Zweig kept private notes and diaries intermittently throughout his life. Appalled by the growth of national socialism in his native Austria, Zweig went into exile in Britain in 1934, but he remained on the Nazis’ radar: his books were banned, citizenship revoked and his name and address in London entered into the notorious “Black Book” - a hit list of prominent Britons and refugees whom the SS intended to round up after it occupied the UK.
Turmoil most nearly means full#
(AP Photo)Įven with the full horror of the Nazis’ attempts to annihilate European Jewry yet to unfold, Zweig’s fears about his fate after a German invasion were by no means unfounded. The symbol of the German victory V is seen waving from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on July 28, 1941. I am almost 59 and the coming years will be terrible: why suffer through so much humiliation.” Indeed, one of the diary’s last entries contains the words: “There is chilling news: the swastika is flying from the Eiffel Tower! Hitler’s troops are standing guard at the Arc de Triomphe! Life is not worth living. “Our life has now been destroyed for many decades to come and I don’t have many decades left I don’t want to have them.”
Turmoil most nearly means how to#
A week later, as the German advance in France continued, Zweig writes: “I don’t want to go on anymore: I only hesitate regarding how to impose that decision.” When he contemplated the Nazis installing the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley at the head of a post-invasion puppet government, Zweig - who, had already written of his relief to have “a special little vial ready in case what I’ve foreseen happens” - again returned to thoughts of suicide. Undated portrait of Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer Stefan Zweig.
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