Wilhelm Herzog (12 January 1884 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

– 4 April 1960 in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

) was a German historian of literature and culture, dramatist, encyclopedist, and pacifist.

Life

He studied

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

Germanistics The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

and

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visu ...

in Berlin. After publishing works about Lichtenstein (1905) and

Heinrich von Kleist Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amph ...

(1907), he became the editor of the literary magazine '' Pan''. From 1914 to 1915 and from 1918 to 1929 he wrote for the ''Forum'', a journal advocating global peace. He was also the publisher of the daily newspaper ''Die Republik'' from 1918 to 1919. Herzog who was a member of the

Independent Social Democratic Party The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was establish ...

(USPD), with the left wing of which he joined the Communist Party of Germany at the end of 1920 with left-wing of the USPD. Due to a conflict with top KPD official

Willi Münzenberg Wilhelm "Willi" Münzenberg (14 August 1889, Erfurt, Germany – June 1940, Saint-Marcellin, France) was a German Communist political activist and publisher. Münzenberg was the first head of the Young Communist International in 1919–20 and est ...

, he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1928. Between 1929 and 1933, he wrote ''Die Affäre Dreyfus'' (''The

Dreyfus Affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

''), ''Der Kampf einer Republik'', and ''Panama''. ''Die Affäre Dreyfus'' was adapted to English as the 1931 film '' Dreyfus'' and as a play by the theatre critic

James Agate James Evershed Agate (9 September 1877 – 6 June 1947) was an English diarist and theatre critic between the two world wars. He took up journalism in his late twenties and was on the staff of ''The Manchester Guardian'' in 1907–1914. He later ...

, having a short run in London as "I Accuse!", in 1937. In 1947 His work "''From Dreyfus to Petain: The Struggle of a Republic''" was copyrighted. His main work was a 4 tome encyclopedia, ''Große Gestalten der Geschichte'' (Great Figures of History), conceived in the tradition of Diderot's ''

Encyclopédie ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...

''. From 1915 to 1921 he was married to German film actress

Erna Morena Erna Morena (born Ernestine Maria Fuchs, 24 April 1885 – 20 July 1962) was a German film actress, film producer, and screenwriter of the silent era. She appeared in 104 films between 1913 and 1951. Biography Ernestine Maria Fuchs was born in ...

(1885–1962) and had one daughter with her.

Works

*''Rund um den Staatsanwalt'' (1923) *''Die Affäre Dreyfus'' (1928, 1929) *''Der Kampf einer Republik'' (1933) *''Panama'' (1931, changed in 1950) *''Hymnen und Pamphlete'' (1939) *''Kritische Enzyklopädie'' (1949)

External links

* * * 1884 births 1960 deaths German male writers {{Germany-writer-stub 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German dramatists and playwrights German magazine editors Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland