Kurd Lasswitz
Kurd Lasswitz was a German author and university professor born in 1848, a period marked by significant political change and the unification of Germany. His academic background in philosophy and science informed his extensive writing, which included both scholarly works and imaginative fiction. Lasswitz is recognized as a contemporary of notable science fiction pioneers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, contributing to the genre during a time when speculative fiction was seen as respectable scholarly exploration rather than mere entertainment. His stories often contained satirical elements, critiquing the scientific community's confidence in its understanding of reality, which would soon be challenged by new scientific discoveries. Among his notable contributions are novels centered on space travel, which influenced future German engineers, including Wernher von Braun. While his works were rich in philosophical exploration, they are sometimes critiqued for weak character development and an over-reliance on dialogue. Lasswitz's influence persisted beyond his death in 1910, particularly when his works were translated into English, introducing him to new audiences during the burgeoning interest in rocketry and space exploration.
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Kurd Lasswitz
- Born: 1848
- Birthplace: Germany
- Died: 1910
- Place of death: Germany
Biography
Kurd Lasswitz was born in Germany in 1848, a year of political ferment in which the old certainties were being questioned and the foundations of a new Germany were being laid. During his youth, he saw the kingdom of Prussia forge the various German states into a single German empire under the leadership of its formidable chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. These social and political changes, along with the rapid industrialization of the newly united Germany, doubtlessly fueled his fascination with strange stories.
Lasswitz was by training and employment a university professor, and he published a great deal of scholarly writing on the subjects of philosophy and science, mostly in the heavy style expected of serious scholarly writing at that time. However, he also wrote a large number of short stories and novels of a most imaginative nature, along with essays on the subject of writing science fiction. He was a contemporary of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, working in a time when speculative fiction had not yet received the tarnish of disrepute it would gain in the twentieth century, when it became associated with dime novels, juvenile literature, and popular literature in general. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, even a respectable scholar could dabble in “literary speculations” without damaging his reputation.
Many of Lasswitz’s stories had a strong satirical element, using the author’s wide-ranging knowledge of philosophy and science to poke fun at the scientific establishment of his time, which had become quite satisfied with its ability to grasp the nature of reality and devise a theory for everything, not realizing that these theories would soon be totally upended by the great scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century. Lasswitz also wrote several novels about space travel that would inspire an entire generation of German aeronautical and astronautical engineers, culminating in the rocketry work of Wernher von Braun. However, many of Lasswitz’s works, while filled with philosophical depth, suffered from weak characterization and an excessive reliance on dialogue to convey information to the reader. Lasswitz died in 1910, shortly before the German Empire would be torn apart by World War I. However, the English translation of his work by Willy Ley some forty years later introduced Lasswitz to a new generation of readers in the United States just as rocketry and interplanetary travel were becoming realities.