Carl Herman Unthan

Whether this was the reason or not, Carl reportedly could feed himself at two and around the age of ten is said to have taught himself to play the violin by strapping it on to a stool.

During World War I, Unthan served in the German army by being sent to hospitals where he lectured soldiers who had lost their arms or hands, and spoke about how they could train their legs and feet to take over.

The author of the original story, Gerhart Hauptmann, had been impressed by Unthan during a cross-Atlantic voyage and was inspired to write the character of Arthur Stoss, an armless virtuoso, based upon him.

Notes from the life of an armless man) in Germany, using pediscript rather than manuscript because he had typed it with his feet, pedally, as opposed to manually.

Peter Sloterdijk, in his book You Must Change Your Life, discusses Unthan's commitment to what he terms an "ethics of the Nonetheless", which places him "undoubtedly" in "the earlier defiance-existentialist movement" of Germans such as Max Stirner in order to "...demonstrate the unusual convergence of human and cripple in the discourses of the generation after Nietzsche".