Lampe was a gay writer during the Third Reich; he was shot in Berlin a few days before the end of World War II by the Red Army on 2 May 1945.
[2] Lampe read literature, art history, and philosophy at Heidelberg (with Friedrich Gundolf and Karl Jaspers), Munich, and Fribourg (with Edmund Husserl).
In 1928 he also met the medievalist Margarete Kühn, with whom he formed an enduring Platonic relationship, spending one or two evenings a week with her when they were both living in Berlin in the 1940s.
In December 1933, the book was seized by the Nazis, withdrawn from sale, and included on their ‘list of damaging and undesirable writings’.
During the air raid on Berlin on 22/23 November 1943, Lampe's flat was destroyed, including his collection of books.
[6] Am Rande der Nacht (At the Edge of Night) was first published in October 1933, but in December 1933, the book was seized by the Nazis and pulled from sale.