Leonhard Frank

German writer, novelist and playwright Leonhard Frank was born in Wurzburg, Germany, the son of a carpenter. His schooling was interrupted when he had to drop out to go to work to help his impoverished family. He eventually moved to Munich to study art, but found that he much preferred writing to painting. He published his first novel in 1914, "The Robber Band", to great acclaim, and followed that with another success, "The Cause of the Crime". Both novels reflect Frank's own upbringing in poverty, and his sense of "social justice" infused much of his work. With World War I raging in Europe Frank wrote his most controversial book, the anti-war "Der Mensch ist Gut", which was blasted as "treasonous" and "weakening morale on the home front" by right-wing critics. His most successful novel, "Carl and Anna"--a tale of two young German soldiers taken prisoner on the Russian front and forced to work on the desolate Russian steppe, and the steps they take to survive and what happens when they finally return to Germany--got him elected into the prestigious German Academy of Letters (it was made into a film in 1928, Homecoming (1928)_). When the Nazis took over Germany Frank, who was Jewish, left for Paris, and later lived in England and Switzerland. In 1940 he was able to leave Europe for the US. After the war he returned to Germany. He died in Munich on Aug. 18, 1961.