JACOB, HEINRICH EDUARD

JACOB, HEINRICH EDUARD (1889–1967), German playwright, journalist, and biographer. Born in Berlin, he became the Berliner Tageblatt's Vienna correspondent. Jacob spent almost 18 months in the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald before escaping to the U.S. in 1940. A versatile author, writing in an expressive and colorful style, Jacob published more than 30 books, including poetry, plays, and novels. His best-known dramas are Beaumarchais und Sonnenfels (1919), in which a Jew is the central character, and Der Tulpenfrevel (1920). While in exile in New York, Jacob achieved distinction for his biographies of Johann Strauss (1937), Haydn (1950), and Felix Mendelssohn (1959). He also published a history of coffee, Sage und Siegeszug des Kaffees (1934), and Six Thousand Years of Bread (1944). Jacob returned to Europe in 1953 and settled in Hamburg. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: New York Times (Nov. 10, 1967).