Trivia

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Lania was interned by the Daladier government. Lania subsequently made his way to the United States via Spain and Portugal.

He produced the screenplay for G. W. Pabst's The Threepenny Opera (1931).

With the help of a forged letter of recommendation from Benito Mussolini's brother Arnaldo, disguised as an Italian fascist, he succeeded in gaining access to Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1923.

Lania's play Konjunktur (Oil Boom) premiered in Berlin in 1928, directed by Erwin Piscator, with incidental music by Kurt Weill. Three oil companies fight over the rights to oil production in a primitive Balkan country, and in the process exploit the people and destroy the environment. Weill's songs from this play, like "Die Muschel von Margate" are still performed.

After the first World War he became increasingly involved with far-left politics and political theatre. In Germany he worked for the Communist-affiliated Prometheus Film and wrote The Shadow of a Mine (1929) for the Volksfilmverband.

Willy Brandt, mayor of Berlin at that time, made sure, that he received when he died in 1961, an urn grave of honor at the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in Berlin.

He wrote a biography on Ernest Hemingway.

Following the United States' entry into the war, Lania was employed by the Office of War Information. He later returned to Germany and settled in Munich.

Lania was forced to emigrate from Germany following the Nazi takeover in 1933. He eventually settled in France.

Lania published one of the first internationally acclaimed interviews with Hitler.

He was a journalist, playwright and screenwriter.

Leo Lania's estate is maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.

Lania, the son of the doctor and university professor Friedrich Salomon Hermann and Myra Mintz, was of Jewish origin.

Although born in Russian Empire, Lania emigrated to Vienna and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War.

He documented his experiences as an early investigative journalist with the emerging Nazi movement in the books Die Totengräber (Gravediggers) Deutschlands (1924) and The Hitler-Ludendorff Trial (1925).

After attending the Vienna Commercial Academy, Herman Lazar became a journalist and author and chose the pseudonym Leo Lania.

During the late Weimar era, Lania worked with the celebrated theatre directors Max Reinhardt and Alexis Granowsky.

In his book Gewehre auf Reisen (1924), he warned of the dangers of clandestinely arming the Wehrmacht. He was then charged with treason. Following this process, the Reichstag passed the so-called Lex Lania to protect journalistic professional secrecy.

In 1959 he wrote y as a ghostwriter an autobiography for Willy Brandt, then Governing Mayor of Berlin.

He worked on several screenplays, including fellow emigre Robert Wiene's Ultimatum (1938).