Kurd Laßwitz

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Kurd Laßwitz (April 20, 1848 – October 17, 1910) was a German author, scientist, and philosopher. He has been called the father of German science fiction. His name is also spelled Lasswitz.

Laßwitz studied mathematics and physics in Breslau (where he was born) and Berlin, and earned his doctorate in 1873. He spent most of his career as a professor at the Gymnasium Ernestinsium in Gotha.

His first SF was Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins ("To the Zero Point of Existence", 1871), depicting life in 2371, but he earned his reputation with his 1897 novel Auf Zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets"), which describes an encounter between humans and a Martian civilization that is older and more advanced. The book has the Martian race running out of water, eating synthetic foods, travelling by rolling roads, and utilizing space stations. His spaceships use anti-gravity, but travel realistic orbital trajectories, and use occasional mid-course corrections in travelling between Mars and the Earth. It was not translated into English until 1971 (as Two Planets). More than 70,000 copies had been sold when it was suppressed by the Nazi government in the 1930s for being "too democratic". His last book was Sternentau: die Pflanze vom Neptunsmond ("Star Dew: the Plants of Neptune's Moon", 1909). He is also known for his 1896 biography of Gustav Fechner.

One important aspect of his novel Auf Zwei Planeten is that it depicted the technically correct transit between the orbits of two planets, something poorly understood by other early science fiction writers. His book influenced Walter Hohmann and Werner von Braun.

A crater on Mars was named in his honor, as was the asteroid 46514 Lasswitz.

There also is a Kurd Laßwitz Preis, which has been awarded to German-speaking authors of science fiction since 1981.

Many of the works are available in German via Project Gutenberg.