Fritz Steuben (3 December 1898 – 4 June 1981), the pen name of Erhard Wittek, was a German author who wrote popular novels and stories about romanticised Native Americans. His bestselling novels depicting the life of the Shawnee chief Tecumseh were influenced by national socialism. He wrote several war novels based on personal experiences in World War I, including "Durchbruch anno achtzehn: Ein Fronterlebnis" ("Breakthrough 1918: A Frontline Experience" ) and other novels under his birth name.

Early life and military service

Wittek was born in Wongrowitz, Province of Posen. He participated in World War I.

Career

After the war he started as a book-seller apprentice and became finally head of production in the publishing house Franckh-Kosmos in Stuttgart. From 1929 until 1952 Steuben wrote stories on American Indians under his pseudonym. The eight volumes of his Tecumseh anthology follow the Shawnee chief Tecumseh from his childhood to his death. In 1937 Wittek moved to Neustrelitz, where he lived as an independent writer. In 1955 he moved again to Pinneberg, where he died. Using the pen name Fritz Steuben, initially for his Native American Indian (Tecumseh) stories, he wrote many of his works under the influence of national socialism. However, contrary to the Western novels of Karl May, famous in Germany, yet temporarily discredited by false claims to authenticity, his fiction was based on real persons and comparatively serious use of sources available to him. In Germany his books had already achieved a circulation of 790,000 copies in the Thirties. After the Second World War the Tecumseh-anthology reappeared ideologically cleaned (or at least superficially politically corrected) by Nina Schindler and is still on sale in this form.

Selected works

Erhard Wittek

Pseudonym Fritz Steuben

Steuben edited also renarrated editions of James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper was together with Kipling his preferred model author.

Translations

Literature

Secondary literature concentrates mostly on the ideological function and the corresponding developments after the war.