SUDERMANN, HERMANN (1857-1928), German writer, was born at Matziken, East Prussia, on Sept. 3o, 1857, of a Mennonite family long settled near Elbing. His father owned a small brewery, but owing to a financial crisis was obliged to apprentice his son, at the age of 14, to a chemist. Young Suder mann was able, however, to study at Tilsit and afterwards at Koenigsberg university. He then went to Berlin, where he acted as tutor in several houses, and worked as a journalist on the Deutsches Reichsblatt (1881-2), afterwards turning to novel writing. His novels Im Zwielicht (1886), Frau Sorge (1887), Geschwister (1888) and Der katzensteg (189o) revealed neither beauty nor emotional power, but invariably showed keen obser vation, a vivid touch and dramatic technique. The tale is his chief concern, and he shows a masterly control of tension, as in lolanthes Hochzeit (1892); Es War (1894) and Das Hohe Lied (1908) showed a falling off, but the old mastery reappeared in Litauische Novellen (1917).
More instantly popular, and later more bitterly decried, were plays, of which Die Ehre (188o) brought him immediate fame, and Heimat (1892), better known as Magda, made him known throughout Europe. Part of the great success of Magda was no
doubt due to the fact that the title-role was interpreted by Modjeska, Bernhardt, Duse, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. His dramas, Sodoms Ende (1891), Johannisfeuer (1900), Es Lebe Das Leben (1912), Der Sturmgeselle Sokrates (1903), Stein tinter Den Steinen (1915) and numerous others ending with Der Hasenfellhandler (1925) were uniformly successful on the stage. During the World War he wrote the cycle of three plays collec tively entitled Die Entygotterte Welt. His last novels were Der tolle Professor (1926) and Purzelchen (1928). He belonged to the realistic movement of the last quarter of the 19th century, and was not very sympathetic to the new methods and new outlook of post-war literature. He died at Berlin on Nov. 22, 1928.
See W. Kawerau, Sudermann (1897) ; H. Landsberg, Sudermann (1902) ; H. Jung, Sudermann (1902) ; H. Schoen, Sudermann, Poete dramatique et romancier (1905) ; and I. Axelrod, Sudermann (1907). His dramatic works were collected in 1923. See also his autobiography Das Bilderbuch meiner Jugend (Eng. trans., N.Y.