Walter von Molo

Walter Ritter/Reichsritter von Molo (June 14, 1880, Šternberk, Moravia – October 27, 1958, Hechendorf, now Murnau am Staffelsee) was a Czech-born Austrian writer.

Walter von Molo was born on 14 June 1880 in Šternberk, Moravia. His youth was spent in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At high school he studied mechanical and electrical engineering; he married his first wife, Rosa Richter, in 1906, had a son and daughter, and worked until 1913 as an engineer in the Viennese Patent Office. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War he moved to Berlin to be with his Bavarian parents and rediscover his German roots, just as Berlin was transforming itself into a cultural capital. It was there that he embarked upon his career as a writer.

His first works, published during and shortly after the war, were bestsellers, and he quickly became one of the most popular of all German-speaking authors of the first half of the century. The books included biographies of Friedrich Schiller, Frederick the Great, and Prince Eugen, as well as novels such as Ein Volk wacht auf ("A People Awakes", 1918–21). All were strongly marked by German nationalism.

In 1925 he divorced Rosa, and five years later married Annemarie Mummenhoff.

Molo was a founding member of the German PEN Club, and also, in 1926, of the Prussian Academy of Arts. From 1928 to 1930 he was chairman of the poetry section.

...
Wikipedia