Kasimir Edschmid

Born Eduard Hermann Wilhelm Schmid in Darmstadt in 1890, he became known as Kasimir Edschmid and emerged as an important German Expressionist writer. He is closely associated with the movement's literary self-definition, and his 1917 essay Über den Expressionismus in der Literatur und die neue Dichtung became one of its key statements.

Edschmid wrote across several forms, including novels, essays, and travel writing. Sources also connect him with the founding of the Darmstädter Sezession in 1919, showing how active he was in the wider artistic life of his time. Later accounts describe his writing as shifting beyond early Expressionism toward realism and then a more visionary mode.

After the Second World War, he remained an influential literary figure in West Germany and served in leadership roles within PEN, eventually becoming its honorary president. He died in Switzerland in 1966, leaving behind a body of work that reflects both literary experiment and a lifelong interest in culture, travel, and public life.