Fritz Ernst was born in 1889 in Winterthur and died on in 1958 in Zurich. He was a Swiss literary scholar and an essayist. Ernst studied German language and literature in Berlin and Zurich. In 1915 he received his doctoral degree with a dissertation on Romantic irony. From 1917 to 1947 he worked as a high school teacher at the girls’ school in Zurich. From 1943 he was Professor of Literary History at the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and from 1948 as Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Zurich.
Ernst wrote studies in literature in a conservative and cultural critical manner. At times of the Third Reich of Switzerland and the official intellectual defence he also tried contributing to official mental and intellectual defence (Geistige Landesverteidigung).
His major publications include: Die romantische Schweiz (1912), Studien zur europäischen Literatur (1932) etc.
His son Klaus Ernst (1924-2010) was a psychiatrist and director of the Psychiatric University Hospital of Zurich.
References: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Ernst_%28Literaturwissenschaftler%29
List of publications: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Ernst_%28Literaturwissenschaftler%29