Alfred Döblin

Yet another famous Berliner not born in Berlin... 

The writer Alfred Döblin was born in Stettin, now in Poland. He began his collaboration with Herwarth Walden in 1910, and participated in the Expressionist journal Der Sturm (The Storm).

Established in the district of Berlin-Lichtenberg, in the eastern part of the city, he witnessed the 1919 street-fights in Berlin, which became later the subject of his novel November 1918. During his Berlin period, Döblin wrote numerous articles (about plays and films, but also about life on the streets of the capital), among others for the German-language daily Prager Tageblatt. These articles offer a striking picture of everyday life in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic.

His most famous work is Berlin Alexanderplatz, dated 1929. In this novel, he describes the low life of Berlin from the years 1925-1930. The main character is an anti-hero: a repentant criminal whom fate catches up and who falls back into delinquency. This resolutely modern narrative is composed of biblical and mythological references, collages of extracts from newspapers, and mixes tragedy with popular humor, in a cacophony and a frightful chaos.

This novel is often compared to Celine’s Journey to the end of the night. It has been adapted to the screen on numerous occasions, first in 1931 by Piel Jutzi with Heinrich George in the lead role, then in 1979 by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who made it a television series of 14 episodes.

Döblin, of Jewish origin, left Germany in 1933 (like Brecht, like Grosz, like so many others), and in 1936 he became a French citizen.