Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn (2 May 1886 – 7 July 1956) was a German doctor, pathologist, and poet. He was born in Mansfeld, in a family of pastors, and studied theology at first before becoming a doctor. He earned his medical degree at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy in Berlin.
Benn began writing poetry in 1912 with Morgue and Other Poems, which shocked readers with graphic images of decay and death. His second book, Sons. New Poems, appeared in 1913. Much of his early poetry comes from his work as a pathologist and uses medical imagery.
He served as a military doctor in World War I, including time on the Belgian front. After the war he worked in Berlin as a dermatologist and venereal disease specialist. He had a long relationship with the Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler.
Benn’s politics were complex. He was hostile to the Weimar Republic at times and, for a while, supported the Nazis, hoping his art would be favored. He signed the vow of allegiance to Hitler in 1933 and was briefly part of the Prussian Academy’s poetry section. In 1938 the Reich Chamber of Culture banned his writing, and Benn later distanced himself from the regime. He joined the Wehrmacht in 1935 and wrote while stationed in eastern Germany during World War II. After the war his work was banned by the Allies because of his early support for Hitler.
In 1951 Benn won the Georg Büchner Prize, a major German literary award. In 1953 he published Nur zwei Dinge in the Destillationen collection. Benn died of cancer in West Berlin in 1956 and was buried in Waldfriedhof Dahlem.
Benn influenced German poetry both before World War I and after, known for his stark, expressionist style and later for a quieter, more restrained voice.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:10 (CET).