author
Max Herrmann-Neisse
1886–1941
A sharp, sensitive voice of German Expressionism, he wrote poetry, fiction, and criticism shaped by wit, melancholy, and the experience of exile. His work carries the tension of Weimar-era culture and the dislocation that followed its collapse.
1 Audiobook
Empörung + Andacht, Ewigkeit
by Max Herrmann-Neisse
About the author
Born in Neisse on May 23, 1886, Max Herrmann-Neisse was a German Expressionist writer who worked across poetry, fiction, drama, and literary criticism. He was born Max Herrmann and later added the name of his hometown; sources also note that he studied literature and art history in Munich and Breslau.
He became part of the lively German literary world of the early 20th century and was known not only for his writing but also for his close connections with other artists and writers. He is often remembered as a vivid Weimar-era figure, and his friendship with the painter George Grosz helped keep his image alive in cultural memory.
After the rise of Nazism, he went into exile in London, where he died on April 8, 1941. That biographical arc gives his work much of its lasting power: it joins the artistic energy of prewar and Weimar Germany with the loneliness, displacement, and persistence of exile.