Rudolf Herzog

Born on December 6, 1869, in Barmen—now part of Wuppertal—he worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time writer. He published novels, plays, poetry, travel writing, and historical works, and became especially popular with Germany’s middle-class readership. His best-known novels include Die Wiskottens (1905), Die vom Niederrhein (1903), Hanseaten (1909), and Die Stoltenkamps und ihre Frauen (1917).\n\nHis fiction often focused on determined industrialists, artists, and families shaped by duty, ambition, and national feeling. He was closely associated with the ideals of the Wilhelmine era and later adopted increasingly nationalist political views, supporting the Nazi regime in the 1930s. He died on February 3, 1943, in Rheinbreitbach, and his once-considerable literary reputation faded after the Second World War.