Emil Ludwig

Emil Ludwig (1881-1948) was a German author, best known for his biographies. He was born in Breslau, Poland, and was the son of ophthalmologist Hermann Cohn. Although he studied law, he never practiced as a lawyer and instead pursued a career in writing. He wrote poems and plays and settled in Switzerland in 1906. During World War I, he served as a correspondent for a German newspaper. His journalism career continued after the war, during which he interviewed figures such as Mussolini, Kemal, Stalin, and Masaryk. In 1920, he wrote a biography of Goethe, which established him as a leading representative of the "new school" of biography, characterized by a more popularized form. This was followed by internationally popular biographies of Napoleon, Christ, and Bismarck, which were considered "very dangerous" by Goebbels. His works on Bismarck and Wilhelm II, which highlighted the opposition between the two men, led to a legal battle with the deposed emperor, which ended favorably for Ludwig. In 1940, he moved to the United States, returning to Switzerland after the war.