Ludwig Börne

Born May 6, 1786, in Frankfurt am Main; died Feb. 12, 1837, in Paris. German writer and pamphleteer. Born into the family of a Jewish banker.

Börne studied medicine and law. As one of the originators of the genre of the political feuilleton-sketch, Börne in articles written during the 1820’s denounced the German political reactionaries. The narrowness of Bórne’s views, those of a petit-bourgeois radical, was revealed in certain aesthetic evaluations (especially with regard to J. W. von Goethe). But his Letters From Paris (1832–34) after the Revolution of July 1830 resounded like a “bell announcing a revolutionary storm” (H. Heine). Börne’s pamphleteering was enthusiastically received by the writers of Young Germany. Especially famous was his pamphlet Menzel, Devourer of Frenchmen (1837), which exposed the reactionary German critic, W. Menzel. This pamphlet met with the approval of F. Engels. During the last years of his life Börne became one of the mouthpieces of so-called Christian socialism.