Franz Carl Weiskopf

{{Short description|Austrian-Hungarian writer}} File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-25686-0004, Leipzig, Autorenkonferenz, Gloger, Weiskopf, Wedding.jpg and Alex Wedding.]]

Franz Carl Weiskopf (3 April 1900 in Prague – 14 September 1955) was a German-speaking writer. Born in Prague, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was often referred to as F. C. Weiskopf, he also used the pseudonyms Petr Buk, Pierre Buk and F. W. L. Kovacs. He died in Berlin in 1955.

Life

Weiskopf was the son of a German banker who was Jewish and a Czech mother.{{citation needed|date=August 2012}} He studied at a German school in Prague and then went to university in his hometown to study Germanistik and history from 1919–1923. He traveled to the Soviet Union in 1926{{cite web |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/48554939.pdf |title= Rifts in Space-Time: Franz Carl Weiskopf in the Soviet Union |last= Müller |first= Matthias |date= May 31, 2019 |website= JStor - Johns Hopkins University Press |publisher= German Studies Review, May 2019, Vol. 42, No. 2, page 319 |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}} Two years later he moved to Berlin where he became editor of the Berlin am Morgen newspaper.{{cite web |url= https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz134871.html#ndbcontent |title= Weiskopf, F(ranz) C(arl) (Pseudonym Peter Burk, F. W. L. Kovacs, Heinrich Werth) |author= |date= |website= Deutsche-Biographie |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}} He was a member in good standing of the Confederation of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers (German: Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller) and participated in a conference in 1930 with Anna Seghers in Charkow in the Soviet Union.

He married the writer Grete Bernheim.{{cite web |url= https://www.sozialistenfriedhof.de/index.php?id=weiskopf_wedding |title= Franz Carl Weiskopf (1900-1955) / Grete Weiskopf (1905-1966), Pseudonym Alex Wedding |author= |date= |website= Sozialist enfried HOF |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}

After the takeover by the Nazis in 1933 Weiskopf returned to Prague, where he was editor of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung. When Czechoslovakia fell to the invading Germans in October 1938, the newspaper was forced to shut down, and Weiskopf fled to Paris. From there, he fled to the United States in April 1939, with the help of the League of American Writers. He survived the war in New York.{{cite web |url= https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/334078/1/334078.pdf |title= Humanist Anecdotes in Hard Times: F. C. Weiskopf and Lenka Reinerov |last= Schonfield |first= Ernest |date= September 3, 2024 |website= University of Glasgow |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}

After the end of the war, Weiskopf was in the diplomatic service of Czechoslovakia and worked, first at an Embassy in Washington DC, 1949 to 1950 as ambassador to Stockholm, and from 1950 to 1952 as ambassador to Beijing. In 1952 he returned to Prague, but moved in 1953 to East Berlin. In the last years of his life he was a board member of the Deutscher Schriftstellerverband, and published the magazine New German Literature (German: Neue Deutsche Literatur) together with Willi Bredel and became member of PEN.

F.C. Weiskopf wrote novels, short stories, stories, anecdotes, poetry and essays. His work was always realistic, stylistically far above the average for other authors of the Socialist realism. His narrative works were mostly set in the middle of Czechoslovakia and describe the path of solidarity of citizens and workers since the First World War.

His wife initiated a Weiskopf named Prize, which has been awarded since 1956 for contribution to the preservation of the German language. In 2024, the prize was merged with his wife’s own prize (the Alex Wedding Prize).{{cite web |url= https://www.adk.de/en/academy/sections/literature/prizes_scholarships/weiskopf-wedding-prize_en.htm |title= Weiskopf Wedding Prize |author= |date= |website= Akademie der Kunste |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}

F.C. Weiskopf and his wife are buried in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Works

Weiskopf's works include; {{cite web |url= https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3475881.Franz_Carl_Weiskopf |title= Franz Carl Weiskopf |author= |date= |website= Goodreads |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}

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Es geht eine Trommel, Berlin-Schöneberg 1923
Die Flucht nach Frankreich, Wien [u. a.] 1926
Umsteigen ins 21. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1927
Wer keine Wahl hat, hat die Qual, Berlin 1928
Der Traum des Friseurs Cimbura, Berlin 1930
Der Staat ohne Arbeitslose, Berlin 1931 (zusammen mit Ernst Glaeser und Alfred Kurella)
Das Slawenlied, Berlin 1931
Zukunft im Rohbau, Berlin 1932
Die Stärkeren, Moskau [u. a.] 1934
Die Versuchung, Zürich 1937
La tragédie tchécoslavaque, Paris 1939 (unter dem Namen Pierre Buk)
The untamed Balkans, New York 1941 (unter dem Namen Frederic W. L. Kovacs)
Vor einem neuen Tag, Mexico 1944
Himmelfahrts-Kommando, Stockholm 1945
Die Unbesiegbaren, New York 1945
Unter fremden Himmeln, Berlin 1948
Abschied vom Frieden, Berlin 1950
Elend und Größe unserer Tage, Berlin 1950

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Der ferne Klang, Berlin 1950
Menschen, Städte und Jahre, Wien 1950
Kinder ihrer Zeit, Berlin 1951
Die Reise nach Kanton, Berlin 1953
Das Anekdotenbuch, Berlin 1954
Aus allen vier Winden, Berlin 1954
Verteidigung der deutschen Sprache, Berlin 1955
Literarische Streifzüge, Berlin 1956
Gesammelte Werke, Berlin
Bd. 1. Abschied vom Frieden, 1960 (bereits 1950 im Dietz Verlag erschienen)
Bd. 2. Inmitten des Stroms. Welt in Wehen, 1960
Bd. 3. Das Slawenlied. Vor einem neuen Tag, 1960
Bd. 4. Lissy. Himmelfahrtskommando, 1960
Bd. 5. Gedichte und Nachdichtungen, 1960
Bd. 6. Anekdoten und Erzählungen, 1960
Bd. 7. Reportagen, 1960
Bd. 8. Über Literatur und Sprache. Verteidigung der deutschen Sprache, 1960
Briefwechsel 1942 - 1948, Berlin [u. a.] 1990 (mit Bodo Uhse)

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Editorials

Januartage, Prag-Karlin 1926
Denise Leblond-Zola: Zola, Berlin 1932
Hundred towers, New York 1945
Kisch-Kalender, Berlin 1955

Translations

Tschechische Lieder, Berlin 1925
Das Herz - ein Schild, London 1937
Gesang der gelben Erde, Berlin 1951
Chien Tien: Des Tien Tschien Lied vom Karren, Berlin 1953
Max Švabinský: Schmetterlingszeit, Prag 1954

Films

1957: Lissy - Director: Konrad Wolf {{cite web |url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050645/ |title= Lissy, 1957 |author= |date= |website= IMDB |publisher= |access-date= May 14, 2025 |quote=}}
1977: Abschied vom Frieden - Director: Hans-Joachim Kasprzik

= See also =

Lenka Reinerová

References

External links

{{DNB-Portal|118630423}}
[http://nemesis.marxists.org/weiskopf-umsteigen-21-jahrhundert1.htm F. C. Weiskopf: Umsteigen ins 21. Jahrhundert (1927)]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090404151744/http://golm.rz.uni-potsdam.de/Seghers/flucht/Web/norafcw.htm Biographie]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304000136/http://www.stifterverein.de/de/autorenlexikon/w-z/weiskopf-franz-carl.html Biografie im Autorenlexikon des Adalbert Stifter-Vereins]

Category:1900 births

Category:1955 deaths

Category:20th-century Czech people

Category:20th-century German writers

Category:Czech people of German-Jewish descent

Category:Czechoslovak people of German descent

Category:Czech writers in German

Category:Jewish Czech writers

Category:Czech male writers

Category:Writers from Prague

Category:Ambassadors of Czechoslovakia to Sweden

Category:Ambassadors of Czechoslovakia to China