Georg Büchner

Born on 17 October 1813 in Goddelau in Hesse-Darmstadt, Georg Büchner studied medicine in Strasbourg and Giessen while also becoming involved in radical politics. He is often linked with the Young Germany movement, and his writing was shaped by both scientific curiosity and a sharp sense of social injustice.

Though his life was very short, he left an outsized mark on literature. His best-known works include Danton’s Death, the novella Lenz, the comedy Leonce and Lena, and the unfinished Woyzeck, a play that later became one of the most influential texts in modern theater.

In 1836 he moved to Zürich, where he completed a doctoral dissertation in natural science and worked as a lecturer. He died there of typhus on 19 February 1837, but his reputation only grew after his death, and he is now widely seen as one of the great early innovators of German literature and drama.