Ludwig Thoma
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Ludwig Thoma (21 January 1867, Oberammergau – 26 August 1921, Tegernsee) was a German author, publisher and editor, who gained popularity through his partially exaggerated description of everyday Bavarian life.
After graduation from the Imperial Latin School in Landstuhl (today: Sickingen- Gymnasium Landstuhl), he first studied Forestry in Aschaffenburg, then Law until 1893 in Munich and Erlangen. Subsequently, he settled down as a lawyer, at first in Dachau, later in Munich.
After 1899, he worked for the magazine Simplicissimus and published humorous narrations, comedies, novels and stories. Thoma satirized Bavarian rural and small-town life. His serious peasant novels Andreas Vöst (1905), Der Wittiber (1911), and Der Ruepp (1922), as well as his humorous collections Assessor Karlchen (1900), Lausbubengeschichten [Scoundrel Stories] (1904), and Tante Frieda [Aunt Frieda] (1906), are characterized by authenticity of regional language and life. Thoma's dramas, including Die Medaille [The Medal] (1901), Das Säuglingsheim [The Orphanage] (1913), and especially Moral (1908), reflect elements of folk theater.
In 1907 he married 25-year-old Marietta di Rigardo, who was born in the Philippines. The marriage however did not last, Marietta was soon bored and by 1911 Thoma and Marietta were divorced. In the later years of his life, he wrote nationalistic propaganda agitating against left-wing politicians (e.g. for the newspaper "Miesbacher Anzeiger").[1]
During World War I he served as a paramedic. In July 1917 he joined the German Fatherland Party.
His best-known works are Ein Münchner im Himmel (A Municher in Heaven), the Lausbubengeschichten (Scoundrel Stories) and Jozef Filsers Briefwexel (Jozef Filser's Correspondence). Lausbubengeschichten was made into a movie in 1964, also released in English under the title Tales of a Young Scamp .
Works
- Die Lokalbahn (1901)
- Lausbubengeschichten (1905)
- Tante Frieda (1907)
- Moral (1909)
- Ein Münchner im Himmel (1911)
- Jozef Filsers Briefwexel (1912)
- Altaich (1918)
- Münchnerinnen (1919)
- Der Jagerloisl (1921)
References
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
- Works by Ludwig Thoma at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Ludwig Thoma at the Internet Archive
- Works by Ludwig Thoma at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_IV/Germanistik/gajek/thoma.htm
- Ludwig Thoma at IMDb
- 1867 births
- 1921 deaths
- People from Garmisch-Partenkirchen (district)
- People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
- 19th-century German novelists
- 20th-century German novelists
- German short story writers
- Writers from Bavaria
- German Fatherland Party politicians
- German military personnel of World War I
- German male novelists
- German male short story writers
- 19th-century short story writers
- 19th-century male writers
- 20th-century short story writers
- German writer stubs