Marta Karlweis (1889–1965)

Marta Karlweis was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Her father Carl Karlweis was a railway executive who wrote plays as a hobby. Her younger brother Oskar Karlweis became a well-known actor. Marta attended the Schwarzwald'sche School for girls founded by progressive educator Eugenie Schwarzwald. She also frequented Berta Zuckerkandl's famous salon, where she often read from her writings. Against the will of her guardian after her father's death, Karlweis began to study psychology at the University of Vienna. She left university in 1907 to marry industrialist Walter Stross, with whom she had two daughters. She published short stories and novels, using the pseudonym Barbara Vogel. In 1915, she met the writer Jakob Wassermann in the home of her sister-in-law Emmy Wellesz, wife of the composer Egon Wellesz. They fell in love, and although both were married, in 1919 they moved to Altaussee together. They had a son before finally being able to marry in 1926. Karlweis's 1929 novel Ein Österreicher Don Juan (An Austrian Don Juan) was her literary breakthrough and brought her fame and popularity. Her last novel, Schwindel (Dizziness), was published in 1931. The rise of the Nazi regime to power in Germany in 1933 ended many literary careers, including those of Karlweis and Wassermann. He died of a stroke in 1934. She moved to Switzerland, where she resumed her psychology studies, including with Carl Jung. Following the Nazi Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in 1938, she went into exile in Canada. There she took a teaching position at McGill University in Montreal and worked at a psychiatric practice. She published occasional articles in Swiss and Austrian periodicals.