Johannes Zeilinger

2025-04-19
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Tags : 1900-1949 Berlin Germany

Johannes Zeilinger (* 1948 in Wolfratshausen) is a German sports medicine specialist and author. From 2007 to 2019, he was chairman of the Karl May Society, one of Germany’s largest literary societies.

Zeilinger studied medicine at the universities of Würzburg and Berlin until 1975. Since 1983, he has practiced in a sports medicine group practice in Berlin.

As an author, he publishes primarily on Karl May (1842–1912), still Germany’s best-selling author. In 1999, he caused a stir with his thesis that Karl May was not blind in his early youth.

Johannes Zeilinger, born in 1948, studied medicine in Würzburg and Berlin, where he has been a practicing physician since 1983. Doctorate on the psychopathology of Karl May, followed by numerous publications as author and editor on Karl May, but also on the cultural history of Cyprus, on Lya de Putti and on Frederick A. Cook.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Zeilinger

The young Karl May’s unfulfilled wish to become a doctor left numerous traces in his novels. Not only does Karl Sternau shine with his comprehensive medical skills, but Kara Ben Nemsi and Winnetou also astonish with their diverse medical knowledge and successes. Therefore, there are numerous healings, some meticulously researched and others imaginatively conceived. With its listing of all the medical episodes, the volume is ultimately a stroll through the history of medicine and, moreover, incorporates the complex personality of the creative writer into its analytical examination.

“I can’t chew anything out of a pencil.” This is how B. Traven described the authenticity of his novel characters in 1929. “Others might be able to do that, but I can’t. I have to know the people I’m talking about. They must have been my friends or companions or my adversaries or my neighbors or my fellow citizens if I want to portray them.” This postulate also held true when the author presented film agent Paul Kohner with a story in 1948 in which he described the story of a strange personality change. The case of the Mexican woman Mercedes Ortega Lozano, Traven assured him, had actually happened as described; only the name of the affected person was his invention. Johannes Zeilinger analyzes the medical disorders of this character, who has found its way into Mexican film history, and places them in the context of Traven’s biography.

This book is published in the film literature series “Filit,” edited by Rolf Aurich and Wolfgang Jacobsen.