Rudolf Kayser

Born in Parchim in 1889, Rudolf Kayser studied literature and earned a doctorate on Arnim and Brentano. He taught in Berlin, joined the S. Fischer publishing house in 1919, and went on to become a leading editor of Die Neue Rundschau, an important literary magazine of the period.

Kayser wrote literary criticism, essays, and books on major intellectual figures including Stendhal, Kant, Spinoza, and Yehuda Halevi. In 1930 he published Albert Einstein: A Biographical Portrait under the pseudonym Anton Reiser, a choice often linked to the sensitivity of writing about his famous relative by marriage.

Dismissed from his posts after the Nazi rise to power, he emigrated to the United States in 1935. He later taught German and European literature at Brandeis University and also lectured at Hunter College. He died in New York City in 1964.