Kurt Kersten

Born on April 19, 1891, in Wehlheiden near Kassel, Kurt Kersten studied history and German philology in Munich and Berlin and completed a doctorate in 1914. Even as a student, he was publishing in literary circles, and he went on to build a career as a historian, publicist, journalist, and creative writer.

His experience in the First World War deeply marked him. After serving in Russia and France and being seriously wounded in 1918, he developed a strong pacifist outlook. In the years that followed, he wrote energetically on historical and contemporary subjects, contributed to socialist literary culture, and from 1926 to 1933 led the feuilleton section of the Berlin paper Welt am Abend.

Kersten also wrote books on major historical figures and modern European life, bringing together scholarship, political awareness, and an accessible style. Forced into exile during the Nazi era, he eventually died in New York on May 18, 1962. His life gives his writing a special weight: it comes from someone who had seen both the ideals and the disasters of twentieth-century Europe up close.