Alfred Klabund

Alfred Henschke (4 November 1890 – 14 August 1928), better known by his pseudonym Klabund, was a German writer.

Klabund, born Alfred Henschke in 1890 in Crossen, was the son of an apothecary. At the age of 16 he came down with tuberculosis, which the doctors initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia. The illness stayed with him for the rest of his short life.

After completing his Abitur (upper secondary school leaving certificate) with the highest marks in 1909 in Frankfurt (Oder), he studied chemistry and pharmacology in Munich. He soon changed his plans, however, and studied philosophy, philology, and theater in Munich, Berlin, and Lausanne. He had already encountered Bohemianism in Munich through the theater scholar Artur Kutscher, and through others he was introduced to Frank Wedekind. In 1912 he quit his studies and took on the pseudonym Klabund, styling himself after Peter Hille as a vagabond poet. A first volume of poetry was published under the title Morgenrot! Klabund! Die Tage dämmern! (Dawn! Klabund! The Days Break!) The name Klabund goes back to a north and northeast German name and was devised by him and others as a combination of Klabautermann (a devious hobgoblin of German folklore) and Vagabund (vagabond).

In 1913 Klabund came into contact with Alfred Kerr's Magazine PAN, though he continued to publish in the magazines Jugend and Simplicissimus. Beginning in 1914 he contributed to Die Schaubühne, which later changed its name to Die Weltbühne (The World Stage). When World War I broke out, he greeted it with enthusiasm, like many other writers of the time, wrote various patriotic poems. He was not drafted into the military due to his tuberculosis, and in fact during the war years he often spent time in Swiss sanatoria. During this time he began to develop an interest in far eastern literature, which he began to translate and adapt. Over the course of the war, Klabund's outlook changed and he became an opponent of it. In 1917 he published an open letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II in the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung calling for his abdication, and was charged with treason and lèse-majesté as a result.

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