Stefan George

Stefan George (July 12, 1868 - December 4, 1933) was a German poet.

George's poetry was categorised by an aristocratic and remote ethos; his verse was formal in style, lyrical in tone, and often arcane in language. Believing that the purpose of poetry was distance for the world, George's writing had many ties with the French Symbolist movement. He was in contact with many of its representatives, including Stephane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, and his writing first became of note in the 1890s. George founded an important literary magazine called Blätter für die Kunst, around which a literary circle came to gather.

George's best remembered collection of poetry was entitled Algabal; the title is a reference to the Roman emperor Elagabalus. George was also an important translator; he translated Shakespeare and Baudelaire into German.

George's volkisch poetry gained popularity in right wing and Nazi circles who had a group of writers who congregated around him known as the Georgekreis (George circle).

Stefan George left Germany and immigrated to Switzerland since the regime had started to realize how much popularity it could gain by claiming George as a Nazi poet. Out of the Georgekreis arose Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of Austria's most important literary modernists, and also Claus von Stauffenberg, who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944.