THE WELL-KNOWN DRAMATIST Fritz Hochwälder was born in Vienna on May 28, 1911. Like his father, he learned the trade of upholstery, but unlike him, he began, on the side, to write plays: first a tragedy, Jehr (1933), and then a comedy, Liebe in Florenz (1936), both of which were performed on the stage. Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938 caused Hochwälder to emigrate. He settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where he has lived ever since, while proudly retaining his Austrian passport.

In Zurich he resolutely turned to writing dramas because, as a refugee, he was not permitted to engage in his previous occupation. He wrote Esther (1940), then Das heilige Experiment (1943), a tragedy which subsequently became an international success and established his reputation. Under its English title The Strong Are Lonely, it was produced on Broadway in 1953.

Hochwälder's chief theme, in this play and in others, is the conflict between individual morals and religious responsibility on the one hand and obedience to the dictates of the powers-that-be, or abdication before the evils of the world, on the other.

Many of his works have been performed by the Vienna Burgtheater and by other leading theaters; some have been adapted as television productions. A radio play, Vier Paragraphen, was broadcast in 1951; Der Befehl was originally conceived as a television play and was telecast on a program with the general title of “The Largest Theatre in the World” by the television networks of Austria, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain in 1967.

Among the prizes Hochwälder has received are the Prize of the City of Vienna (1955) and the Grillparzer Prize (1956).

Hochwälder is Austrian and Viennese to the core. He aims for solid craftsmanship, well-constructed and suspenseful plots, vital characters, and genuinely theatrical effects. He addresses himself not to an esoteric elite but to a broad public. He is deliberately conservative in form and style, carrying on the tradition of the Viennese popular theater and its great nineteenth-century representatives — Ferdinand Raimund and Johann Nestroy.

It was probably Fritz Hochwälder's intent not to draw attention to the drama and tragedy of his biography in the brochure of 1969. Today we know the extent to which he and his family became victims of the Nazi terror and feel the need to provide some additional information.