Arthur Schnitzler

Arthur Schnitzler (1862 – 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. His parents were both from Jewish families. He began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1879, received his doctorate in 1885 and worked at Vienna's General Hospital. But he soon left medicine to write professionally. His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality and for their hatred of anti-Semitism. Schnitzler was called a pornographer. In reply to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the criticism, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" In addition to his plays, novels and stories, Schnitzler kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death. It is almost 8,000 pages and is most notable for casual descriptions of the sexual relations he had. Schnitzler's works were called "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler and were banned by the Nazis. In 1933, when Joseph Goebbels organised book burnings, Schnitzler's works were thrown into the fires. By this time, he was already dead of a stroke though.