Albert Drach

Background

Albert Drach was born on December 17, 1902, in Vienna, Austria. He was the son of Wilhelm Drach, a mathematics and physics teacher, bank manager, and theatre founder and manager, and Jenny (Pater) Drach.

Education

Albert attended the Academic High School from 1913 to 1921. In 1926 he received the Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Vienna.

Career

After graduation Drach opened a law office in Mödling, but he was financially supported by his father. When his father died in 1935, he had to give up his law practice. Since he was subjected to reprisals in Mödling, both anti-Semitic and professional, he moved to Vienna in 1938, then to Yugoslavia, and to Paris. Here he was supported by his uncle Rodolphe Lebel and his sister. By order of the authorities he had to take his stay in Nice, where he lived relatively carefree until the declaration of the World War II. After the outbreak of the War, Drach, like all adult male Germans, had to go to a detention center. Released after a few days, he returned to Nice. He was interned again in October, this time in Les Milles near Aix-en-Provence, but was soon released for illness. Back in Nice, he met his sister, who had fled with her husband from Poland and was on the way to emigration.

In May 1940, Drach was interned again in Les Milles. The camp was later described by the likewise interned Lion Feuchtwanger, Alfred Kantorowicz and the psychoanalyst Fritz Wengraf. Drach described his experiences in Unsentimental Journey. During the collapse of France, the camp was evacuated, Drach was brought in a train across Bayonne to the Atlantic coast to Nîmes, where he was interned at Camp Saint-Nicolas. From this camp he fled to Nice and lived there until September 1942. After the entry into force of Jewishstatute Drach was arrested and taken to the Rivesaltes transit camp. Here he managed to impersonate himself as a Catholic. With his sister's documents he gave out her Catholic mother as his own. As a result, he was not a Jew under French law and was released. He lived again in Nice, until September 1943 when German troops occupied the city.

Drach hid in Valdeblore, a small town in the Meuse Alps near the Italian border. Thanks to the help of the church, he survived until the arrival of the US Army. Then he worked in Nice as a translator for the American military. In October 1947 he visited Vienna, where he started working as a lawyer. In June 1948 he moved to Mödling and opened his law office. He gave lectures on the radio, but was still unable to publish. His manuscript " The Great Protocol against Zwetschkenbaum " was rejected until 1962 by 16 publishers.

When Drach submitted his writings to the publisher Langen Müller, the latter decided to publish an eight-volume complete edition. The first volume "Das grosse Protokoll gege Zwetschkenbaum" appeared in 1964, which became a literary success.

Drach continued to work as a lawyer in Mödling until the closure of his law firm in 1984 due to his increasing blindness. In 1987, Drach's work was rediscovered and successfully advertised by André Fischer. The Hanser publishing house republished some of his works in 1988.

Achievements

• Albert Drach was one of the major authors and chroniclers of the history of Austrian society. In 1988 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung for being a "courageous and sensitive contemporary witness who expresses the madness of our century without resentment in poetic poignancy".

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Massive File on Zwetschkenbaum
  • Unsentimental Journey: A Report 1991
  • Das große Protokoll gegen Zwetschkenbaum. 1989
  • Z. Z. das ist die Zwischenzeit. Ein Protokoll. 1996
  • Untersuchung an Mädeln. Kriminalprotokoll. 1995
  • O Catilina: Ein Lust- und Schaudertraum 1995
  • Ironie vom Glück: Kleine Protokolle und Erzählungen 1994

Views

Drach's detached laconic language became the so-called "protocol style" of the author's trademark and as a weapon in the fight against oppression and injustice in the tradition of an Austrian linguistic criticism. Drach always emphasized that for him the writing style was much more important than the processed material itself.

Membership

Drach was a member of P.E.N. Club.

Connections

Albert married Gerty Rauch, a concert singer, in 1954. They had two children: Wilhelm and Jenny.

Father:

Wilhelm Drach

Mother:

Jenny (Pater) Drach

Spouse:

Gerty Rauch Drach

Son:

Wilhelm Drach

Daughter:

Jenny Drach

References

• Contemporary Authors A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields
  2008