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Karl Gutzkow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (born March 17, 1811 in Berlin, died December 16, 1878 in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
Gutzkow grew up in a rather poor family: his father, a brick layer by trade, worked in the stables of the Berlin court. Gutzkow studied theology and philosophy under Hegel and Schleiermacher. While Gutzkow started out as a collaborator of Wolfgang Menzel, he ended up his adversary.
His innovative novel Wally die Zweiflerin attacked both marriage and religion for which Gutzkow suffered a three-month imprisonment. This was used as a pretext in order to ban the works of many other progressive writers, amongst them Heinrich Heine. Gutzkow was the editor of the Telegraph für Deutschland and became one of Germany's eminent critics. The novels Die Ritter vom Geist (1850/51) and Der Zauberer von Rom (1856/61) were very successful; Gutzkow used his new Simultantechnik in them[citation needed].
His comedy in 5 acts Zopf und Schwert (1844) received two adaptations; in 1926 Aafa Film AG made the movie Zopf und Schwert - Eine tolle Prinzessin[1], and Edmund Nick used it for his operetta Über alles siegt die Liebe (Love Conquers Everything) (1940, libretto by Bruno Hardt-Warden).
Gutzkow was never a revolutionary, and he became more conservative with age. He was one of the first Germans who tried to make a living by writing[citation needed]. With his play Uriel Acosta, and other works, he stood up for the emancipation of the Jews[citation needed].