Walter Ernsting (13 June 1920 – 15 January 2005) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
science fiction and fantasy author who mainly published under the pseudonym Clark Darlton. He grew up in
Koblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary.
Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...
and was drafted into the German
Wehrmacht shortly after the beginning of
World War II. He served in an intelligence unit in Norway and on the
Eastern Front, where he was captured and spent several years as a prisoner of war in
Siberia.
After returning to Germany, Ernsting started to work as a translator for the British authorities in 1952 and came into contact with Anglo-American science fiction magazines. Intrigued with this literary genre, he started working on some science fiction novels of his own, but Germany's cultural climate was apparently not ready for native science fiction authors. Ernsting finally managed to get some of his novels published by inventing a fictitious British author, Clark Darlton, and selling his own works as translations of Darlton's works. His first novel, ''Ufo am Nachthimmel'', was published in 1955 as issue 19 of ''Utopia Großband''.
Ernsting published several novels under the ''Darlton'' pseudonym, and on 4 August 1955, together with other science fiction authors, founded the Science Fiction Club Deutschland (SFCD). Until the end of the 1960s, Ernsting worked as an editor for the club's magazine, ''Andromeda'', and became an important figure in German science fiction fandom.
Over the course of his lifetime, Ernsting wrote more than 300 science fiction novels.
Asteroid 15265, discovered in 1990, was named after Ernsting in 2003.
Utopia and Terra
Ernsting started his science fiction career in 1954 as translator for the new science fiction novel collection
''Utopia Großband'' of the publishing house
''Erich Pabel Verlag'',
Rastatt. In 1955 he got to be editor of this collection and started the readers' column ''Meteoriten''; he also got to be editor of the new science fiction magazine ''Utopia Sonderband'' (later renamed to ''Utopia Magazin'').
In 1958 he changed to the publishing house ''Moewig Verlag'',
Munich
and its series for science fiction novels
''Terra'' and its magazine ''
Galaxis''. He still wrote science fiction novels and stories using the pseudonyms Clark Darlton and occasionally ''Fred McPatterson''.
Perry Rhodan
In 1961, Ernsting, his colleague
K. H. Scheer Karl-Herbert Scheer (19 June 1928 in Harheim (now part of Frankfurt) – 15 September 1991) was a German science fiction writer, usually credited as K. H. Scheer.
Scheer was born in the Hessian town of Harheim in 1928. Towards the end of World ...
and other authors invented what would become the most successful German science fiction series,
Perry Rhodan. There has been some debate as to which parts of the series' concept were created by whom, but it seems certain that the name of the main protagonist and many of his character traits were developed by Ernsting. Ernsting also invented a number of alien races and many of the series' supporting characters. He stayed with the series until issue 1622, which was published in 1992.
External links and references
Walter Ernsting on Perrypedia
*
* http://jophan.org/1960s/chapter4.htm // about sf fandom in some countries including Germany
* https://web.archive.org/web/20060331082459/http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,kulm1/kultur/artikel/226/46180/ // article
* http://www.fandomobserver.de/pdf/188.pdf // obituary with biography
* Heinz J. Galle: ''Volksbuecher und Heftromane'', 1998, ,
* ''Clark Darlton: Der Mann, der die Zukunft brachte'', 2000,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ernsting, Walter
1920 births
2005 deaths
Writers from Koblenz
People from the Rhine Province
German science fiction writers
German speculative fiction editors
German speculative fiction translators
German Army personnel of World War II
German male novelists
20th-century German novelists
20th-century German male writers
20th-century translators
German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union