Friedrich Hebbel

Born in Wesselburen in Holstein in 1813, Friedrich Hebbel grew up in poverty and worked his way into literary life through determination and talent. He studied for a time in Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Munich, and eventually became known as a poet and dramatist whose work gave German theater a new psychological seriousness.

Hebbel is especially remembered for plays such as Judith, Maria Magdalene, Herodes und Mariamne, and Die Nibelungen. His dramas often place ordinary human emotions—love, pride, ambition, guilt—inside larger historical or moral struggles, which gave them unusual force for their time.

He spent his later years in Vienna, where he continued writing and kept detailed diaries that also remain important to readers and scholars. He died there in 1863, leaving behind a body of work that connects intimate inner life with the grand scale of tragedy.