Ernst Weiss was born in Brünn,
Moravia,
Austro-Hungarian Empire (now
Brno in the Czech Republic) to the family of a prosperous Jewish cloth merchant. After his father died when he was four, he was brought up by his mother Berta, née Weinberg, who led him to art. he came to
Prague to study medicine. In 1908 he finished his studies in
Vienna and became a surgeon. He practiced in
Bern,
Vienna, and
Berlin but he developed tuberculosis and tried to recover as a ship doctor on a trip to
India and
Japan in 1912. Weiss was in touch with other writers of the
Prague Circle such as
Franz Werfel,
Max Brod, and
Johannes Urzidil. In 1914 Weiss returned to
Austria to start a military physician career. He served for the duration of
World War I on the
Eastern Front, ultimately earning a golden cross for bravery. He applied for, but did not receive, a grant from the
American guild for German cultural freedom. Weiss committed suicide on 14 June 1940 when German troops invaded the city. His attempt to deal with poison in his hotel room did not succeed immediately, but he died as a result only in the following night in a Paris hospital. Based on thorough research on Hitler and his story at Pasewalk clinique psychologist
David Lewis in his book
The Man Who Invented Hitler tells also the story of Ernst Weiss and his book on Hitler using pseudonym A.H. == Work ==