Karl Hans Strӧbl was born in Jihlava, Moravia in the Czech Republic, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the 18th of January 1877. His education finished with his studies at the University of Prague, where he became involved in nationalist student politics, a precursor to his later right-wing and anti-semitic viewpoints. In 1910 he wrote an apocalyptic novel ‘Eleagabal Kuperus’, which was later adapted into a silent film. His literary output was prolific and ranged from macabre, supernatural and weird short stories, through fantasy novels to a trilogy of books about Otto von Bismarck. In 1919 he also founded the world’s first specialised fantasy magazine the short-lived ‘Der Orchideengarten’. Although highly regarded as one of the Dark Princes of Austrian literature his life outside literature is tainted by his fervent support of the Nazis. After the Second World War his work was briefly banned by Allied forces. He himself served a period of forced labour at the hands of the Red Army. Karl Hans Strӧbl died in a poorhouse in Perchtoldsdorf, Austria on the 10th March 1946. He was 69.