Fun Facts Friday: Klabund

Klabund (4 November, 1890 – 14 August, 1928) was a German writer and poet.

Klabund and Carola Neher
Akademie der Künste (AdK) Berlin https://www.adk.de/

Books by Klabund*

Fun Facts about Klabund:

1. Born as Alfred Henschke in Crossen, Germany. His family ran an apothecary.
2. As a teenager, he was misdiagnosed with pneumonia. However, the real issue was tuberculosis which haunted him for the rest of his life.
3. After finishing secondary school with excellent marks, Mr. Henschke went to Munich to study chemistry and pharmacology. However, he quickly changed his course of study to philosophy, philology (the study of languages), as well as theater. This time though, he studied not only in Munich, but also in Lausanne, and even Berlin.
4. In 1921, the poet quit  his studies and started to go by the name Klabund. He thought of himself as a vagabond poet like Peter Hille.
5. The name Klabund was devised by him as a combination of Klabautermann, a German folklore hobgoblin, and Vagabund.
6. Between 1912 and 1914 he contributed poetry to several magazines.
7. Like many other men of letters at the time, Klabund enthusiastically welcomed World War I and wrote several patriotic poems.
8. Due to his illness, he was not drafted and spent much of the war at a sanatorium for lung patients in Switzerland. By 1917 he changed his mid and published an open letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II calling for him to abdicate his throne. Klabund was awarded with a charge of treason for his efforts.
9. The poet was married twice. He met Brunhilde Herberle at the sanitarium, the couple married in 1918 but she died a year later. In 1923 he married actress Carola Neher.
10. When Klabund/ Alfred Henschke fell ill in 1928 with pneumonia and never recovered.

Books by Klabund*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books