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Curated category

19th-century German male writers

  • Friedrich NietzscheOn the 15th of October 1844, a boy named Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in the small town of Röcken. He grew up near Leipzig within the Prussian…
  • Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant lived so rigidly that his neighbors in Königsberg were said to set their watches by his daily walks. He was born Emanuel on the 22nd of April…
  • Karl Joseph SimrockKarl Joseph Simrock was born on the 28th of August 1802 in Bonn. His father worked as a music publisher there. The young Karl studied law at the University…
  • Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on the 28th of August 1749 in a large house on Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, had…
  • Friedrich SchillerOn the 10th of November 1759, a boy named Friedrich Schiller was born in Marbach. He grew up as the only son of Johann Kaspar Schiller and Elisabetha…
  • Robert SchumannOn the 8th of June 1810, a local newspaper in Zwickau announced the birth of Robert Schumann to Herr August Schumann. He was the fifth and last child of an…
  • Brothers GrimmJacob Ludwig Karl Grimm was born on the 4th of January 1785 in Hanau. Wilhelm Carl Grimm followed him on the 24th of February 1786.
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on the 27th of August 1770 in Stuttgart, the capital of the Duchy of Württemberg.
  • Hermann HesseHermann Karl Hesse was born on the 2nd of July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw. His grandparents had served as missionaries in India under the Basel…
  • Friedrich EngelsFriedrich Engels was born on the 28th of November 1820 in Barmen, Prussia. He grew up in a house surrounded by factories and workers' tenements within the…
  • August Wilhelm SchlegelAugust Wilhelm Schlegel entered the world on the 8th of September 1767 in Hanover. His father Johann Adolf Schlegel served as a Lutheran pastor there.
  • Jacob GrimmJacob Ludwig Karl Grimm entered the world on the 4th of January 1785 in Hanau, Hesse-Kassel. His father Philipp worked as a lawyer but died while Jacob was…
  • Edmund HusserlEdmund Husserl was born on the 8th of April 1859 in Proßnitz, a town in the Margraviate of Moravia within the Austrian Empire.
  • Max WeberMaximilian Carl Emil Weber entered the world on the 21st of April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony. His family moved to Charlottenburg three years later.
  • Carl von ClausewitzOn the 1st of July 1780, a boy named Carl Philipp Gottlieb Clauswitz entered the world in Burg bei Magdeburg. He was the fourth and youngest son of a family…
  • Georg SimmelGeorg Simmel entered the world on the 1st of March 1858 in Berlin, Germany. He was the youngest child among seven siblings born to an assimilated Jewish…
  • Karl KautskyKarl Johann Kautsky entered the world on the 16th of October 1854 in Prague, then part of the Austrian Empire. His father Johann worked as a theatrical scene…
  • Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen entered the world on the 30th of November 1817 in Garding, a small town within the Duchy of Schleswig. His father served as a Lutheran…
  • Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann was born on the 6th of January 1822 in Neubukow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His father Ernst Schliemann served as a Lutheran minister while…
  • Max MüllerFriedrich Max Müller was born on the 6th of December 1823 in Dessau, Germany. His father Wilhelm Müller wrote lyrics that Franz Schubert set to music for his…