Siegfried Trebitsch

Siegfried Trebitsch (1869-1956) as an Austrian playwright, translator, novelist and poet.

Life

Trebitsch was born on thwe 1 December 1869, into a wealthy family. He entered the silk trade business of his stepfather Leopold, where he remained until 1903 when hew took a year out for personal study and for travels across Europe and North Africa.

Trebitsch soon established himself as a writer in various genres, but was best known for his German translations of the works of the French writer Georges Courteline and the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. His lengthy correspondence with Shaw has been published. Shaw rewarded Trebitsch for his efforts by rtranslating and adapting his play Frau Gitta into English, as Jitta's Atonement.

He took up his residence in Vienna, where he built the prestigious "Villa Trebitsch". He married in 1907 to the Hungarian Princess Engalitscheff. In the same year he was given honorary citizenship of the Municipality Wigstadtl in Austrian Silesia Kronlande. After World War I this became part of Czechoslovakia, so in 1920 he acquired Czech citizenship. He lived, however, in Vienna, until the 1938 Anschluss when Austria was absorbed into Nazi Germany.

An opponent of the Nazis, Trebitsch fled to Paris, where he was awarded an honorary French citizenship in 1939. After the invasion of France in 1940, he moved to Zurich. He applied for an immigration visa to the United States in June 1941, as a precaution, but with allied victory this was unnecessary. He remained in Zurich for the rest of his life.

Works

Trebitsch's works are comparable to those of Franz Werfel, who dominated the Viennese cultural life in the 1930s. In his novels and short stories, he characterized contemporary Austrian society.