Alexander Moszkowski (1851–1934)

Alexander Moszkowski was born to a Jewish family in Pilica, on the Russian-Polish border. His younger brother Moritz later became a famous pianist and composer. The family moved the year following Alexander's birth to Breslau, Germany (present-day Wrocław, Poland) and later to Dresden. As a young man, Moszkowski moved to Berlin, where he was hired to write for the satirical magazine Berliner Wespen from 1877 until 1886. After having differences with the editor, Julius Stettenheim, Moszkowski founded his own satirical magazine, the Lustige Blätter, which reached a large audience in the Weimar era. He was the co-author with Artur Fürst of Das Buch der 1000 Wunder (Book of 1000 Miracles, 1916). Moszkowski was a friend of many celebrities in Berlin, among them Albert Einstein. He was the first to publish a biography of Einstein, which appeared in 1920, and helped popularize Einstein's theory of relativity. In addition to his satirical works, Moszkowski wrote many popular language, philosophy, and science-fiction books, such as his 1922 novel Die Inseln der Weisheit (The Islands of Wisdom), in which he predicted mobile telephones, holography, and the high-tech information society.