Hermann Broch

Hermann Broch (1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian novelist, philosopher, and mathematician of Jewish origin, best known for his modernist trilogy The Sleepwalkers (1930–1932), which dissects the erosion of traditional values in German society from 1888 to the end of World War I through interconnected narratives of morally adrift protagonists. Born in Vienna to a prosperous textile merchant family, Broch initially trained in business and managed the family firm before, in his mid-thirties, abandoning commerce to study mathematics, physics, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Vienna, where he engaged deeply with thinkers like Edmund Husserl and Friedrich Nietzsche. His literary output, marked by experimental structures and abstract ethical explorations, culminated in works like The Death of Virgil (1945), a stream-of-consciousness depiction of the Roman poet's final hours that probes themes of art, empire, and redemption. Following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, Broch was briefly imprisoned but emigrated to the United States, where he supported himself through lectures at Yale and Princeton while grappling with totalitarianism's psychological roots in essays and unfinished projects. His oeuvre reflects a commitment to rational inquiry amid cultural decay, influencing postwar European literature despite limited commercial success during his lifetime.

Hermann Broch was born on November 1, 1886, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to a prosperous Jewish family engaged in the textile industry. His father, Josef Broch, owned a textile factory and operated as an industrialist, providing the family with significant wealth and social standing in Viennese society. Broch's mother, Johanna (née Schnabel), came from a background that complemented the family's assimilated Jewish milieu.