After the First World War his family, who were merchants, moved to Vienna, Austria, where Schwab discovered his love for nature. In Vienna, he joined NSDAP as well as Sturmabteilung in which he was a lieutenant from 1930. As an editor of Lebenschutz, he has been repeatedly accused of racism. Through Prof. Dr. Günther Schlesinger, an Austrian Nature Protection Referent, Günther Schwab got more involved with nature protection. He studied in those years, as expected of the family, at the commercial academy, but due to his love for nature he soon became a forest ranger.
Environment and literature
His first book Abenteuer am Fluss, published by Franz-Eher-Verlag, the Central publishing house of the Nazi party, was proof of his love. as were all his following books Der Wind über den Feldern, Kamerad mit dem haarigen Gesicht, Land voller Grande, Das Glück am Rand. In 1951, he gave up his profession, moved to Salzburg and dedicated his life to writing. He realised that the new upcoming 1950s affluent society threatened to destroy all that he loved: the countryside with all its inhabitants, the solitude of the wilderness, the wildlife as he knew it up to then. Günther Schwab proved to be almost clairvoyant when, at the age of 50, he held a lecture with the title "The catastrophe has started already", at the Audi Max in Vienna in 1954.
To explain his fears more plainly and understandably for the man in the street, Günther Schwab wrote his book Der Tanz mit dem Teufel. It reads like a subtle, interesting detective story, which he finished in 1958. The theme was mankind's industrial sins causing environmental damage in condemning many Americans as degenerates. The book prophesied that improperly-managed population sizes from other continents would avalanche Europe. This was an effort to renew Social Darwinism and eugenics theories. The English translation was published in 1963.
Film
The Forester of the Silver Wood
Society
Schwab was a member of the Nazi party and during his life would serve on the advisory panel of the Society for Biological Anthropology, Eugenics, and Behavior Research.
