* Hans Weigel; Austrian Author and Critic

Hans Weigel, 83, one of Austria’s leading literary figures and a biting critic of anti-Semitism. Weigel, a prolific novelist, playwright, essayist, translator and theater critic, was born in Vienna when the city was still the hub of the multinational Hapsburg Empire. He began writing for a Berlin literary magazine and for Vienna’s satirical cellar theaters between the wars. Forced to leave after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Weigel lived until 1946 in exile in Zurich, where he produced many of his best-known works, including the play “Barrabas.” In his epic story “Der Gruene Stern” (“The Green Star”) Weigel painted a grotesque parody of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. One critic described him as “the last of Vienna’s Jewish-intellectual Mohicans.” His later work, “One Can’t Talk About It Quietly,” was a controversial study of anti-Semitism. In Vienna on Monday of heart disease.