Willy Haas was the son of a Jewish lawyer. He studied law himself, and at a young age joined a literary circle with his friends
Franz Werfel,
Paul Kornfeld and
Johannes Urzidil. He had personal contacts with
Franz Kafka and
Max Brod. This circle, which met in Prague at the
Café Arco, also included
Ernst Polak, the husband of
Milena Jesenská. From 1911 to 1912 in Prague, the press of the Johann Gottfried Herder Association published the
Herder-Blätter (Literary Journal of the Herder Association), whose editors were Willy Haas and Norbert Eisler. The journal published several essays by Haas. For the last two issues (# 4 and # 5), Otto Pick was involved. The
Herder-Blätter published the work of many literary authors for the first time. After
World War I Haas went to
Berlin, where he did editorial work and also worked as a screenwriter and film critic. Together with
Ernst Rowohlt, he founded the weekly
Die literarische Welt in 1925. When his apartment in Berlin was repeatedly searched in 1933, he emigrated to Prague, where he worked as a newspaper editor. The literary magazine
Welt im Wort (World in the Word), founded by Haas in Prague, soon ceased publication for financial reasons. After the German occupation of Prague in 1939, he went first to Italy and from there to India, where he worked as a screenwriter for at least two Indian films by
Mohan Bhavnani. He also earned a salary as a censor for the British army in India. In 1948 he returned to Germany and lived in Hamburg. There he wrote for
Die Welt and
Welt am Sonntag, as well as for other magazines and newspapers. Haas was married three times: from 1921 to 1925 with the translator Jarmila Ambrozova, from 1925 to 1936 with Hanna Waldeck (who gave birth to their son in 1925), and from 1947 with Herta Doctor. Willy Haas and his wife Herta were buried in
Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. ==Selected filmography==