Novelist dies at 59
LOUIS DE WOHL. best known for his novels based on the lives of saints like St. Francis and St. Catherine of Siena, has died in Switzerland at the age of 59. Of Hungarian blood, but born in Germany, he fled from the Nazis in 1935 and later became it British citizen. Contrary to some obituary reports. he was Catholic from birth.
During the second world war, he became a Captain in the British Army and was head of a department called the Psychological Research Bureau. His knowledge of astrology (and St. Thomas's distinction between the permissible and the forbidden) enabled him to inform the British authorities about the probable advice given to Hitler by his astrologer-advice on which the Fuehrer was known to act, and which formed the basis of his famous "timetable".
After the war, Louis de Wohl went back to his writing, and his novels dealt with Julian the Apostate, the story of St. Helen (" The Living Wood "), and, at Pope Pius Xll's suggestion, St. Thomas Aquinas (" The Quiet Light"). His historical novels have enjoyed great popularity in as many as 14 countries.