Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank was a notable German expressionist writer born into a modest family in Würzburg. He faced challenges early in life, including a difficult school environment which contributed to a stutter. After training as a metalworker, he pursued a career in the arts, living in poverty in Munich while studying painting. Frank's literary career began to flourish with the publication of his first novel, "Die Räuberbande," for which he won the Fontane Prize in 1914. His writings often reflected his strong anti-war sentiments, particularly during and after World War I, leading to his exile in Switzerland and later escapes from Nazi persecution. Frank eventually settled in the United States, where he worked in Hollywood before returning to Germany. His legacy includes several prestigious awards and recognition in both East and West Germany. Frank's work is often regarded as most impactful during his early years, particularly in the context of his personal experiences and relationships.
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Leonhard Frank
Writer
- Born: September 4, 1882
- Birthplace: Würzburg, Germany
- Died: August 18, 1961
- Place of death: Munich, Germany
Biography
Leonhard Frank was the fourth child born to Johann Frank, a carpenter, and his wife Marie Frank, née Bach (1850-1921), both from farming families. The father’s weekly salary was barely enough to support his family. A tyrannical teacher made school a very unpleasant experience for Frank, who developed a stutter. He left school after seven years and trained as a metalworker, finishing that apprenticeship when he was seventeen.
Frank decided he wanted to study to be an artist. He lived in penury in Munich from 1904 to 1910, studying painting and learning about the arts from conversations in the bohemian Café Stefanie. One book of Frank’s art was published in 1913. He moved to Berlin in 1910 and continued his unofficial education in the Café des Westens.
According to Frank’s autobiography published in 1952, Links wo das Herz ist (heart on the left), he met his first wife Lisa Ertel (1883-1923) in the Café des Westens in May of 1911. Lisa was Jewish. Frank later credited her with having given him the most constructive criticism on his writing. Lisa died of a heart attack in 1923. Frank married a Russian, Ilona Maquenne, in 1928, and their son Andreas was born on February 24, 1929. When Frank was forty-eight, he saw a young woman in the Café des Westens who seemed to be the incarnation of his fictitious character Hanna in Das Ochsenfurter Männerquartett (1927). They met again eighteen years later in the United States, and Charlotte London-Jäger became his third wife in 1952.
Frank won the Fontane Prize in 1914 for his first novel, Die Räuberbande (The Robberband), and was quite humbled by the fact that his mother published her autobiography under a pseudonym in the same year. Frank next won the Kleist Prize in 1920 for his collection of antiwar stories Der Mensch ist gut (man is good).
Frank was vehemently opposed to war. He spent World War I in exile in Switzerland. His pacifist writings from that period made him a target of the Nazis in the 1930’s, so he fled to Zürich, then to Paris. There he was incarcerated when World War II broke out. He escaped, fled on foot for twenty-eight days, was denied an exit visa from Marseilles, fled again, and sailed from Lisbon to New York in 1940. Warner Brothers gave him a contract as a script writer in Hollywood. In 1945, Metro Goldwyn Mayer bought the film rights to Frank’s story Karl und Anna (1927) and Frank used the money to move back to New York. He returned to Germany in 1950 and settled in Munich.
His reputation as a writer was recognized by both East and West Germany. Frank belonged to the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and to the German Academy of the Arts in East Berlin. He was awarded the East German National Prize First Class for Art and Literature (1955) and an honorary doctorate from the Humboldt University (1957), the West German Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit (1957), and the Tolstoy Medal from the Soviet Union (1960).
Critics agree that Frank’s early writing, when Lisa was still alive, was his best. He repeatedly revised his initial description of his native Würzburg in Die Räuberbande until the words realistically conveyed the sights, sounds, and smells as he remembered them.