René Schickele


René Schickele was a German-French writer, essayist and translator.

Biography

Schickele was born in Obernai, Alsace, the son of a German vineyard owner and police officer and a French mother. He studied literature, history, science and philosophy. Together with Otto Flake and Ernst Stadler he published several magazines as well as poetry. His work as a writer is characterized by tension between French and German culture in Alsace. After Flake's marriage to Dr. Minna Flake ended, Schickele had a child with Minna, Renate "Renée" Miriam Flake, born in 1917. a former colleague of her husband who she met in Florence in 1907.
After the First World War, he moved to Badenweiler, remaining passionately committed to the understanding between Germany and France. In Badenweiler he met Annette Kolb and Emil Bizer. As early as 1932 he became aware of the risk of being arrested by the Nazis and emigrated to Sanary-sur-Mer in the South of France.
He only wrote one book in French, Le Retour, expressing his disappointment over the failure of reconciliation between Germany and France and establishing his painful decision for the Democratic France. He died of heart failure in Vence a few months before the invasion of the German army.
Schickele was the grandfather of the American composer Peter Schickele.
Schickele's most famous work is the novel trilogy Das Erbe am Rhein : Maria Capponi, Blick auf die Vogesen and Der Wolf in der Hürde.

Works (selection)