ABSTRACT
Wegner studied law in Breslau, Zurich, Berlin and Paris; he also acted (under Max Reinhardt) and wrote for various journals. He published his first volume of poetry, Im Strom verloren, in 1903, to be followed by Zwischen zwei Städten in 1909. In the First World War he served as a medical orderly; in the 1920s he published several short stories and novels (Der Knabe Hüssein (1921)), which deal with travel experiences, particularly in Russia and the East. He became an ardent pacifist, helping to found the Bund der Kriegsgegner, writing (after witnessing the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks) to President Wilson and, in 1933, to Hitler, deploring the Nazi treatment of the Jews: for this he was arrested. He was able to flee to England, thence to Palestine and Italy, where he taught at the University of Padua. He received many honours from the West German government and from Israel during the 1950s and 1960s; he died in Rome, where he had made his home. Wegner was most successful in his travel books; Im Hause der Glückseligkeit (1920), Maschinen im Märchenland and Jagd durch das Tausendjährige Land (both 1932) should also be mentioned. Collections of his writing, Fällst du, umarme die Erde and Odyssee der Seele, appeared in 1974 and 1976 respectively.
