Frank Thiess

Born in Eluisenstein (now Ogre Municipality), Kreis Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (now Latvia), Thiess grew up in Berlin. He worked as a journalist before fighting in World War I.{{Citation |last1=Garland |first1=Henry |title=Thiess, Frank |date=1997 |work=The Oxford Companion to German Literature |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198158967.001.0001/acref-9780198158967-e-5245 |access-date=2024-02-01 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780198158967.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-815896-7 |last2=Garland |first2=Mary}} Discharged after a few months because of a heart condition,{{Cn|date=February 2024}} he returned to Berlin and journalism. Within a few years, however. he decided to devote himself full-time to writing. His early novels were focussed on contemporary subjects — Time magazine once called him "the hot trumpet in Germany's jazz age."{{Cite magazine |date=1929-08-12 |title=Books: Young Germany |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,732776,00.html |access-date=2024-02-01 |magazine=Time |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X}} He married Florence Losey, an American singer.{{Cite book |last=Wolf |first=Yvonne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bCdfCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA206 |title=Frank Thiess und der Nationalsozialismus: Ein konservativer Revolutionär als Dissident |date=2015-03-10 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=978-3-11-091520-4 |page=206 |language=de}}{{Cite book |last1=Kunitz |first1=Stanley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9n0m7SIJagC |title=Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature |last2=Haycraft |first2=Howard |date=1973 |publisher=Wilson |isbn=978-0-8242-0049-7 |pages=1395 |language=en}} From the 1930s on, he concentrated on historical novels.

His 1936 novel, Tsushima, translated into English as The Voyage of Forgotten Men,{{Cite book |last=Egremont |first=Max |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Y8gEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Tsushima%22+%22the+voyage+of+forgotten+men%22&pg=PT102 |title=The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier |date=2022-02-08 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0-374-71720-9 |language=en}} recounted the journey of the Russian Second Pacific Squadron, under the command of Admiral Rozhestvensky, from the Baltic Sea to the Sea of Japan, and its defeat by the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.{{Cn|date=February 2024}}

His two-part novel, Neapolitanische Legende and Caruso in Sorrent, was based on the life and career of the great Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso.

Thiess remained in Nazi Germany during World War II.{{Cite book |last=Krispyn |first=Egbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gfyka3Otl3sC&pg=PA155 |title=Anti-Nazi Writers in Exile |date=2010-03-01 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-3490-5 |pages=152–155 |language=en}}

Thiess died 1977 in Darmstadt.

Novels:{{Cn|date=February 2024}}

• 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)

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• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Frank Thiess}}

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Category:1890 births

Category:1977 deaths

Category:People from Ogre Municipality

Category:People from Riga county

Category:People of Baltic German descent

Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany

Category:German male novelists

Category:Berliner Tageblatt people

Category:20th-century German novelists

Category:20th-century German male writers

Category:German Army personnel of World War I

Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Category:Recipients of the Grand Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria