Richter, Hans
Entry updated 9 May 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of German author Johannes Richter (1889-1941), whose early association with the Nazi regime in Germany has obliterated his reputation. His novel Der Kanal (1923) is derivative of Bernhard Kellermann's The Tunnel (1903) and describes a five-year construction project to build a canal between the North Sea and the Adriatic. The project is doomed, with great loss of life and the eventual insanity of the project manager. Turmstadt: Roman ["Turmstadt: A Novel"] (1926) reflects the pre-Nazi era when culture Heroes could be admired without heavy premonitions of disaster. The engineer who saves the soulless Utopian City of Turmstadt in Greenland does so through his apparent Discovery of a new Power Source he calls Milanet. But Milanet – rather like the eponymous energy source in Karel Čapek's Krakatit (1924) – cannot be harnessed, and is in any case of Extraterrestrial origin.
Richter died in Lvov, Ukraine, shortly after the extermination of that city's Jews. [JC]
Johannes Richter
born Berlin: 12 July 1889
died Dubno, Lvov, Ukraine: 27 August 1941
works (highly selected)
- Der Kanal: Roman ["The Canal: A Novel"] (Leipzig, Germany: Enst Keils Nachfolger, 1923) [hb/]
- Turmstadt: Roman ["Turmstadt: A Novel"] (Leipzig, Germany: Enst Keils Nachfolger, 1926) [hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry