![Hermann Ungar](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Hermann_Ungar.jpg)
Hermann Ungar (April 20, 1893 in
Boskovice
Boskovice (; german: Boskowitz) is a town in Blansko District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 12,000 inhabitants. The area of the historic town centre, Jewish quarter, château complex and castle ruin is well preser ...
– October 28, 1929 in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
) was a
Czech-Jewish
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, which include the modern Czech Republic as well as Bohemia, Czech Silesia and Moravia, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10 ...
writer (in the
German language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...
) and an officer in
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Biography
Ungar's father, Emil, was a cider maker who served as Mayor of Boskovice. After graduating from the public schools in
Brno, Hermann Ungar went to Berlin, where he took courses in
Oriental Studies until 1911, followed by legal and philosophical studies in Munich and Prague. After service in World War I, where he sustained serious injuries on the
Galician Front, he passed the state examination and received his degree in 1918.
At first, he worked as a lawyer and director of the theater in
Cheb
Cheb (; german: Eger) is a town in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 30,000 inhabitants. It lies on the river Ohře.
Before the 1945 expulsion of the German-speaking population, the town was the centre of the German-s ...
, where he also wrote plays. In 1922, he became the (Legation Counselor) at the new Czechoslovak embassy in Berlin. In the same year he married Margarete Weiss (born Stransky). Later he returned to Prague and became the Ministerial Commissioner at the Foreign Affairs ministry. While there, he began to associate with a literary circle that included
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
,
Max Brod
Max Brod ( he, מקס ברוד; 27 May 1884 – 20 December 1968) was a German-speaking Bohemian, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist.
Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is best remembered as the friend and biog ...
and
Ernst Weiß
Dr Ernst Weiss (German: Weiß, August 28, 1882 – June 15, 1940) was a German-speaking Austrian physician and author of Jewish descent. He is the author of '' Ich'' , d''er Augenzeuge'' (The Eyewitness), a novel dealing with the Hitler pe ...
.
His writing was becoming successful, so he quit the diplomatic service in 1929, but died not long after, aged only thirty-six, during an
appendectomy that had been postponed for too long.
His wife and two sons fled to the UK in 1939. His brother and parents were murdered in
Auschwitz in 1942, but his sister was able to escape and went to Tel-Aviv.
His play ''Der rote General'' was a great success in Berlin in 1928. His second play ''Die Gartenlaube'' was also a great success but was not performed in Berlin until shortly after his death. These plays have been printed and extensively reviewed. His novels were influenced by
expressionism and
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and was praised by
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
, who became a godfather to Ungar's son Tom (born Thomas Michael Ungar). According to a 2012 obituary of Tom (who had changed his name to Unwin), his father "wrote about sex and psychosis in a manner that shocked the establishment".
[Vicky Unwin]
"Tom Unwin obituary"
''The Guardian'', 7 June 2012.
Works
* ''Boys and Murderers'' (1920)
* ''The Maimed'' (1923, novel)
* ''The Murder of Captain Hanika'' (1925, non-fiction)
* ''The Class'' (1927, novel)
* ''The Red General'' (1928, play)
* ''The Arbor'' (1930, play)
* ''Colbert's Journey'' (1930, short stories)
Hermann Ungar, ''Das Gesamtwerk'', Verlag Paul Zsolnay, Wien-Darmstadt, 1989, 461pp.
Dieter Sudhoff, Hermann Ungar Leben-Werk-Wirkung Verlag Königshausen und Neumann Wurzburg, 1990, 700pp.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ungar, Hermann
1893 births
1929 deaths
Czech male writers
Czech Jews
Jewish novelists
Czech writers in German
Czechoslovak diplomats
People from Boskovice