August Stramm

Stramm, August (Münster, 1874-1915, killed in action, Horodec, Russia), after studying at Berlin and Halle, became a postal official. In 1913 he began to contribute to the periodical Der Sturm. A reserve officer, he was recalled to the colours in 1914. His poetry, including notable war poems of 1914, is strikingly original in its terse formulation and original syntax, arrived at only after endless experiment. His plays are in the hectic Expressionist manner. Much of his work was published posthumously. It includes the poetry Du (1915), a volume of love poems, the war verse of Tropfblut (1919), edited by H. Walden, and the lengthy poems Die Menschheit (1917) and Weltwehe (1922); and the plays Rudimentär (1914), a naturalistic one-acter in Berlin dialect, Sancta Susanna (1914), which P. Hindemith adapted for his opera of this title in 1921, Die Haidebraut (1914), and, written for Der Sturm, Erwachen (1914), Kräfte (1915), and Geschehen (1915), the most abstract of his experimental compositions, and Die Unfruchtbaren (1916). Stramm's utter reliance on a skeleton of words and abrupt rhythm to convey inner tensions has remained of influence to future manipulators of language, including Arno Schmidt and Gerhard Rühm.

Gesammelte Dichtungen (2 vols.) appeared in 1920-1 and Das Werk, ed. R. Radrizzani, 1963, Die Dichtungen in 1990; Briefe an Nell und Herwarth Walden, ed. M. Trabitzsch, in 1988, and Briefe aus dem Krieg in 1988.