Max Herrmann-Neiße

Max Herrmann-Neiße (also Max Hermann, 23 May 1886, Neiße – 8 April 1941, London) was a German expressionist writer.

Herrmann-Neiße was a childhood friend of fellow writer Franz Jung. He was also a personal friend of the painter George Grosz, who portrayed him twice, in 1925 and 1927.

Following the November Revolution Herrmann-Neiße was sympathiser with the Communist Workers' Party of Germany.

Biography Herrmann-Neiße was born in the city of Neiße in Silesia into the family of an innkeeper. From childhood, he suffered from dwarfism. From 1905 to 1909, he studied literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Breslau, but did not complete the course, deciding to become a freelance writer. In 1911, his first publications appeared in Die Aktion, which went almost unnoticed by critics.

By the end of the 1920s, Herrmann-Neiße became one of the most famous literary men in Berlin; in 1927 he was awarded the prestigious Gerhart Hauptmann Prize.

In 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power and the burning of the Reichstag, the poet decided to emigrate. Herrmann-Neiße left for Switzerland, and then, through several European countries, moved to London. All this time, one of the wealthy connoisseurs of his work had been providing material assistance to Herrmann-Neiße. In 1936, he founded the PEN Center for German Writers in Exile in London, but found no support and remained practically isolated. He was deprived of German citizenship by the Nazis, and his works were not translated into English, despite repeated requests. The poems of this period of his work became classics of German émigré poetry.

In April 1941, Herrmann-Neiße died of a heart attack in London and was buried in East Finchley Cemetery, then in Finchley, Middlesex. His last poems were posthumously published by his wife Gebek, who in 1960 committed suicide. Like many writers of the time, Herrmann-Neiße was quickly forgotten. It was not until the late 1970s that his works were gradually rediscovered and reissued.

German extreme metal band Heaven Shall Burn dedicated "Of Forsaken Poets" on Invictus (Iconoclast III) (2010) to Herrmann-Neiße. The song is written from his perspective and includes lines from Ein deutscher Dichter bin ich einst gewesen, making it one of the few Heaven Shall Burn songs with German lyrics.

Works Ein kleines Leben. Gedichte und Skizzen. 1906 Das Buch Franziskus. 1911 Porträte des Provinztheaters. Sonette. 1913 Sie und die Stadt. 1914 Empörung, Andacht, Ewigkeit. Gedichte. 1918 Verbannung. Ein Buch Gedichte. 1919 Die Preisgabe. Gedichte. 1919 Joseph der Sieger. Drei Bilder. 1919 (later retitled Albine und Aujust) Die Laube der Seligen. Eine komische Tragödie. 1919 Cajetan Schaltermann. 1920 Hilflose Augen. Prosadichtungen. 1920 Der Flüchtling. 1920 Der letzte Mensch. Eine Komödie vor Weltuntergang. 1922 Die bürgerliche Literaturgeschichte und das Proletariat (Bourgeois Literary History and the Proletariat) Berlin-Wilmersdorf: Verlag Die Aktion. 1922 Im Stern des Schmerzes. Ein Gedichtbuch. 1924 Die Begegnung. Vier Erzählungen. 1925 Der Todeskandidat. Erzählung. 1927 Einsame Stimme. Ein Buch Gedichte. 1927 Abschied. Gedichte. 1928 Musik der Nacht. Gedichte. 1932 Ein deutscher Dichter bin ich einst gewesen. Gedichte. 1934 Um uns die Fremde. Gedichte. 1936 Letzte Gedichte, herausgegeben von Leni Herrmann. 1941