Franz Werfel

Franz Werfel – Life, Works, and Enduring Legacy

Discover the life and literary achievements of Franz Werfel (1890–1945): poet, novelist, dramatist, exile, and author of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and The Song of Bernadette. Explore his biography, themes, major works, influence, and lessons from his journey.

Introduction

Franz Viktor Werfel (10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was a German-language Austrian-Bohemian writer whose work spanned poetry, drama, and fiction.

He became internationally known for two novels in particular: The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933), which dramatizes Armenian resistance during the genocide, and The Song of Bernadette (1941), a spiritual narrative about the life and visions of Saint Bernadette.

His life was deeply affected by the upheavals of the 20th century: World War I, the rise of Nazism, exile, and ultimately his death in the United States. His legacy lies in his capacity to blend historical, religious, and moral imagination with human drama.

Early Life and Family

• Franz Werfel was born in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a Jewish family.

• His father, Rudolf Werfel, was a glove manufacturer.

• His mother was Albine Kussi.

• As a child, he was educated by a Czech Catholic governess, Barbara Šimůnková, who took him to Catholic Mass and influenced his lifelong interest in religious themes.

• He attended a Piarist (Catholic teaching order) school in Prague, which allowed for Jewish instruction for students of Jewish background.

These early cross-religious exposures gave Werfel a unique sensitivity to Christian, Jewish, and spiritual motifs, which later pervaded his work.

Education, Early Career & Literary Beginnings

• Werfel published Der Weltfreund in 1911, his first collection of poems.

• In 1913, he published Wir sind (“We Are”), further establishing himself in the expressionist and modernist literary circles.

• He moved to Leipzig and worked with the publisher Kurt Wolff, becoming an editor and promoter of avant-garde authors.

• During World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army, initially at the Eastern front, later in the War Press Bureau in Vienna.

His early writing combined lyricism, religious reflection, existential questioning, and mythic resonance—traits that matured in his later novels.

Major Works & Literary Trajectory

Poetry & Drama

Werfel’s early reputation rested on his poetry and dramatic writing: he belonged to the expressionist movement in German literature, concerned with inner states, existential struggle, and spiritual depth.

He wrote plays on historical and political themes (e.g. Juarez and Maximilian) and experimented with religious and symbolic motifs.

Novels & Historical Fiction

Some of his most significant novels include:

• Verdi. Roman der Oper (1924) — a novel focused on the life and art of the composer Giuseppe Verdi.

• Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh (The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, 1933) — perhaps his most famous work, dramatizing Armenian resistance against the Ottoman deportations and genocide.

• Höret die Stimme (later retitled Jeremias) — a prophetic, religiously inflected novel.

• Der veruntreute Himmel (Embezzled Heaven, 1939) — a novel exploring moral and spiritual fallibility.

• Das Lied von Bernadette (The Song of Bernadette, 1941) — reconceptualizing the Lourdes apparitions through fiction.

• Stern der Ungeborenen (Star of the Unborn) — completed late in his life and published posthumously, this work shows his Dantean influences and metaphysical reach.

Exile Writings & Later Years

After the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany) in 1938, Werfel and his wife Alma Mahler fled Austria and settled in France, then moved again after the German occupation of France.

They escaped via a clandestine route over the Pyrenees, aided by Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee, arriving in the United States in 1940.

In exile, he devoted himself to completing major works, especially The Song of Bernadette, which he promised to write after taking refuge in Lourdes.

His last dramatic work was Jacobowsky and the Colonel, later adapted into film and stage productions.

Themes, Style & Literary Significance

Religious Imagination & Spiritual Quest

Werfel’s work frequently engages with religious themes—not as mere allegory, but as lived tensions: faith, doubt, miracles, prophetic voices, and the intersection of the sacred and mundane.

He was comfortable exploring both Judaic roots and Christian motifs, shaped partly by his early exposure to both traditions.

Historical Conscience & Moral Witness

In works like Musa Dagh, he treated historical atrocity with narrative compassion and moral urgency, bringing attention to human suffering, resistance, and memory.

His fiction often places individual stories within sweeping historical or prophetic contexts.

Humanism & Universalism

Werfel’s writing frequently underscores “human brotherhood” and transcendent solidarity across national, cultural, or religious divides.

Style & Narrative Technique

He merged lyrical language, psychological insight, mythic structure, and historical exposition. His narratives tend toward the epic and symbolic, with moral centers around redemption, sacrifice, and grace.

Legacy & Influence

• The Forty Days of Musa Dagh raised public awareness about the Armenian genocide and remains a landmark in literature addressing mass atrocity.

• The Song of Bernadette was extremely popular in the U.S., spending more than a year on The New York Times Best Seller list; its 1943 film adaptation won multiple Academy Awards.

• His adaptation into exile literature marks him among the important voices of Exilliteratur (writers in exile under Nazi persecution).

• In Austria and Germany, Werfel is counted among the significant 20th-century literary figures of German letters, especially for his contributions bridging Jewish and Christian sensibilities.

• Posthumously, his remains were transferred from Los Angeles to Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof in 1975, acknowledging his status in Austrian cultural memory.

Lessons from Werfel's Life & Work

1. Art as moral witness
   Werfel reminds us that literature can engage history, testify to suffering, and provoke remembrance rather than evade trauma.

2. Plural spiritual imagination
   His ability to integrate religious sensitivity from multiple traditions suggests how faith and art can dialogue across boundaries.

3. Courage in exile
   His life demonstrates the resilience of the creative spirit in the face of displacement, persecution, and cultural rupture.

4. Narrative empathy
   His strength lies in entering into another’s life—be they Armenian villagers, a visionary peasant girl, or exiled souls—and dignifying their struggle.

5. The power of vow and promise
   His promise at Lourdes (to write Bernadette’s story if he survived) anchors The Song of Bernadette—a reminder that sometimes art is born of personal pledge.