Fritz Steuben


Erhard Wittek, better known for his pen name Fritz Steuben, was a German author who wrote war novels and stories depicting American Indians. Steuben wrote war novels based on personal experiences in World War I and other novels under his birth name.

Biography

Steuben was born in Wongrowitz, Province of Posen. He participated in World War I. After the war he started as a book-seller apprentice and became finally head of production in the publishing house Franckh-Kosmos in Stuttgart.
From 1929 until 1952 Steuben wrote stories on American Indians under his pseudonym. The eight volumes of his Tecumseh anthology follow the Shawnee chief Tecumseh from his childhood to his death. In 1937 Steuben moved to Neustrelitz where he lived as an independent writer. In 1955 he moved again to Pinneberg where he died.

Works

Using the pen name Fritz Steuben, initially for his Native American Indian stories, he wrote many of his works under the influence of national socialism. However, contrary to the Western novels of Karl May, famous in Germany, yet temporarily discredited by false claims to authenticity, his fiction was based on real persons and comparatively serious use of sources available to him. In Germany his books had already achieved a circulation of 790,000 copies in the Thirties. After the Second World War the Tecumseh-anthology reappeared ideologically cleaned by Nina Schindler and is still on sale in this form.

Works (Selection)

Erhard Wittek

Steuben edited also renarrated editions of James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper was together with Kipling his preferred model author.

Translations

Secondary literature concentrates mostly on the ideological function and the corresponding developments after the war.