Frank Thiess (13 March 1890 – 22 December 1977) was a German

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

Biography

Born in Eluisenstein (now

Ogre Municipality Ogre Municipality ( lv, Ogres novads) is a municipality in Vidzeme, Latvia. The municipality was formed in 2002 by merging Ogre town and Ogresgals Parish. In 2009 it absorbed Krape Parish, Ķeipene Parish, Laubere Parish, Madliena Parish, Ma ...

), Kreis Riga,

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a Baltic governorate of the Russian Empire, now divided between Latvia and Estonia. Geography The shape of the province is a fairly rectangular in shape, with a maximum ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

(now

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

), Thiess grew up in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

. He worked as a journalist for four years until he was enlisted into the

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

army in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Discharged after a few months because of a heart condition, he returned to

and

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (p ...

. Within a few years, however. he decided to devote himself full-time to writing. His early novels were focussed on contemporary subjects —

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once called him "the hot trumpet in Germany's jazz age." He married Florence Losey, an American singer. From the 1930s on, he concentrated on

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other t ...

s. His 1936 novel, ''Tsushima'', translated into English as ''The Voyage of Forgotten Men'', recounted the epic journey of the Russian Second Pacific Squadron, under the

command Command may refer to: Computing * Command (computing), a statement in a computer language * COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS * Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards * ...

of Admiral Rozhestvensky, from the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, i ...

, and its defeat by the Japanese fleet at the

Battle of Tsushima The Battle of Tsushima (Japanese:対馬沖海戦, Tsushimaoki''-Kaisen'', russian: Цусимское сражение, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known as the Battle of Tsushima Strait and the Naval Battle of Sea of Japan (Japanese: 日 ...

in 1905. His two-part

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

, ''Neapolitanische Legende'' and ''Caruso in Sorrent'', was based on the life and career of the great Italian

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

Enrico Caruso Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyrical tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) ...

. Thiess remained in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, but there is no evidence that he joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

. Thiess died 1977 in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse ...

Bibliography

Novels: *''Claudia'' (1913) *''Der Tod von Falern'' (1921) *''Angelika ten Swaart'' (1923) *''Die Verdammten'' (English title: ''The Devil's Shadow''; 1923) *''Das Gesicht des Jahrhunderts, Briefe an Zeitgenossen'' (1923) *''Der Leibheftige'' (English title: ''Design for Living''; 1924) *''Frauenraub'' (English title: ''Interlude''; 1927 - revised as ''Katharina Winter'', 1949) *''Johanna und Esther'' (1933) (revised as ''Gäa'' (1957)) *''Tsushima'' (English title: ''The Voyage of Forgotten Men''; 1936) *''Das Reich der Dämonen'' (1941) *''Neapolitanische Legende'' (English title: ''Neapolitan Legend''; 1942) *''Caruso in Sorrent'' (1946) *''Die Strassen des Labyrinths'' (1951) *''Die griechischen Kaiser'' (1959) *''Gäa'' (1959) *''Sturz nach oben'' (1961)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thiess, Frank 1890 births 1977 deaths People from Ikšķile Municipality People from Kreis Riga Baltic-German people Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany German male novelists 20th-century German novelists 20th-century German male writers German Army personnel of World War I Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria