author
Alfred Wolfenstein
1888–1945
A sharp, urban voice of German Expressionism, this poet and dramatist turned crowded city life, exile, and inner unrest into vivid, memorable writing. His work is especially remembered for its intense imagery and its place in the literary world shattered by Nazism.
1 Audiobook
Die Nackten: Eine Dichtung
by Alfred Wolfenstein
About the author
Born in Halle an der Saale, Alfred Wolfenstein is generally identified in reference works as a German poet, playwright, and translator associated with Expressionism. Some sources differ on his birth year, listing either 1888 or 1883, so that detail is often given inconsistently.
He studied law, but became known above all for literature, living and working in places including Berlin and Munich. He is often remembered for the poem Städter, a well-known Expressionist sonnet about the strange closeness and isolation of big-city life.
After the Nazis came to power, he went into exile, first in Prague and later in Paris. He died in Paris in 1945, and his life has come to represent both the creative energy of German Expressionism and the losses forced on writers driven from their homes by persecution.