Musil, Robert

Robert Musil was born on November 6, 1880 in Klagenfurt, Austria, studied mechanical engineering as well as philosophy and psychology and received his doctorate with a dissertation on the subject of "Contribution to the assessment of Mach's teachings". He declined a habilitation in favor of his writing. While Musil was working on the upcoming publication of The Man Without Qualities, the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938 made the situation for the Musil couple in Vienna untenable. In August 1938 they went into exile in Geneva, where the writer died on April 15, 1942 of a "cerebral infarction".