Man who Invented Hitler|publisher=Headline Book Publishing |year=2004}}</ref>

== Work ==

His work is influenced by [[Sigmund Freud]], his friend Franz Kafka, and authors of then-modern literary [[Expressionism]].<ref name="Literary Encyclopedia"/> He often hints at medical cases and ethics in his novels and stories.

*''Die Galeere'' (1913); rejected by twenty-three publishers; Franz Kafka helped to edit it <ref name="Orthofer"/>
*''Der Kampf'' (1916)  republished and mainly known today by the name 'Franziska'
*''Tiere in Ketten'' (1918)
*''Mensch gegen Mensch'' (1919)
*''Stern der Dämonen'' (1920)
*''Nahar'' (1922)
*''Männer in der Nacht'' (1925)
*''Boetius von Orlamünde'' (1928, retitled ''Der Aristokrat'' in 1966); awarded a silver medal in the literary competition at the [[1928 Summer Olympics|1928 Amsterdam Olympics]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/920749 |title=Ernst Weiss |work=Olympedia |accessdate=25 July 2020}}</ref> and the [[Adalbert Stifter]] prize <ref name="Orthofer"/>
*''Georg Letham. Arzt und Mörder'' (1931)
*''Der Geisterseher'' (1934)
*''Der Gefängnisarzt'' (1934, reprinted 1969)
*''Der arme Verschwender'' (1936, reprinted 1965)
*''Der Verführer'' (1937). 
*''Der Augenzeuge'' (published posthumously in 1963); published as ''Ich, der Augenzeuge'' because of [[copyright]] proceedings about [[Alain Robbe-Grillet]]'s ''Le Voyeur'' which was published under the same title<ref name="Orthofer"/>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Gutenberg author | id=37172| name=Ernst Weiß}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2887}}
* [http://aeiou.iicm.tugraz.at/aeiou.encyclop.w/w341569.htm Profile in AEIOU Oesterreich Lexikon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127025445/http://aeiou.iicm.tugraz.at/aeiou.encyclop.w/w341569.htm |date=2007-11-27 }} {{in lang|de}} <!-- Year of birth incorrect -->
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080321051726/http://golm.rz.uni-potsdam.de/Seghers/marseille/ewbio.htm Short biography] {{in lang|de}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Ernst}}
[[Category:1882 births]]
[[Category:1940 deaths]]
[[Category:1940 suicides]]
[[Category:Writers from Brno]]
[[Category:Writers from the Margraviate of Moravia]]
[[Category:Jewish Austrian writers]]
[[Category:Austrian male writers]]
[[Category:Austrian medical writers]]
[[Category:Austrian surgeons]]
[[Category:20th-century Jewish medical doctors]]
[[Category:20th-century Austrian novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century Austrian short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century Austrian non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Olympic silver medalists in art competitions]]
[[Category:Medalists at the 1928 Summer Olympics]]
[[Category:Male suicides]]
[[Category:Suicides in Paris]]
[[Category:Suicides by poison]]
[[Category:Health professionals from Brno]]
[[Category:Art competitors at the 1928 Summer Olympics]]
[[Category:Suicides by Jews during the Holocaust]]
[[Category:Moravian Jews]]
[[Category:Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust]]
[[Category:Austrian people who died in the Holocaust]]
[[Category:20th-century surgeons]]