Jakob Wassermann


Jakob Wassermann was a German writer and novelist of Jewish descent.

Life

Born in Fürth, Wassermann was the son of a shopkeeper and lost his mother at an early age. He showed literary interest early and published various pieces in small newspapers. Because his father was reluctant to support his literary ambitions, he began a short-lived apprenticeship with a businessman in Vienna after graduation.
He completed his military service in Würzburg. Afterward, he stayed in southern Germany and in Zurich. In 1894 he moved to Munich. Here he worked as a secretary and later as a copy editor at the paper Simplicissimus. Around this time he also became acquainted with other writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Thomas Mann.
In 1896 he released his first novel, Melusine.
From 1898 he was a theater critic in Vienna. In 1901 he married Julie Speyer, whom he divorced in 1915. Three years later he was married again to Marta Karlweis.
After 1906, he alternated between Vienna and Altaussee in Styria.
In 1926, he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts. He resigned in 1933, narrowly avoiding expulsion by the Nazis. In the same year, his books were banned in Germany owing to his Jewish ancestry.
He died on 1 January 1934 at his home in Altaussee of a heart attack.
Wassermann's work includes poetry, essays, novels, and short stories. His most important works are considered the novel The Maurizius Case and the autobiography, My Life as German and Jew, in which he discussed the tense relationship between his German and Jewish identities.

Works