Walter Flex

Born in Eisenach in 1887, Walter Flex was a German writer and poet who studied at the universities of Erlangen and Strasbourg before working as a tutor. When World War I began, he volunteered for military service, and his time at the front shaped the writing for which he is best known.

His most famous book, The Wanderer Between Two Worlds (Der Wanderer zwischen beiden Welten), appeared in 1916 and became one of the most widely read German war books of its era. The work reflects on comradeship, sacrifice, and mourning, drawing on the death of a close friend and on Flex's own wartime experience.

Flex was killed in action on the Estonian island of Saaremaa in 1917, at just 29 years old. Because he died so young, his reputation rests on a small body of work, but his writing remained closely associated with German memory of the First World War.