Friedrich Gundolf

Gundolf, who was the son of a mathematician, studied art history and German language and literature at the universities of Munich, Berlin and Heidelberg.

During 1910 and 1911, he edited the Jahrbuch für die geistige Bewegung (Yearbook for the Spiritual Movement), which preached the cultural political opinions of the Georgekreis.

To him, the great writers (such as Shakespeare and Goethe) were symbolic figures of their time, and in his academic research he sought to present not only the artists themselves, but also the effects of their works.

In 1921, one of his students was Joseph Goebbels, later the Nazi propaganda minister, who at that time admired Gundolf and his colleague Max Freiherr von Waldberg.

In 1964 the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung founded the annual Friedrich-Gundolf-Preis for the inter-mediation of German culture in foreign countries.