Editing Stefan Zweig (section)

== Biography ==
[[File:Stefan Zweig 1900.jpg|left|thumb|Zweig (standing) in Vienna with his brother Alfred (1879–1977), {{Circa|1900}}]]
Zweig was born in Vienna, the son of Ida Brettauer (1854–1938), a daughter of a [[Jewish]] banking family, and Moritz Zweig (1845–1926), a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer.<ref name="Lohrmann2003">Prof.Dr. Klaus Lohrmann ''"Jüdisches Wien. Kultur-Karte"'' (2003), Mosse-Berlin Mitte gGmbH (Verlag Jüdische Presse)</ref> He was related to the Czech writer [[Egon Hostovský]], who described him as "a very distant relative";<ref>''Egon Hostovský: Vzpomínky, studie a dokumenty o jeho díle a osudu'', Sixty-Eight Publishers, 1974</ref> some sources describe them as cousins.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

Zweig studied philosophy at the [[University of Vienna]] and in 1904 earned a doctoral degree with a thesis on "The Philosophy of [[Hippolyte Taine]]". Religion did not play a central role in his education. "My mother and father were Jewish only through accident of birth", Zweig said in an interview. Yet he did not renounce his Jewish faith and wrote repeatedly on Jews and Jewish themes, as in his story ''[[Buchmendel]]''. Zweig had a warm relationship with [[Theodor Herzl]], the founder of [[Zionism]], whom he met when Herzl was still literary editor of the ''[[Neue Freie Presse]]'', then Vienna's main newspaper; Herzl accepted for publication some of Zweig's early essays.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.637453|title=Meet the Austrian-Jewish novelist who inspired Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'|first=Gabe |last=Friedman|date=17 January 2015|work=Haaretz.com}}</ref> Zweig, a committed cosmopolitan,<ref name="FirstThings">{{cite web |last1=Epstein |first1=Joseph |title=Stefan Zweig, European Man |url=https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/06/stefan-zweig-european-man |website=First Things |date=June 2019 |access-date=1 June 2019}}</ref> believed in [[internationalism (politics)|internationalism]] and in [[Europeanism]], as ''[[The World of Yesterday]]'', his autobiography, makes clear: "I was sure in my heart from the first of my identity as a citizen of the world."<ref name="WoY">{{cite book |last1=Zweig |first1=Stefan |title=The World of Yesterday |date=1942|publisher=Plunkett Lake Press (ebook) |location=Chapter IX, paragraph 20 beginning "As a result": Kindle location code 3463 |chapter=Chapter IX: The First Hours of the War of 1914}}</ref> 

Zweig served in the Archives of the Ministry of War and supported Austria's effort for war through his writings in the ''[[Neue Freie Presse]]'' and frequently celebrated in his ''Diaries'' the capture and massacre of opposing soldiers (for instance, writing about the innumerable citizens killed at gunpoint under the suspicion of espionage that "what filth has made ooze must be cauterized with scalding iron".)<ref>{{cite book |title= Reiner Stach – Kafka. Die Jahre der Erkenntnis |first=Reiner|last=Stach|author-link=Reiner Stach |publisher=S. Fischer Verlag |location=Fráncfort del Meno |year=2008 |page=1365}}</ref> Zweig judged Serbian soldiers as "hordes" and stated that "one feels proud to talk German" when thousands of French soldiers were captured in Metz.<ref>{{cite book |title= Reiner Stach – Kafka. Die Jahre der Erkenntnis |first=Reiner|last=Stach|author-link=Reiner Stach |publisher=S. Fischer Verlag |location=Fráncfort del Meno |year=2008 |page=1366}}</ref> Conversely, in his memoirs, ''[[The World of Yesterday]]'', Zweig portrays himself in the role of pacifist at the time of the [[First World War]], states that he refused "to participate in those rabid calumnies against the enemy" (although, through his work in the official ''[[Neue Freie Presse]]'', Zweig promoted the war propaganda issued from the Austrian crown) and affirms that among his intellectual friends he was "alone" in his stance against the war.<ref>{{cite book |title= Stefan Zweig – The World of Yesterday |first=Stefan|last=Zweig|author-link=Stefan Zweig |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Nebraska |year=2013 |pages=130–141}}</ref>

Zweig married [[Friderike Maria von Winternitz]] (born Burger) in 1920; they divorced in 1938. As Friderike Zweig she published a book on her former husband after his death.<ref>{{cite book |title=Stefan Zweig – Wie ich ihn erlebte |first=Friderike|last=Zweig|author-link=Friderike Maria Zweig|publisher=F. A. Herbig Verlag |location=Berlin |year=1948 }}</ref> She later also published a picture book on Zweig.<ref>{{cite book |title= Stefan Zweig : Eine Bildbiographie |first=Friderike |last=Zweig |publisher=Kindler |location=München |year=1961 }}</ref> In the late summer of 1939, Zweig married his secretary Elisabet Charlotte "Lotte" Altmann in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], [[England]].<ref name=yomZweigAltmann>{{Cite web|url=http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=2yNYI%2BdtaJNxY06ArUTdQA&scan=1|title=Index entry for marriage of Altmann, Elisabet C., Spouse:Zweig, Registration district: Bath Register volume & page nbr: 5c, 1914|access-date=17 December 2016|work=Transcription of England and Wales national marriage registrations index 1837–1983|publisher=ONS}}</ref> Zweig's secretary in Salzburg from November 1919 to March 1938 was Anna Meingast (13 May 1881, Vienna – 17 November 1953, Salzburg).<ref>{{cite news|url=http://search.salzburg.com/display/SNA31658-20001215|title=Wichtiges zu Stefan Zweig: Das Salzburger Literaturarchiv erhielt eine bedeutende Schenkung von Wilhelm Meingast|trans-title=Important to Stefan Zweig: The Salzburg Literature Archive received a significant donation from Wilhelm Meingast|language=de|first=Werner|last=Thuswaldner|newspaper=[[Salzburger Nachrichten]]|date=14 December 2000|access-date=15 March 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315184622/http://search.salzburg.com/display/SNA31658-20001215|archive-date=15 March 2014}}</ref>
[[File:Placa R. Stefan Zweig.jpg|left|thumb|Street named after Zweig in [[Laranjeiras]], [[Rio de Janeiro]]]]

[[File:Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. 231.pdf|thumb|A page from the ''Black Book'' (''Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.'', page 231 '''Z'''). Zweig is the second-to-last on the page, along with his full London address.]]

As a Jew, Zweig's high profile did not shield him from the threat of persecution. In 1934, following [[Hitler]]'s rise to power in Germany and the establishment of the ''[[Federal State of Austria|Ständestaat]]'', an authoritarian political regime now known as "[[Austrofascism]]", Zweig left Austria for England, living first in London, then from 1939 in Bath. But England was not far enough away from the Nazi threat for Zweig, and in 1940 Zweig and his second wife crossed the Atlantic to the United States, settling in [[New York City]]. Zweig was correct to fear that he was target of the Nazis even in England: as part of the preparations for their invasion of England - known as [[Operation Seelöwe]] or Operation Sealion - the SS had prepared a list of persons in the UK to be detained immediately.  This so-called ''[[The Black Book (list)|Black Book]]'' came to light after the war; Zweig was listed on page 231, including his London address.

The Zweigs lived only briefly in the US: for two months as guests of [[Yale University]] in [[New Haven, Connecticut]], then renting a house in [[Ossining (village), New York|Ossining]], [[New York (state)|New York]]. On 22 August 1940, they moved again to [[Petrópolis]], a German-colonized mountain town 68 kilometres north of [[Rio de Janeiro]].<ref name="DW_30.04.2009">{{cite news|url=http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,4210755,00.html|title=Revivendo o país do futuro de Stefan Zweig|trans-title=Reviving the country of the future according to Stefan Zweig|language=pt|first=Júlia|last=Dias Carneiro|publisher=[[Deutsche Welle]]|date=30 April 2009|access-date=23 February 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121009175558/http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,4210755,00.html|archive-date=9 October 2012}}</ref> There, he wrote the book ''Brazil, Land of the Future'' and developed a close friendship with Chilean poet [[Gabriela Mistral]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lawrence |first=Edward |date=2018 |title="In This Dark Hour": Stefan Zweig and Historical Displacement in Brazil, 1941–1942 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26575129 |journal=Journal of Austrian Studies |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=1–20 |issn=2165-669X |jstor=26575129 |accessdate=2023-10-25}}</ref> Zweig, feeling increasingly depressed about the situation in Europe and the future for humanity, wrote in a letter to author [[Jules Romains]], "My inner crisis consists in that I am not able to identify myself with the me of passport, the self of exile".<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig|title=When It's Too Late to Stop Fascism, According to Stefan Zweig|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|date=6 February 2017|first=George |last=Prochnik|access-date=10 September 2021}}</ref> He had been despairing at the future of Europe and its culture. He wrote: "I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labour meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/28/post-office-girl-stefan-zweig|title=Ruined souls|last=Banville|first=John|author-link=John Banville|newspaper=The Guardian|date=27 February 2009|access-date=8 August 2017|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> On 23 February 1942, the Zweigs were found dead of a [[barbiturate overdose]] in their house in the city of Petrópolis, holding hands.<ref name="Time1942">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1942/02/24/archives/stefan-zweig-wife-end-lives-in-brazil-austrianborn-author-left-a.html?sq=Stefan%2520Zweig&scp=10&st=cse|title=Stefan Zweig, Wife End Lives In Brazil|agency=[[The United Press]]|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=23 February 1942|access-date=28 November 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773116,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101014145959/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773116,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 October 2010|title=Milestones, Mar. 2, 1942|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=2 March 1942|access-date=28 November 2017}}</ref> [[File:Veronal from Bayer in glass tubes with cork caps - 10 tablets probably produced around 1940 in the Third Reich.jpg|thumb|Barbiturates from [[Bayer]] in glass tubes with cork caps - 10 tablets probably produced around 1940]]The Zweigs' house in Brazil was later turned into a cultural centre and is now known as [[Casa Stefan Zweig]].