Jakob Wassermann

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 Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and
Thomas Mann.

In 1896 he released his first novel, Melusine (his surname means "water-man" in
German, while a "Melusine" (or "Melusina") is a figure of European legends and
folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers).

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 lived alternatively in Vienna or at Altaussee in der Steiermark

where he died in 1934 after a severe illness.

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.

Wassermann's work includes poetry, essays, novels, and short stories. His most
important works are considered the novel Der Fall Maurizius (1928) and the
autobiography, My Life as German and Jew (Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude) (1921),
in which he discussed the tense relationship between his German and Jewish identities.

He died on 1 January 1934 at his home in Alt-Aussee, Austria of a heart attack.