Alfred Doblin Quotes

Bruno Alfred Döblin was born on 10 August 1878 at the house at Bollwerk 37 in Stettin, a port city in what was then the Province of Pomerania. He was the fourth of five children born to Max Döblin, a master tailor from Posen, and Sophie Döblin, née Freudenheim, the daughter of a merchant. Their marriage was characterized by a tension between Max's multifaceted artistic interests to which Döblin would later attribute his and his siblings' artistic inclinations and Sophie's cool pragmatism. The Döblins were assimilated Jews, and Alfred became aware of a broad, societal anti-Semitism early on. Döblin's parents briefly reconciled in 1889, when Max returned penniless from America; the family moved to Hamburg in April 1889, but when it came to light that Max had brought his lover back with him and was leading a double life, Sophie and the children returned to Berlin in September 1889. Alfred Döblin died in the hospital in Emmendingen on 26 June 1957 and was buried two days later in the village cemetery at Housseras next to his son Wolfgang. Erna took her life on 15 September and was buried next to Alfred.