Alfred Döblin

Döblin is most widely known for his great novel ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’. As a young writer, he was an active in Walden’s ‘Der Sturm’ group, and met and was impressed by Marinetti. Involved in leftist literary circles in Berlin, he was a close and influential associate of Brecht; they joined Ehrenstein, Piscator, Tucholsky and Musil in the so-called ‘Gruppe 1925’. Musil, Kirchner and Schlichter were friends. He despised Thomas Mann (who with his brother Heinrich, Schoenberg and Eisler, attended his 65th birthday celebration in Santa Monica), and wrote to him that his books deserved to be burned (as his own had actually been).