Hans Watzlik

Hans Watzlik is respected as a significant figure of modern literature of the Šumava region in the German language. He was born on 16 December, 1879 in Dolní Dvořiště. When he finished his studies in České Budějovice and Prague he worked as a teacher in Ondřejov, Chvalšiny and later in Nýrsko in the Šumava Hills. He also directed a school in Nýrsko. He entered the world of literature in 1913 with the novel "Im Ring des Ossers". His novel "Die Abenteuer des Florián Regenbogner" is situated in Český Krumlov and its surroundings. He was honoured with the Czechoslovak state award for his novel "Der Pfarrer von Dorlnoh". A selection of his "Legends of Šumava" was also translated into Czech. Repercussions of folk poetic art and rhetoric of the Šumava region seep all through the Watzlik´s work, but also present is a stress on a cultural and ethnic self-determination of German patriotism to the Šumava region that ultimately led him into extreme German nationalism towards the end of his life. It was for this nationalism that he was expelled to Germany in 1945. He died in Tremmelhausen in 1948.

(hj)