Franz Carl Weiskopf

Franz Carl Weiskopf studied at Charles University and philosophy faculty of the German university of Prague. The recorded working language is German, Czech and English. The field of work recorded is prose, opinion journalism and translation. Positions recorded include ambassador.

Weiskopf was the son of a German banker who was Jewish and a Czech mother. He studied at a German school in Prague and then went to university in his hometown to study Germanistik and history from 1919 to 1923. He traveled to the Soviet Union in 1926 Two years later he moved to Berlin where he became editor of the Berlin am Morgen newspaper. He was a member in good standing of the Confederation of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers (German: Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller) and participated in a conference in 1930 with Anna Seghers in Charkow in the Soviet Union. He married the writer Grete Bernheim. After the takeover by the Nazis in 1933 Weiskopf returned to Prague, where he was editor of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung. When the newspaper was forced to shut down in October 1938, Weiskopf left for Paris. From there, he traveled to the United States in April 1939, with the help of the League of American Writers. He survived the war in New York. After the end of the war, Weiskopf was in the diplomatic service of Czechoslovakia and worked, first at an Embassy in Washington DC, 1949 to 1950 as ambassador to Stockholm, and from 1950 to 1952 as ambassador to Beijing. In 1952 he returned to Prague, but moved in 1953 to East Berlin. In the last years of his life he was a board member of the Deutscher Schriftstellerverband, and published the magazine New German Literature (German: Neue Deutsche Literatur) together with Willi Bredel and became member of PEN. F.C. Weiskopf wrote novels, short stories, stories, anecdotes, poetry and essays. His work was always realistic, stylistically far above the average for other authors of the Socialist realism. His narrative works were mostly set in the middle of Czechoslovakia and describe the path of solidarity of citizens and workers since the First World War. His wife initiated a Weiskopf named Prize, which has been awarded since 1956 for contribution to the preservation of the German language. In 2024, the prize was merged with his wife's own prize (the Alex Wedding Prize). F.C. Weiskopf and his wife are buried in Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

Weiskopf's works include;

Januartage, Prag-Karlin 1926 Denise Leblond-Zola: Zola, Berlin 1932 Hundred towers, New York 1945 Kisch-Kalender, Berlin 1955

Tschechische Lieder, Berlin 1925 Das Herz - ein Schild, London 1937 Gesang der gelben Erde, Berlin 1951 Chien Tien: Des Tien Tschien Lied vom Karren, Berlin 1953 Max Švabinský: Schmetterlingszeit, Prag 1954