Oskar Höcker

Oskar Höcker (13 June 1840 – 8 April 1894) was a German author of historical novels for children and a stage actor.

Biography

Oskar Höcker was born in a suburb of Eilenburg, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, as was his brother, author Gustav Höcker. He was educated in Chemnitz.

At the age of 19 he became an apprentice actor with F.W. Porth, a well-established actor for the royal court in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony. He performed in Bremen, Rostock, Reichenberg, Stettin, Meiningen, and from 1866 to 1882 at the court in Karlsruhe. In 1883 his career shifted to Berlin, where he played on all the big stages and was a member of the Deutsches Theater. Oscar Blumenthal referred to him as one of the company's most players, and critic Otto Brahm praised his "discrete art," comparing him to Josef Kainz. He later joined the Lessing Theater.

To support his ever-increasing family (he had ten children) he began a second career as writer of children's books, and after 1870 published regularly for the well-known publisher Arnold Hirt of Leipzig. Especially in the south of Germany his books (which came to be known as Höckerle) became very popular. In many of the books he authored he attempted to educate young readers in the history of the Christian church and the cultural history of Germany. His magnum opus is a series of five cycles of historical novels, totaling 20 volumes, on the development of the German bourgeoisie, Frederick II of Prussia and the history of Prussia, the Imperial German Navy, the history of Germany since the Reformation, and the history of Christianity. He died from a nervous condition at the height of his theatrical and publishing career, in Berlin. His son, Paul Oskar Höcker, also became a writer.