Ludwig Renn

Renn, Ludwig, pseudonym of Arnold Vieth von Golßenau (Dresden, 1889-1979, (East) Berlin), a Saxon nobleman. Renn is the name of the narrator and principal character of Vieth's first successful novel Krieg (1928), and the name appeared as author on the title-page. Vieth's subsequent works appeared under this pseudonym. From 1911 an officer in the Saxon Guards, Renn served throughout the 1914-18 War, after which he studied law and economics and was for a short time a police officer. He became a communist, a step which the novel Nachkrieg (1930) reflects. Known for his political activities, he was arrested by the National Socialist regime in 1933 and imprisoned, but escaped abroad and served on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, of which he wrote an account in Der spanische Krieg (1955). From 1939 to 1947 he lived in Mexico, devoting himself to the movement Freies Deutschland, of which he was president. In 1944 he published the novel Adel im Untergang. From 1947 to 1951 he held a chair at the Dresden Technical University. His later publications include the novels Krieg ohne Schlacht (1957) and Auf den Trümmern des Kaiserreichs (1961), and the autobiographical Meine Kindheit und Jugend (1957). His works, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben (12 vols.), were published in 1966-80.