Ernst Stadler

Who was Ernst Stadler?

Ernst Stadler was a German Expressionist poet. He was born in Colmar, Alsace-Lorraine and educated in Strasbourg and Oxford; in 1906 he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Magdalen College, Oxford.

His early verse was influenced by Stefan George and Charles Péguy, but after 1911, Stadler began developing a different style, and his most important volume of poetry, Der Aufbruch, which appeared during 1914, is regarded as a major work of early Expressionism. The poems of Der Aufbruch are a celebration of the poet's joy in life and are written in long, free verse lines inspired by the example of Walt Whitman.

Stadler was killed in battle at Zandvoorde near Ypres in the early months of World War I.