The disappearance of Franz Jung. Glimpses of a Biography

The author of this biography, the Berlin Slavic Studies scholar and historian of literature Fritz Mierau (1934–2018), regarded Franz Jung (1888–1963), the writer and economic analyst born in Neisse in Upper Silesia, as an exemplary figure of the 20th century: a man who had experienced in all extremity the century’s loftiest expectations for humanity and most abysmal upheavals. With great expertise and personal involvement, the biographer succeeds in making the fate of this restless spirit emotionally accessible to the reader. The stations of his life pass in rapid succession: avant-garde art; the “Neue Gemeinschaft” (new community); World War I; revolution; Soviet Russia; literary projects; National Socialism; persecutions; imprisonments; flight throughout Europe; liberation by the Americans in Italy after the end of World War II; emigration to the United States; return to Europe and Germany; illness and death. A stammering, staggering, toppling, rising again – again and again, always in doubt whether he was really ever “part of things”. This narrative of a turbulent life, a “speaking while taking a breath”, finds a most congenial complement in the visual world of the painter F.M. Furtwängler.