Wolf, Friedrich
WOLF, FRIEDRICH
WOLF, FRIEDRICH (1888–1953), German playwright, author, and essayist. Wolf, who was born in Neuwied am Rhein, rebelled against his middle-class Jewish upbringing and ran away from home, hoping to become a painter in Munich. After varied experiences working on Rhine steamers and even in the Salvation Army, he qualified as a physician and served as a German medical officer during World War i. Wolf's growing opposition to the war led to his confinement in a mental hospital, where he was allowed to treat other patients. A member of the short-lived Dresden Soviet (1919), he joined the Communist Party in 1928, became active in leftist intellectual circles, and visited the U.S.S.R. in 1931. Two years later he immigrated first to Switzerland, and then to France, where he lived until 1941, except for the time he spent fighting in the republican army during the Spanish Civil War. In 1941 Wolf escaped from a detention camp in occupied France and made his way to the U.S.S.R., where he became a radio propagandist and a co-founder of the Communist-sponsored Committee for a Free Germany (1943). He returned to Germany as a Red Army medical officer in 1945. From 1950 to 1951 he was East Germany's ambassador in Warsaw.
Wolf's early expressionism dominated his plays such as Mohammed (written 1917, publ. 1924) and Der Mann im Dunkel (1925), but political engagement characterized his many later works. These include the dramas Der arme Konrad (1924), Cyankali (1929), Die Matrosen von Cattaro (1930; The Sailors of Cattaro, 1935), Florisdorf (1935, Eng. 1935), and Das trojanische Pferd (1937). Other works published before World War ii (many printed in Moscow) were Der Sprung durch den Tod (1925) and Die Nacht von Béthineville (1936), stories; and Zwei an der Grenze (1938), an autobiographical novel. Wolf's best-known drama, Professor Mamlock (1933, first as Dr. Mamlocks Ausweg; Eng. 1935), was widely circulated among exiled democrats and underground resistance workers. He published a stream of stories and plays during and after World War ii, including the autobiographical kz Vernet (1941), Zwei Kaempfer vor Moskau (1942), Heimkehr der Soehne (1944), Menetekel oder die fliegenden Untertassen (1952), and the drama, Thomas Muenzer (1953). Wolf also wrote essays on the theater and published five volumes of collected plays (1946–49). He was twice awarded East Germany's National Prize (1949, 1950). Between 1960 and 1967, a 16-volume edition of his complete works appeared.
bibliography:
W. Pollatschek, Das Buehnenwerk Friedrich Wolfs (1958); idem, Friedrich Wolf (1960); A. Soergel and C. Hohoff, Dichtung und Dichter der Zeit, 2 (1963), 392–7. add. bibliography: H. Haarmann and K. Siebenhaar, "Lebensform und Tendenzkunst: zum Fruehwerk Friedrich Wolfs," in: Internationales Archiv fuer Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 10 (1985), 113–34; K. Hammer, "Konzepte der Menschenveränderung. Friedrich Wolfs Weg zum Dramatiker der Arbeiterklasse," in: Weimarer Beitraege, 34 (1988), 1941–61; L. Hoh mann, Friedrich Wolf: Bilder einer deutschen Biographie. Eine Dokumentation. (1988); F. Wolf, Auf wieviel Pferden ich geritten … Der junge Friedrich Wolf. Eine Dokumentation, ed. by E. Wolf and B. Struzyk (1988); H. Muller (ed.), F. Wolf, Weltbürger aus Neuwied. Selbstzeugnisse in Lyrik und Prosa. Dokumente und Dokumentarisches, Bilder und Briefe, ed. for his 100th birthday by H. Mueller (1988); Mut, nochmals Mut, immerzu Mut! Protokollband, Internationales wissenschaftliches Friedrich-Wolf-Symposium der Volkshochschule der Stadt Neuwied vom 2.–4. Dezember 1988 in Neuwied aus Anlaß des 100. Geburtstages von Dr. Friedrich Wolf, 23.12.1888 in Neuwied (1990); A. Grenville, "From Social Fascism to Popular Front: kpd Policy as Reflected in the Works of Friedrich Wolf, Anna Seghers and Willi Bredel, 1928–1938," in: R. Dove and S. Lamb (eds.), German Writers and Politics 1918–1939 (1992), 89–102; K. Jarmatz, "Zur Rezeption des Werkes von Friedrich Wolf in der frueheren ddr und brd," in: D. Sevin (ed.), Die Resonanz des Exils (1992), 299–312; G. Labroisse, "Rezeption von Exilliteratur im Horizontwandel. Ferdinand Bruckners 'Die Rassen' und Friedrich Wolfs 'Professor Mamlock' in Zürich (1933 bzw. 1934) und Berlin (1948 bzw. 1946)," in: D. Sevin, Die Resonanz des Exils (1992), 154–63; H. Mueller, "'Ich warte nicht, bis man mich hier verhaftet.' Das Moskauer Exil der Familie Friedrich Wolf," in: Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte, 24 (1995), 193–216; D.K. Heizer, Jewish-German Identity in the Orientalist Literature of Else Lasker-Schüler, Friedrich Wolf, and Franz Werfel (1996); A.W. Barker, "Anna Seghers, Friedrich Wolf, and the Civil War of 1934," in: The Modern Language Review, 95:1 (2000), 144–53; idem, "Karl Kraus, Friedrich Wolf and the Response to February 1934," in: G.J. Carr and E. Timms (eds.), Karl Kraus und 'Die Fackel' (2001), 163–69; C. Jakobi, "Antisemitismuskritik und Judendarstellung im deutschsprachigen Exildrama 1933–1945: Anmerkungen zu drei Stuecken von Wolf, Brecht und Hasenclever," in: C. Balme (ed.), Das Theater der Anderen (2001), 205–27; P. Schneck, "Mamlok und Mamlock 1937. Eine Literaturgestalt wurde lebendig. Der Berliner Zahnarzt Hans-Jacques Mamlok und Friedrich Wolfs Drama 'Professor Mamlock'," in: A. Scholz and C.-P. Heidel (eds.), Das Bild des juedischen Arztes in der Literatur (2002), 130–39; A. Scholz and W. Kohlert, "Ärzte, Heiler und Patienten im Werk des Arztes und Dichters Friedrich Wolf," in: A. Scholz and C.-P. Heidel (eds.), Das Bild des juedischen Arztes in der Literatur (2002), 120–29.
[Godfrey Edmond Silverman]