Walter Hasenclever’s Humanitarianism: Themes of Protest in His Works

Walter Hasenclever (1890-1940) is known primarily as an Expressionist writer. This critical study, the first comprehensive one in English, analyzes his entire oeuvre from his early Expressionist works to his newspaper feuilletons and the later satirical comedies, including several unpublished works. This analysis reveals that all of Hasenclever’s writings, no matter whether Expressionist or satirical, share one basic and recurrent theme: protest against the injustices and hypocrisies of his age and his society.