Franz Carl Weiskopf

Franz Carl Weiskopf was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His father was a German Jewish banker and his mother was Czech. He attended German-language schools and then studied German and history at the University of Prague, graduating in 1923. In 1926, he traveled to the Soviet Union and later wrote three books about his experiences: Umsteigen ins 21. Jahrhundert (1927), Zukunft im Rohbau (1932), and the photo book Der Staat ohne Arbeitslose, with Ernst Glaeser (1931). In 1928, he moved to Berlin, where he became editor of the Berlin am Morgen newspaper. That year, he married Margarete "Grete" Bernheim, who wrote books for children and young people under the pseudonym Alex Wedding. He became a member of the German Communist Party (KPD) and the League of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers (Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller or BPRS ), He participated in a Party conference in 1930 with Anna Seghers in the USSR. F.C. Besides his travel books, Weiskopf published novels, short stories, poetry, and essays. He often signed his work F. C. Weiskopf, and also used the pseudonyms Petr Buk, Pierre Buk, and F.W.L. Kovacs. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Weiskopf returned to Prague with Grete, and became editor of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung. When Czechoslovakia was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1938, the newspaper was forced to shut down, and the Weiskopfs fled to Paris. From there, they fled to the USA in 1939, with the help of the League of American Writers. They settled in New York City and wrote for émigré and American magazines. After the end of World War II, Weiskopf began working for the Czech diplomatic corps and was posted first to Washington DC, and then to Stockholm in 1949 as Ambassador to Sweden. From 1950 to 1952, he was Ambassador to China. In 1953, he and Grete moved to East Germany. In the last years of his life, he published the magazine New German Literature (Neue Deutsche Literatur) together with Willi Bredel. and became a member of PEN.