Flake, Otto (Metz, 1880-1963, Baden-Baden), studied philosophy, Germanistik, and history of art in Strasburg, where with his Alsatian fellow students R. Schickele and E. Stadler he edited a cultural periodical (Der Stürmer, then for a short time with Schickele, Der Merkur). He travelled widely, worked for a time as a private tutor in St Petersburg, as a correspondent for Die neue Rundschau in Constantinople, and during the 1914-18 War in Brussels, where he met G. Benn. After the war he went to Zurich before resuming his travels to Russia, England, and France, and living in Berlin and Bozen. In 1927, when Mussolini expelled him from his South Tyrolean home, he went for a time to Zurich before finally settling in Baden-Baden. Flake was particularly concerned to promote international, European, and especially Franco-German understanding, and the scene of most of his considerable output is either France or the western frontier territory of Germany. Recognized as one of the foremost writers of his generation (H. Mann, A. Döblin), notably on account of his ‘Ruland’ novels, he increasingly avoided publicity during the National Socialist period which he perceived as years of ‘inner emigration’ (see Innere Emigration). Closely associated with S. Fischer since before the 1914-18 War, he continued to be published by Fischer's successor P. Suhrkamp until the early 1940s when the strained relationship between the two men cost him his publisher's support. A strong individualist reluctant to court favour, he saw the beginnings of a revival during his last years.
Flake's earlier novels included Expressionistic experiments, and in Die Stadt des Hirns (1919) he attempted a new kind of philosophical novel. Its sequel, Nein und Ja (1920), was concerned with the theory and practice of sexual promiscuity. By now he had turned to the Bildungsroman which he conceived as treating the self-realization of the individual. Central to his novels of these years is Ruland, who represents Flake's ideal of the intelligent, independent, modern European. The first of a cycle of five novels is Freitagskind (1913) which, based on the author's own youth spent in Colmar, was republished as Eine Kindheit (1928). There followed Ruland (1922), Der gute Weg (1924), Villa USA (1928), and Freund aller Welt (1928). They were succeeded by Montijo oder Die Suche nach der Nation (1931) and Die Töchter Noras (1934, as Kamilla, 1948). In ‘Das Urbild der "Hortense"’ Flake described the source of his fictitious biography Hortense oder Die Rückkehr nach Baden-Baden (1933), which is sometimes seen as belonging to the Badische Chronik, consisting of two novels (Die junge Monthiver, 1934, and Anselm und Verena, 1935) which later appeared together as Die Monthivermädchen (1952 and 1960). Structural discipline and the creation of a wide variety of characters representing society are among Flake's qualities as a writer of fiction in which the unusual lives of his central figures unfold. His major novel, Fortunat (4 vols., 1946-8, in 1 vol., 1960), described by P. Suhrkamp as ‘ein klassischer Roman der Vernünftigkeit’, reflects the European intellectual and social outlook of a 19th-c. figure linked through his parents with both Germany and France; Jacques Kestenholz, the illegitimate son of a German (Baden) woman and a French émigré, faces the world with tolerance and finds fulfilment as a doctor in Paris. Other novels include the autobiographical Schloß Ortenau (1955). Flake's autobiography, Es wird Abend (1960) was reissued in 1980 with a postscript by Peter de Mendelssohn.
An admirer of Montaigne, Flake was a notable essayist. K. Tucholsky was among the first to recognize his enlightened spirit in 1921: Das Ende der Revolution (1920) was Flake's first major study, which in 1930 was followed by Der Marquis de Sade (said to have been one of the sources on which P. Weiss based his play) and by Die Französische Revolution (1932). His novels, too, benefit from his detailed knowledge of history, the presentation of which shows him opposed to war, nationalism, and ideologies that obstruct his humanitarian spirit. His literary profiles include Oscar Wilde, Stendhal, who is also among the authors he translated, J. Burckhardt, Pückler-Muskau, Flaubert, Diderot, and Heine. Other studies include Ulrich von Hutten (1929), Große Damen des Barock (1939), Kaspar Hauser (1950), and, last not least, the collection Die erotische Freiheit (1928). In Nietzsche. Rückblick auf eine Philosophie he investigates Nietzsche's influence on the rise of fascism. The collection Die Verurteilung des Sokrates (1963, ed. R. Hochhuth and F. Gröblin-Schaub) was followed by Freiheitsbaum und Guillotine as vol. 5 of Werke in Einzelbänden (5 vols., 1973-6), ed. R. Hochhuth and P. Härtling.
