Ernst von Wolzogen

Ernst von Wolzogen (23 April 1855 – 30 August 1934) was a cultural critic, a writer and a founder of Cabaret in Germany.

Biography

Wolzogen came from a noble Austrian family; he studied Literature, Philosophy, and the history of art in Strasbourg and Leipzig. In 1882, he went to Berlin where he worked as an editor at a publishing house and later became an independent writer. From 1892 to 1899, he lived in Munich where he founded the Freie Literarische Gesellschaft, a literary society. In 1899, he returned in Berlin where he established a Kabarett, the Überbrettl, named as a play on Nietzsche's term Übermensch. He married Elsa Laura Seemann von Mangern in 1902, and wrote social satires for Überbrettl. After its closure in 1905, he returned to Darmstadt.

Wolzogen produced a great many works of humorous fiction. Some of his works include Die Kinder der Exzellenz (1888); Das Lumpengesindel (1892); Ein unbeschriebenes Blatt (1896); Der Kraft-Mayr, 2 vols.(1897); Das dritte Geschlecht, 2 vols. (1899). Although primarily a humorist, he also wrote on serious topics. Works such as Fahnenflucht (1894), Das Wunderbare (1898), and Die arme Sünderin (1901) are examples of his more serious side as an author. Wolzogen work is known for its wit and elegance.^[1]