This German poet once observed that wherever books are burned, people are burned, too, in the end. His words turned out to be prophetic, as his own books would be burnt by the Nazis during the 1930s.

He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder (art songs) by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He is considered part of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris.

Heine’s power to annoy was as great as his power to charm and move, and rarely has a great poet been so controversial in his own country. His aggressive satires, radical postures, and insouciance about his methods made him appear to many as an unpatriotic and subversive scoundrel, and the growth of anti-Semitism contributed to the case against him.

 

Efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to erect monuments to him in various German cities touched off riots and shook governments. In view of the popularity of many of his songs, the Nazis were obliged to include them in anthologies but marked them “author unknown.”

For many decades, his literary reputation was stronger abroad, especially in France, England, and America, where his wit and ambivalence were better appreciated, than at home. In the second half of the 20th century, the evaluation of Heine’s political role and its relationship to Marxism supplied a bone of contention between East German and West German critics before reunification.

Deplorable as much of the history of Heine’s reputation has been, it is testimony to the enduring impact of a genuinely European poet and writer.

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