De Wohl, Louis
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of German author Lajos Theodor Gaspar Adolf Wohl (1903-1961), who also wrote as Ludwig von Wohl; in London from 1935 due to his mixed Hungarian and Jewish ancestry. Quite certainly due to his serious interest in astrology, he served during World War Two for the British Special Operations Executive generating "false" astrological predictions of coming German doom to distress Hitler, though his claims that the Führer was significantly influenced by such predictions have been questioned, and he himself has been portrayed as a self-serving charlatan. There seem to be no prior German versions of his Dr Zodiac occult thrillers – Introducing Doctor Zodiac (1940), which pits the Doctor against an intrigued Adolf Hitler, and Strange Daughter (1945), in which the Doctor wars against black Magic – but he was once again publishing in his native land a few years later, with Die Erde liegt hinter uns (1954; trans as The Second Conquest 1954), in which an advanced civilization is discovered on Mars. [JC]
Lajos Theodor Gaspar Adolf Wohl
born Berlin: 24 January 1903
died Lucerne, Switzerland: 2 June 1961
works
series
Dr Zodiac
- Introducing Doctor Zodiac (London: Andrew Dakers, 1940) [Dr Zodiac: hb/]
- Strange Daughter (London: Lawson and Dunn, 1945) [Dr Zodiac: hb/Elias]
individual titles
- Die Erde liegt hinter uns (Olten, Germany: Freiburg, 1954) [hb/]
- The Second Conquest (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J B Lippincott, 1954) [trans of the above: hb/]
links
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