BERLINER PORTRÄT GALERIE - DICHTER IN CHARLOTTENBURG

In the organizer's words:

Episode 4: Else Lasker-Schüler and Gottfried Benn - Matinee by and with Maria Hartmann, as guests: Imogen Kogge and Gerd Wameling

"The greatest poet Germany has ever had", Gottfried Benn said about Else Lasker-Schüler, 40 years after the two met.

They fell in love in 1912. She was 43 at the time, he was 26.

A mismatched couple, and not just in terms of age. Else Lasker-Schüler, the Jewish poet, was considered a sensation in Wilhelmine Berlin. She appeared in oriental robes, loved androgynous role-playing games and declared herself the Prince of Thebes. Else Lasker-Schüler must also have exerted an enormous fascination on the son of a pastor from the Brandenburg province, the doctor and poet Gottfried Benn.

The two celebrated their love in public in the form of poems. Their poetic liaison outlasts their real-life love affair by far.

However, their lives clearly took completely opposite directions: while Gottfried Benn initially embraced National Socialism, Else Lasker-Schüler emigrated to Zurich in 1933 and finally to Jerusalem in 1934.

They have left us their poetic dialog. It is important to trace both what these two personalities had in common and what separated them.