author
Wilhelm Speyer
1887–1952
A Berlin-born novelist, playwright, and children’s author, he is best remembered for lively school stories and for a career shaped by exile in the Nazi era.
1 Audiobook
Wie wir einst so glücklich waren!
by Wilhelm Speyer
About the author
Born in Berlin in 1887, Wilhelm Speyer was a German writer whose work ranged across novels, plays, and books for younger readers. Reference sources agree on his life dates and identify him as a writer from Berlin who died in Riehen, near Basel, in 1952.
He is especially remembered for Dritte Klasse Kampf (1927), a school story noted by Britannica as Germany’s standout contribution to that genre. His writing career also crossed into film, with screen credits attached to several adaptations and productions from the 1930s and 1940s.
Speyer was of German-Jewish background, and catalog records note that he went into exile, emigrated to the United States in 1940, and later returned to Europe. That arc gives his career a poignant historical backdrop: a writer of wit and popular storytelling whose life was deeply affected by the upheavals of the 20th century.