Zuckmayer, Carl (1896–1977)

German-born Swiss dramatist and writer. His plays include Der fröhliche Weinberg 1925, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick/The Captain of Köpenick 1931, Des Teufels General 1946, and Das kalte Licht 1955, a topical play about the loyalties of a German-British atomic physicist.

Zuckmayer was born in Nackenheim on the Rhine. He was for some years reader for the theatres run by the Austrian producer Max Reinhardt and worked with the dramatist Bertolt Brecht before starting to write. Because of the rise of Nazism in Germany, Zuckmayer emigrated to the USA 1938, and later went to live in Switzerland 1946, becoming a naturalized citizen.

Neither his prose works (Der Bauer aus dem Taunus 1929 and Herr über Leben und Tod 1938) nor his verse were as successful as his plays. In the play Die Uhr schägt eins 1961, Zuckmayer is still preoccupied with post-war problems, but a new religious element is introduced. His memoirs, Als wärs ein Stück von mir/A Part of Myself, were published 1966.