Else Lasker-Schüler ( born February 11, 1869 in Elberfeld (Wuppertal), died January 22, 1945 in Jerusalem) is a Jewish German poet.

She grew up in Elberfeld where her father, Aaron Schüler, was a banker. He later influenced the role of the protagonist in her drama "The Wupper". She married Jonathan Berthold Lasker (brother of Emanuel Lasker) in 1894 and moved to Berlin. Shortly after the birth of her son Paul, she got divorced. She remarried in 1903, but divorced Herrmann Walden seven years later. Her first poems were published 1902. After she met Gottfried Benn she devoted many love poems to him. Her poems reflected the style of expressionism. In 1932 she received the Kleist prize. One year later, when the Nazis came to power, she moved to Switzerland. She traveled several times to the British Mandate of Palestine (pre-state Israel), and eventually settled and died there.

A memorial plaque records her last residence in Berlin, Motzstraße 7, part of this street was re-named Else-Lasker-Schüler-Straße in 1998.

External links

1. ELS Gesellschaft
2. Online list of publications