Heinrich Heine

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1797 to a Jewish family, Heine was sent to Hamburg as a young man to work for his rich uncle. He studied at the universities at Bonn, Berlin and Göttingen, and got a law degree in 1825; he also changed his name to Heinrich Heine to ease his integration into German society. In 1821 he published his poem "Gedichte", but after a spat with another poet damaged his reputation, he moved to Paris to be a journalist. There he met an illiterate shopgirl named Crecence Eugénie Mirat, whom he married in 1841. Heine's criticism of Germany won him censorship from his native land, and he retired permanently to France. He died in Paris on February 17 1856. Heine was controversial in Germany, and because of his Jewish origins, his poems had to be marked as 'author unknown' under the Nazi regime. He influenced many poets and composers, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Karl Marx, and Robert Schumann.