Joseph Roth(1894 — 1939)
Joseph Roth
Autriche, Cisleithanie
6 min read
Joseph Roth (1894-1939) was an Austrian writer and journalist, a major figure in German-language literature between the wars. Author of "The Radetzky March", he celebrated the nostalgia for the vanished Austro-Hungarian Empire and denounced the rise of Nazism before dying in exile in Paris.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1894 in Brody, Galicia, then an eastern province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
- Became a renowned journalist in the 1920s, notably as a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung
- Published his masterpiece "The Radetzky March" in 1932, a fresco on the decline of the Habsburg Empire
- Exiled himself in Paris in 1933 after Hitler's rise to power, fleeing Nazism
- Died in Paris in 1939, in destitution and an alcoholic
Works & Achievements
A novel set in a post-war Central Europe, populated by displaced persons and survivors.
The story of a former soldier unable to find his place in the world after the Empire.
A sensitive report on the condition of Eastern European Jews, torn between tradition and exile.
The story of a humble Galician Jew struck by misfortune, Roth’s first major literary success.
A masterpiece following three generations of the Trotta family in the slow decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
A sequel to *Radetzky*, continuing the Trotta chronicle up to the Anschluss of 1938.
A final, almost autobiographical story about a drunken Parisian vagrant touched by grace.
Anecdotes
On the very day Hitler became chancellor, January 30, 1933, Joseph Roth left Germany never to return. He had understood the mortal danger of Nazism before many other writers and wrote to his friend Stefan Zweig that "hell reigns."
Roth spent nearly his entire adult life in hotel rooms, without a real home. He wrote seated in cafés, a stack of papers before him, and considered himself an eternal traveler, a citizen of no country since the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
His great novel, *The Radetzky March* (1932), takes its title from a famous military march by Johann Strauss Sr. Through three generations of the Trotta family, Roth recounts the slow collapse of the Habsburg Empire he so loved.
Roth told contradictory stories about his own origins: sometimes his father was a high-ranking Austrian official, sometimes a Polish count, sometimes a railway employee. A master of legend, he deliberately blurred the trail of his birth in the modest Jewish town of Brody.
An alcoholic, Roth drew from his own downfall the material for his last story, *The Legend of the Holy Drinker* (1939), the tale of a drunken vagrant in Paris touched by grace. He died a few weeks later, at age 44, in a Paris hospital.
Primary Sources
You will now see that we are heading towards great catastrophes. (...) Don't delude yourself. Hell reigns.
This book foregoes the applause and approval of those who, regarding the Eastern Jews, feel only a pity full of condescension, but it is addressed to readers before whom one need not defend man against contempt.
It was a habit of the Trottas: loyalty to the Emperor and to service. Lieutenant Trotta had saved the Emperor's life at the Battle of Solferino, and his name had entered the schoolchildren's reading books.
Key Places
Roth's birthplace, on the eastern edge of the Empire, notably populated by Central European Jews.
Imperial capital where Roth studied and which, in his eyes, embodies the heart of Austro-Hungarian civilization.
Home to the *Frankfurter Zeitung*, where Roth became a star journalist in the 1920s.
Bustling metropolis of the Weimar Republic where Roth observed the rise of tensions and Nazism.
City of exile where Roth spent his final years in hotels and where he died in May 1939.
