Andreas Latzko

Andreas Latzko (Hungarian: Latzkó Andor; 1 September 1876, in Budapest, Hungary – 11 September 1943, in Amsterdam, Netherlands) was an Austro-Hungarian pacifist of Jewish origin, a novelist and biographer.

Early life

Andreas Latzko attended grammar school and high school in Budapest. After high school, he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army as a one-year volunteer becoming a reserve officer. He then went to Berlin, where he first studied chemistry and then philosophy at the University of Berlin.

Career beginnings

Latzko wrote his first literary works in Hungarian. His first in German, a one-act play, was published in Berlin. He also worked as a journalist, traveling to Egypt, India, Ceylon and Java.

World War I and its aftermath

In August 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he returned to Egypt and served as an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army of Austria-Hungary. With the beginning of the war between Italy and Austria-Hungary, he was sent to the front on the Isonzo River. He fell ill with malaria, but he was not sent away from the front until he suffered a severe shock from a heavy Italian artillery attack near Gorizia.

After eight months in the hospital, he moved at the end of 1916 to the Swiss resort town of Davos for further recuperation and rehabilitation. While there he wrote six chapters of his book Men in War, which deals with the Great War at the River Isonzo front. In 1917, the book was first published anonymously in Zurich by Rascher-Verlag. Karl Kraus wrote in his magazine Die Fackel (pub. 1899–1936) about this book being "a scream... a most relevant document" about the Great War and humanity. Some people "know the day is not so far off, when the officials of Austria will be proud to be involved into the world war by that book, too." The book was a great success and translated into 19 languages. However, every country involved in the war banned it, and the army supreme command demoted Latzko.