Käte Hamburger (1896–1992)

Käte Hamburger was born to a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany.
Despite the limited opportunities for women at the time, she was able to follow a relatively orderly course of academic training, even through World War I. She studied philosophy and received her doctorate at the University of Munich in 1922, with a thesis on Friedrich Schiller. From 1928, she served as an assistant to Paul Hofmann, a Berlin philosopher and scholar. In 1929, she published an investigation into the theoretical significance of mathematics for Romantic universal poetry in an essay entitled "Novalis und die Mathematik," which is still considered fundamental. Around the same time, Dr. Hamburger became interested in the work of Thomas Mann, which continued to occupy her throughout her life. Following the rise of the Nazi regime to power in 1933, she fled to Sweden via France. She lived in Gothenburg, learned Swedish, and worked as a freelance journalist, writer, and German language teacher. She returned from exile to Germany in 1956. In 1959, she qualified to teach at the university level and became a professor at the University of Stuttgart.

Her writings included books on Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Leo Tolstoy, and other major authors. Her 1957 book Die Logik der Dichtung (literally The Logic of Poetry, but in English translation The Logic of Literature) made her famous in the field of literary theory and is considered her magnum opus.