DODERER, HEIMITO VON

born Sept. 6, 1896, Weidlingau, near Vienna, Austria died Dec. 23, 1966, Vienna Austrian novelist who achieved international fame with his novel of post-World War I Vienna, Die Dmonen (1956; The Demons), on which he had worked since 1931. It explores the society and mood of Vienna in 192627 in a many-layered web of detail and complex characters. Doderer served as an officer in the Imperial Austrian Dragoons in World War I and was captured by the Russians, spending several years in Siberia working as a lumberjack before repatriation in 1920. He received a doctorate in history from the University of Vienna in 1925. An involved psychological thriller, Ein Mord, den jeder begeht (1938; Every Man a Murderer), and several other novels attracted little attention. In the 1930s Doderer was briefly a member of the then-outlawed National Socialist Party in Austria, which he described in a book of reminiscences, Tangenten (1964; Tangents). In World War II he was a Luftwaffe captain. Die Strudlhofstiege (1951; The Strudlhof Stairs), which covered the Vienna scene in 191011 and 192325, sets the stage for Die Dmonen, which was a success and established Doderer's reputation. Die Wasserflle von Slunj (1963; The Waterfalls of Slunj) was the first novel in an intended tetralogy spanning life in Vienna from 1880 to 1960 and collectively entitled Roman Nr. 7 (Novel No. 7). The second volume, Der Grenzwald (The Frontier Forest), unfinished, appeared posthumously in 1967. Grundlagen und Funktion des Romans (1959; Principles and Function of the Novel) describes the novel as he sees it. Doderer's style and ideas are traditional and formal and had little influence.