Comprehensive biography of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942)
Stefan Zweig
„Nur wer die Vergangenheit kennt, hat eine Zukunft."
🕰️ Interactive Life Journey
1881Birth in Vienna
Stefan Zweig is born on November 28 in Vienna
🏛️ Vienna around 1881
Zweig grows up during the heyday of the Habsburg monarchy. Vienna is the cultural center of Europe with artists like Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schnitzler.
1901First Publication
"Silberne Saiten" - Zweig's first poetry collection is published
📖 Literary Breakthrough
At only 20 years old, Zweig publishes his first poetry collection. The poems already show his later mastery in psychological representation.
1914World War I
The war fundamentally changes Zweig's worldview
⚔️ Turning Point
World War I makes Zweig a convinced pacifist. He works in the war archive and begins his friendship with Romain Rolland.
1920Salzburg
Zweig moves to Salzburg and becomes a world star
🏰 Artist Residence
In Salzburg, Zweig writes his most famous works. His house becomes a meeting place for the international artistic elite.
1933Exile Begins
Zweig leaves Austria and begins his exile
🚪 Flight into Exile
After the Nazi seizure of power, Zweig must leave Austria. His books are burned, his assets confiscated.
1942Death in Brazil
Stefan Zweig nimmt sich am 22. Februar das Leben
💔 Tragic End
In Petrópolis, Brazil, Zweig commits suicide together with his second wife Lotte. Shortly before, he completes "Chess Story" - his last masterpiece.
📚
A Life for Literature
On November 28, 1881, a boy was born in Vienna who would later become one of the most widely read writers of the 20th century. Stefan Zweig – son of a successful textile industrialist – grew up in a time when Vienna was the pulsating heart of Europe.
After studying German and Romance studies, he received his doctorate in 1904 with a work on "The Origins of Contemporary France" – an early sign of his lifelong fascination with the connections between cultures.
🎧
🎧 Comprehensive Audio Biography Available
Discover Stefan Zweig's life in a comprehensive 14-part audio biography. Each chapter can be listened to or downloaded individually. The biography is at least as extensive as the text on this page and offers deep insights into Zweig's extraordinary life.
Stefan Zweig is born on November 28 in Vienna. His family belongs to the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie. His father, Moritz Zweig, is a successful textile manufacturer, his mother, Ida Brettauer, comes from a banking family from Hohenems.
1901 - Erste Veröffentlichung
"Silberne Saiten" - Zweig's first poetry collection is published. At only 20 years old, Zweig publishes his first poetry collection. The poems already show his later mastery in psychological representation.
1914 - Erster Weltkrieg
The war fundamentally changes Zweig's worldview. World War I makes Zweig a convinced pacifist. He works in the war archive and begins his friendship with Romain Rolland.
1920 - Salzburg
Zweig moves to Salzburg and becomes a world star. In Salzburg, Zweig writes his most famous works. His house becomes a meeting place for the international artistic elite.
1933 - Exil beginnt
Zweig leaves Austria and begins his exile. After the Nazi seizure of power, Zweig must leave Austria. His books are burned, his assets confiscated.
1942 - Tod in Brasilien
Zweig and his wife Lotte commit suicide in Petrópolis. On February 22, 1942, Stefan and Lotte Zweig take their own lives. In his farewell letter, Zweig writes: "I greet all my friends! May they still see the dawn after the long night!"
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Stefan Zweig
„Nur wer die Vergangenheit kennt, hat eine Zukunft."
🕰️ Interactive Life Journey
1881Birth in Vienna
Stefan Zweig is born on November 28 in Vienna
🏛️ Vienna around 1881
Zweig grows up during the heyday of the Habsburg monarchy. Vienna is the cultural center of Europe with artists like Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schnitzler.
1901First Publication
"Silberne Saiten" - Zweig's first poetry collection is published
📖 Literary Breakthrough
At only 20 years old, Zweig publishes his first poetry collection. The poems already show his later mastery in psychological representation.
1914World War I
The war fundamentally changes Zweig's worldview
⚔️ Turning Point
World War I makes Zweig a convinced pacifist. He works in the war archive and begins his friendship with Romain Rolland.
1920Salzburg
Zweig moves to Salzburg and becomes a world star
🏰 Artist Residence
In Salzburg, Zweig writes his most famous works. His house becomes a meeting place for the international artistic elite.
1933Exile Begins
Zweig leaves Austria and begins his exile
🚪 Flight into Exile
After the Nazi seizure of power, Zweig must leave Austria. His books are burned, his assets confiscated.
1942Death in Brazil
Stefan Zweig nimmt sich am 22. Februar das Leben
💔 Tragic End
In Petrópolis, Brazil, Zweig commits suicide together with his second wife Lotte. Shortly before, he completes "Chess Story" - his last masterpiece.
📚
A Life for Literature
On November 28, 1881, a boy was born in Vienna who would later become one of the most widely read writers of the 20th century. Stefan Zweig – son of a successful textile industrialist – grew up in a time when Vienna was the pulsating heart of Europe.
After studying German and Romance studies, he received his doctorate in 1904 with a work on "The Origins of Contemporary France" – an early sign of his lifelong fascination with the connections between cultures.
🎧
🎧 Comprehensive Audio Biography Available
Discover Stefan Zweig's life in a comprehensive 14-part audio biography. Each chapter can be listened to or downloaded individually. The biography is at least as extensive as the text on this page and offers deep insights into Zweig's extraordinary life.
Stefan Zweig is born on November 28 in Vienna. His family belongs to the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie. His father, Moritz Zweig, is a successful textile manufacturer, his mother, Ida Brettauer, comes from a banking family from Hohenems.
1901 - Erste Veröffentlichung
"Silberne Saiten" - Zweig's first poetry collection is published. At only 20 years old, Zweig publishes his first poetry collection. The poems already show his later mastery in psychological representation.
1914 - Erster Weltkrieg
The war fundamentally changes Zweig's worldview. World War I makes Zweig a convinced pacifist. He works in the war archive and begins his friendship with Romain Rolland.
1920 - Salzburg
Zweig moves to Salzburg and becomes a world star. In Salzburg, Zweig writes his most famous works. His house becomes a meeting place for the international artistic elite.
1933 - Exil beginnt
Zweig leaves Austria and begins his exile. After the Nazi seizure of power, Zweig must leave Austria. His books are burned, his assets confiscated.
1942 - Tod in Brasilien
Zweig and his wife Lotte commit suicide in Petrópolis. On February 22, 1942, Stefan and Lotte Zweig take their own lives. In his farewell letter, Zweig writes: "I greet all my friends! May they still see the dawn after the long night!"
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The Path to Becoming a Writer
Under the influence of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Zweig discovered his passion for literature. His first poems appeared in 1901 under the title "Silberne Saiten" – the beginning of an extraordinary career.
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Novellas & Stories
• Burning Secret (1911)
• Amok (1922)
• Decisive Moments in History (1927)
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Great Biographies
• Romain Rolland (1921)
• Mary Stuart (1935)
• Magellan (1938)
These works combined subtle knowledge of the soul with a tension-filled narrative style. World War I transformed Zweig into a convinced pacifist and close ally of Romain Rolland. After his work in the war archive, he went to Zurich in 1917 and worked until 1919 for the "Neue Freie Presse" in Switzerland.
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A Cosmopolitan on Travels
Stefan Zweig was a true cosmopolitan – his study and lecture tours took him to all corners of the earth. From India (1910) to North and Central America (1912) to the Soviet Union (1928) and finally to South America (from 1935) – everywhere he sought connections between cultures.
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1938
Divorce from Friderike
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1939
Marriage to Lotte Altmann
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1941
Relocation to Brazil
In his estate were found his Memories of a European – "The World of Yesterday" – a work full of nostalgia and sorrow that conjures up the vanished world of old Europe. Zweig's literary work, including translations of Verhaeren, Baudelaire and Verlaine as well as many political and literary-historical essays, impresses today as it did then through his humanistically shaped cosmopolitanism.
Mediator Between People, Nations and Cultures
"I have always tried to build bridges between people."
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Vienna around 1900 – The Golden Age
Vienna around 1900 was the Vienna of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan Zweig – a tired, life-sated metropolis of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in the beautiful era before the great war. It was a Vienna that seemed to have sunk into a Sleeping Beauty slumber, deliberately plunged into a dreamy calm by Emperor Franz Joseph.
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The Young Poets of Vienna
Would we want to miss even one of the poems that the seventeen- to eighteen-year-olds wrote at that time? That of Hofmannsthal – that boy, descendant of a Lombard aristocrat and a father elevated to the nobility by the emperor, heir to an ancient lineage, who composed those unforgettable lines:
"Ganz vergessener Völker Müdigkeiten kann ich nicht abtun von meinen Lidern."
– Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Oder jenes von Stefan Zweig, das der siebzehnjährige Schüler "Herbst" nennt und das dann später der nur um wenige Jahre ältere Max Reger mit anderen Gedichten des jungen Dichters vertonte – ein Werk, das über Jahre in vielen Konzerten zu hören war. Es ist makellos in der Form, aber schon von einer seltsamen Ahnung kommenden schweren Lebens gezeichnet, das sich dann so schicksalhaft erfüllen sollte. Sein ganzes Leben hindurch hat Stefan Zweig dieses Herbstgefühl nicht verlassen.
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Reluctant Chronicler – Witness of an Era
Stefan Zweig, alongside Hofmannsthal the most idiosyncratic and penetrating figure of the Viennese circle, the most open-minded contemporary among them, became at the same time their reluctant chronicler, with the far-reaching memories of a European "The World of Yesterday" (1942), which span a period of fifty years.
"Man lebte gut, man lebte leicht und unbesorgt in jenem alten Wien, und die Deutschen im Norden sahen etwas ärgerlich und neidisch auf diese sorglose Art des Lebens. Und wirklich, was ging sie das an, was außerhalb Österreichs geschah? In ihrem Österreich gab es in jener windstillen Epoche keine Staatsumwälzungen, keine jähen Wertzerstörungen..."
– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
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Psychologe aus Leidenschaft – Der Seelenkenner
Stefan Zweig, von dem die Kritik später rühmend sagte, er besäße eine ungeheure Witterung für Dinge und Menschen, wäre nicht der Psychologe aus Leidenschaft geworden, wenn nicht schon damals jene Instinkte in ihm wach gewesen wären, die auf jede Gefahr und Veränderung minutiös reagieren.
"He faithfully obeyed his admonition rather a year too early than a day too late, for timeliness is a virtue that Stefan Zweig proved not only in the choice of material for his works, but also in the shaping of his life."
– Franz Werfel über Stefan Zweig
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Knowledge of Human Nature
Zweig's ability to penetrate the human psyche made his biographies masterpieces of character study.
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Zeitgeist Sensor
His sensitivity to social changes made him sense early the catastrophes of the 20th century.
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Youth and Education – The Spoiled Student
He had spent his youth spoiled in a wealthy parental home. He took school without particular interest as something apparently necessary. Arthur Schnitzler, another Viennese friend, said of him that Stefan Zweig was an above-average gifted student to whom all tasks fell into his lap while dawdling.
But with the day of school graduation, the world stood open to him, and it tempted him to get to know its vastness, to sound its depth. He quickly went through the first Viennese semesters to then go to Berlin, which attracted him because he wanted to savor the opposite, the foreignness of a city that had little or nothing in common with the place of his childhood.
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Privileged Childhood
Growing up in prosperity and security, Zweig developed early a curiosity for the world outside his sheltered environment.
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Wanderlust and Thirst for Adventure
The longing for the foreign and unknown drove him early out into the world – a drive that would shape his entire life.
"In Berlin I sat in the cafés and taverns at the same table with heavy drinkers and homosexuals and morphine addicts, I shook hands - very proudly - with a quite well-known and punished impostor. Everything that I had hardly believed in realistic novels pushed and crowded together in the small taverns and cafés into which I was introduced, and the worse a person's reputation was, the more eagerly my interest to get to know its bearer personally. This special love or curiosity for endangered people has accompanied me throughout my life ..." (from: The World of Yesterday)
The first volumes of poetry with the characteristic titles of youth Silberne Saiten (1901), Frühe Kränze (1906), the first collection of novellas Die Liebe der Erika Ewald (1904) and others had appeared. Studies on Verlaine, Rimbaud, Balzac and other great poets, especially from France, caused a sensation in literary circles, to which this excellently writing man from Vienna must have been noticeable.
At the age of twenty, Zweig was awarded a doctorate in philosophy, then to recognize very clearly and decisively that he would not get far on the chosen academic path. Above all, he now devoted himself to foreign works. He became a servant and mediator between peoples through the translation of essential poetry, whose creators would later mostly become his closest friends, like Romain Rolland or Emile Verhaeren, whose work he made known, indeed famous in Germany.
"Following my own wish and the advice of Richard Dehmel, I used my time to translate from foreign languages, which I still consider today the best possibility for a young poet to understand the spirit of his own language more deeply and creatively ... Precisely because every foreign language in its most personal turns initially creates resistance for translation, it challenges powers of expression that otherwise would not come into play unsought, and this struggle to wrest the most personal from the foreign language has always meant a special kind of artistic pleasure for me." (from: The World of Yesterday)
Travels and Friendships
He connected this full decade - until the First World War - with extensive travels to France, England, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, America, India, Ceylon, China, Africa and thus gradually became a European, as he himself said. These ten years have matured him and strengthened him inwardly.
Everywhere in the world he had friends whose names are sonorous and brilliant: Rolland, Masereel, Gorki, Shaw, Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Albert Schweitzer, a long, honorable list could be compiled.
Rilke and Hofmannsthal were bound to him in friendship and heartfelt sentiment, until death intervened and both poets, a few years apart, 1926, Rilke, 1929 Hofmannsthal, were called away and the friend, Stefan Zweig, had to deliver the eulogies for both, which speak of love and reverence, of recognition of their unique appearances in German, in European poetry.
The First World War
With the First World War began for him a decisive turning point. The war was the most painful time of his life. Again he was gripped by the will to work and achieve. Finally he set himself plan and goal, action alone should now decide. These are fruitful years for Stefan Zweig, years of maturity, introspection and transformation.
Courage, determination and again and again love for humanity were what pointed him to the new path, where he could work and create, but now no longer only for himself alone, but for Europe and for all people to whom humanity and freedom are not empty phrases. In the midst of the world war he wrote his drama Jeremias.
World Fame and Success
Incomparable seemed the now beginning intensity of this poet and writer. Long ago success and world fame had attached themselves to his name. Above all, the youth loved him, to whom his work gave trust and hope, example and direction. His readers, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands, awaited every new book from him with impatience.
Whether it was novellas in which he pursued psychological processes with empathy, in a pathetically elevated language (Fear, 1920; Amok, 1922; Confusion of Feelings, 1927) or the great biographies in which he emphasized the fateful nature of certain events (Josef Fouché, 1929; Healing Through the Spirit, 1931; Marie Antoinette, 1932; Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1934; Maria Stuart, 1935) - or the biographical portraits of Hölderlin, Kleist, Balzac, Dickens, Nietzsche written with magnificent brilliance and other literary portraits, his sphere of influence became ever wider and greater, far beyond the borders of his own country.
The unique aspect of his strong and full personality, however, was that he was comrade, friend and servant at the same time, whereby we recognize another element in this person, namely that of personal modesty, a character trait that repeatedly captivated the youth at home and abroad, who loved and revered the human being in the poet of Decisive Moments in History, whom Hermann Hesse once called a master of friendship and of whom Romain Rolland wrote in his diary entries in April 1919:
"I know no one among my friends who cultivates a deeper and more pious cult of friendship than Stefan Zweig - Friendship is his religion."
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Ein Visionär für Europa
Stefan Zweig's poetic work is today as valid as it was then, but he also impresses as a European who, in alliance with other great poets, represented the idea of European unity at a time when only vaguely few dared to think it.
And the more the literary world became interested in him, wanting to drag him into the spotlight of the broad public, the more the person Zweig concealed himself in order to live entirely for his task: to be a caller and warner in a world that visibly, before everyone's eyes, was heading with giant steps towards an abyss.
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The World of Yesterday – A Farewell Letter to Europe
Stefan Zweig's last book, the Memories of a European, which appeared after his death under the characteristic title "The World of Yesterday", we read with that emotion that always arises when the life and work of the self-portraying person far exceeds the private fate and touches our own life in this time.
There is no page in this comprehensive book that is not filled with experience and lived moments. His records reach back to the turn of the century and end with the beginning of the Second World War.
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The Vienna of Youth
Zweig describes the Vienna of his youth as a city of coffee houses, theaters and endless conversations. A world in which art and literature were at the center of social life.
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Europe Before the War
He depicts a Europe without borders, in which artists and intellectuals could travel freely. A continent that was not yet torn apart by nationalism and hatred.
„Ich habe die große Zeit der individuellen Freiheit erlebt und sehe, wie sie in Europa zu Ende geht."
– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
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Exile and Loneliness – The Last Years
Stefan Zweig was, when he had completed his sixth decade of life, tired and lonely. He felt old, indeed abandoned and cut off from the world. Exile had separated him not only geographically, but also spiritually from everything that had been dear and precious to him.
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Homeless
Expelled from Salzburg, Vienna and Europe
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Speechless
His books burned, his language banned
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Friendless
Separated from friends and intellectual homeland
"I write them [my memories] in foreign lands and without the slightest memory aid. Not a copy of my books, no records, no letters from friends are at hand in my hotel room. Of all my past I have nothing with me but what I carry behind my forehead. Everything else is for me at this moment unreachable and lost."
– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (1942)
So these are not empty words that a writer wrote in a depressive hour. They contain the whole truth of his tragedy, to which others were also exposed in those years of exile.
♟️
Chess Story – A Last Masterpiece
Apart from his Balzac, in the last year of his life Zweig wrote the quickly famous Chess Story. If in the past people praised Zweig's special art in his widely read stories "Amok" or "Confusion of Feelings" of depicting events of incredible tension in the tightest space, the critical observer must say of the Chess Story that it can definitely compete with all other stories by Zweig in terms of dramatic intensity.
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Psychological Depth
The novella shows Zweig's masterful ability to fathom the human psyche. The chess game becomes a metaphor for the struggle between reason and madness.
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Dramatic Tension
In the tightest space, Zweig unfolds a story of incredible intensity. Every move, every turn is well thought out and inevitably leads to the tragic end.
And yet: Zweig felt very precisely the waning of his creative imagination; he knew, a psychologist not only for other people, that his powers would decline because the meaning of life seemed nebulous to him, the further the catastrophe progressed.
⭐
The Golden Years 1929-1936 – Peak of His Creative Work
These years mark the peak of Stefan Zweig's literary work. In Salzburg, his most famous works were created while Europe still lived in relative peace – before the storm of history changed everything. It was a time of creative abundance and international fame.
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1929
"Joseph Fouché" – Masterpiece of Psychology
The Chameleon of the Revolution
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1935
"Maria Stuart" – Royal Drama
Tragedy of Power
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1938
"Magellan" – Explorer Biography
The Man and His Deed
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1936
Worldwide Fame
Most Read Author
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Salzburg – The Creative Center of Europe
In his house on the Kapuzinerberg, Zweig received the intellectual elite of Europe: Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini. Here most of his great biographies were created in an atmosphere of peace and inspiration. The house became a Mecca of European culture.
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Literary Mastery
These years brought forth Zweig's most mature works. His biographies achieved a psychological depth that made him the most widely read German-speaking author. His books were translated into over 30 languages.
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International Fame
Zweig became a global phenomenon. His works found resonance from New York to Tokyo, from Buenos Aires to Moscow. He was the first German-speaking author to achieve worldwide popularity.
"In Salzburg I felt truly at home for the first time – here I could write, think, live."
– Stefan Zweig about his Salzburg years
"Zweig is the greatest biographer of our time – he understands how to fathom the soul of history."
– Thomas Mann about Stefan Zweig
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The End of the Golden Age
But these golden years were not to last. With the rise of National Socialism and the annexation of Austria in 1938, this phase of creative abundance ended abruptly. Zweig had to leave his beloved Salzburg and began his odyssey through exile – a path that would eventually lead to Brazil.
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Friendships and Encounters – The Heart of His Life
Stefan Zweig was not only a great writer, but also a master of friendship. His encounters with other artists and intellectuals decisively shaped his life and work.
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Literary Friends
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal – Mentor and Pioneer
• Romain Rolland – Pacifist and Comrade
• Rainer Maria Rilke – Poetic Soulmate
• Arthur Schnitzler – Viennese Colleague
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International Encounters
• Émile Verhaeren – Belgian Poet
• Auguste Rodin – French Sculptor
• Maxim Gorki – Russian Writer
• Hermann Hesse – Swiss Colleague
„Freundschaft ist seine Religion."
– Romain Rolland über Stefan Zweig
These words summarize what Zweig meant to his friends: A loyal companion who stood by them in good times and bad.
The Farewell
In Petropolis (Brazil) he voluntarily ended his life on February 22, 1942. His farewell letter to friends read:
"Before I voluntarily and with clear senses depart from life, I feel compelled to fulfill one last duty: ... I greet all my friends! May they still see the dawn after the long night! I, all too impatient, go ahead of them."
Stefan Zweig - A life between Vienna, Europe and the world. Writer, humanist, chronicler of a declining epoch – his works tell of passion, knowledge and the insatiable urge to understand the human in man.
📅 Detailed Life Chronology
1929
"Joseph Fouché – Portrait of a Political Man" appears, as well as the play "Das Lamm der Armen" (premiere 1930 in Breslau) and the novella collection "Kleine Chronik". Lecture tour through Germany and Belgium. Memorial speech at the funeral service for Hugo von Hofmannsthal at the Vienna Burgtheater.
1930
Major trip to Italy, visit with Maxim Gorki in Sorrento. Meeting with Albert Schweitzer in Günsbach. Zweig's play "Das Lamm des Armen" is performed in Breslau, Hannover, Lübeck, Prague and Vienna.
1931
Commission for the libretto for the opera "Die schweigsame Frau". Trip to France, visit with his friend Joseph Roth. The fourth volume of essays "Die Heilung durch den Geist" (about Sigmund Freud, Anton Mesmer and Mary Baker-Eddy) appears.
1932
"Marie Antoinette. Bildnis eines mittleren Charakters" appears at Insel-Verlag, Leipzig. Trips to France and Italy, lectures in Florence and Milan.
1933
Book burnings by the National Socialists, in which Stefan Zweig's books are also burned. In Germany, his publications may no longer be distributed. Until 1938, Zweig's books appear at the publishing house of Herbert Reichner, Vienna. In Basel preliminary work on "Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam". Trip to France and Italy. In autumn longer stay in London, where Zweig rents a small apartment (Portland Place 11).
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1934 – The End of Salzburg
After the police house search in the Salzburg house, Zweig moves to London. Friderike remains in Salzburg – a painful separation after years of living together. "Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam" appears while Zweig is already living in exile.
Lotte Altmann becomes Zweig's secretary; together they travel to Scotland to collect material for the biography "Maria Stuart". In August trip to Switzerland and Salzburg – the last return to the beloved homeland. The dissolution of the Salzburg household is planned.
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1935 – Ban and Triumph
In Dresden premiere of the opera "Die schweigsame Frau" by Richard Strauss, for which Stefan Zweig had written the libretto. An artistic triumph – but shortly after the premiere the opera is banned in Germany. The Nazis show their true face.
Trip to Switzerland, to France. Lecture tour in the USA – Zweig becomes an ambassador of European culture. The biography "Maria Stuart" is published – another masterpiece of psychological biography.
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1936 – New Home London
In London move to a larger apartment (Hallam Street 49) – a new home in exile. In Vienna, Stefan Zweig's collected stories appear in two volumes. The religious-historical study "Castellio gegen Calvin – Ein Gewissen gegen die Gewalt" is published.
In August first trip to Brazil, numerous readings and lectures. Then to Argentina for the PEN Congress in Buenos Aires – Zweig becomes a world citizen who is welcome everywhere.
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1937 – Farewell and New Beginning
In Vienna a volume with collected essays, forewords, speeches etc. appears: "Begegnungen mit Menschen, Büchern, Städten" – a retrospective on a rich life. The Salzburg house is sold – the final farewell from the beloved homeland.
"Magellan. Der Mann und seine Tat" appears – a last great work that tells of adventure and determination. Zweig writes about a man who, like himself, explored the world and went new ways.
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1938 – The Year of Losses
Stefan Zweig travels with Lotte Altmann to Portugal – a journey that will change his life. Death of his mother – another loss in a time full of farewells. In August application for British citizenship – the attempt to find a new homeland.
Divorce from Friderike in December – the end of a long marriage. At the National Socialist book burning in Salzburg, Stefan Zweig's books are also burned – his work is destroyed. Lecture tour through 30 American cities – Zweig becomes an ambassador of European culture.
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1939 – New Love, New Life
Marriage to Lotte Altmann – a new love in dark times. In July, move from London to Bath, UK – a quieter place to work. Beginning of work on a two-volume biography of Honoré de Balzac – an ambitious project.
The novel "Ungeduld des Herzens" appears in London and in the two exile publishing houses Gottfried Bermann-Fischer (Stockholm) and Allert de Lange (Amsterdam). "Words at the Coffin of Sigmund Freud" on September 26, crematorium of Golders Green, London – a last greeting to a great friend.
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1940 – Between Europe and America
Lotte and Stefan Zweig move into their own house in Bath – a new home. In March both become British citizens – a new identity. In April trip to a lecture "Das Wien von gestern" at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris – a last return to Europe.
In Paris work on "Balzac". In July trip with Lotte from London to New York, then lecture tour through South America – the discovery of a new world. Return to New York. Last encounters with German exile writers. Work on the book "Brasilien. Land der Zukunft" – a vision of hope.
1941
At Yale University in New Haven work on the Amerigo Vespucci biography (published in 1944 as "Amerigo – Geschichte eines historischen Irrtums"). Summer in Ossining, NY. First version of the autobiography "Die Welt von Gestern" (original title "Drei Leben") completed. End of August trip to Brazil; in Petrópolis the "Schachnovelle" is created. Beginning of a study on Montaigne.
1942
News about the expansion of the world war leads to worsening depression. On February 22, suicide of Lotte and Stefan Zweig. Contrary to the testamentary wish, the Zweig couple receives a state funeral at the cemetery of Petrópolis. In May 1942, the University of Vienna decides to revoke Stefan Zweig's doctorate.
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A Legacy for Eternity
Stefan Zweig's work lives on – in the hearts of readers, in the libraries of the world and in the hope for a united Europe. His words are more relevant today than ever.
