Moritz Hartmann (1821–1872)

Moritz Hartmann was born to a prosperous Jewish family in Duschnik (present-day Trhové Dušníky), Bohemia.
He studied philosophy and medicine in Prague and Vienna and joined a circle of writers who wrote poetry based on themes from Czech history. He lived for a time in Breslau, then in Leipzig, where he befriended writer Berthold Auerbach.

Hartmann wrote for many periodicals and traveled frequently. Following a stay in Paris, where he became acquainted with a number of émigrés, including Heinrich Heine, he returned to Prague. There he witnessed the revolution of 1848, which included violence against Jews and their businesses.
He was elected the representative from the town of Leitmeritz (Litomĕřice) to the short-lived Frankfurt Parliament. He also took part that year in the revolution in Vienna. After the collapse of the revolution, he fled Vienna for Stuttgart and in 1849 went into exile.
He worked as a journalist and during the Crimean War of 1853–1856, was a foreign correspondent for the Kölnische Zeitung. He also traveled to England and Italy in that capacity. In 1860, he went to Geneva as a teacher of German literature and history. In 1865, he became editor of the weekend edition of the Allgemeine Zeitung in Stuttgart, and in 1868, he joined the staff of the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna.
Highlights of his numerous published works include the satirical poem Reimchronik des Pfaffen Mauritius (1849); the novel Der Krieg um den Wald (The War Over the Forest, 1850); the travelogue Tagebuch aus Languedoc und Provence (Diary from Languedoc and Provence, 1852); Erzählungen eines Unsteten (Tales of a Restless Man, 1858), about the fates of refugees and exiles in the struggle for political freedom; and Die letzten Tage eines Konigs (The Last Days of a King, 1867).

His collected works were published posthumously in 10 volumes in 1873–1874.