Jakob van Hoddis

Jakob van Hoddis was the pen name of a German-Jewish expressionist poet Hans Davidsohn, of which name "Van Hoddis" is an anagram. His most famous poem Weltende (End of the world) published on 11 January 1911 in the Der Demokrat magazine, is generally regarded as the preliminary Expressionist poem which inspired many other poets to write in a similarly grotesque style; he is also seen as perhaps the only German predecessor of surrealism (which did not exist as a movement in Germany). Born: 16 May 1887 in Berlin Died: May/June 1942 in Sobibór extermination camp, Sobibór